Leaning Out And Looking Up: Journalist Tara Henley's Next Phase

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2023

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tara Henley is a journalist and podcaster based in Canada who has become one of the most celebrated figures in the heterodox space there. She is the author of the 2020 book Lean Out: A Meditation on the Madness of Modern Life, and was a longtime producer of television and radio for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She left the CBC in late 2021 and made a splash last January with the very first installment of her new Substack newsletter: a post about ideological conformity at the CBC and how it encapsulates disconnect between media in general and the concerns and opinions of ordinary citizens. Tara joined Meghan for a conversation about what's transpired for her in the last year and, above all, why journalism has changed course so dramatically why so many people are reluctant to speak out even if they profoundly disagree with what's happening. She also talks about her deeply progressive upbringing in Vancouver, her relationship to second and third wave feminism, and the ways in which she thinks urgent matters around economic hardship and class politics are being ignored.

Tara stuck around for some bonus content that's available to paying subscribers to the Unspeakable's Substack. Here, she shares her feelings about aging, speaks candidly about some of the failed promises of the 1980s and, finally, reflects on cancer diagnosis she received in her 20s. She turns the tables and asks Meghan some personal questions, too. To hear this portion, please become a paying subscriber at meghandaum.substack.com.

Guest Bio:

Tara Henley is a Canadian writer and podcaster, and the author of the national bestseller Lean Out: A Meditation on the Madness of Modern Life. Over the past two decades, her work has appeared on CBC Radio and TV, and in dozens of newspapers and magazines across the country and around the world.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Unspeakable Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dahl. My guest is journalist Tara Henley. I'm going to tell you about her in a second, but just quickly some announcements about the unspeakeasy. That is my community for free-thinking women. Lots of stuff happening in the first quarter of this year
0:24.2	around the unspeak-easy. We are, of course, working on our online community, which we're hoping
0:29.5	to launch very soon, and I'll keep you updated about that. But in the meantime, we have two retreats
0:36.0	scheduled. The first one is in Los Angeles, February 18th and 19th.
0:42.0	That is a weekend and that is a daytime-only retreat.
0:47.1	Most of them are overnight, three nights, but this one is a little bit different.
0:50.8	It is almost sold out.
0:52.5	We're going to cap this at 15 or so people, but if you are
0:56.2	interested, go to the unspeak easy.com and request information. The second retreat is April 17th
1:07.3	through 20th in Leavenworth, Washington, right outside of Seattle. This is our Seattle area
1:12.8	retreat, had a lot of requests for an event in the Pacific Northwest. And this is going to be three
1:18.3	nights, four days, and we're going to have a special guest speaker in Katie Herzog of the
1:24.9	Blockton Reported Podcast. She is going to be joining us and we're just
1:31.0	going to have, you know, three, four days of amazing discussions, talks that I will facilitate.
1:38.5	People are going to talk about all kinds of things. These retreats are off the record. We don't ever publicize or talk about
1:47.9	who was there, at least not without anybody's permission. There's no social media. There's no tweeting.
1:54.1	There's no Instagramming during it. It is all very much on the ground. A lot of touching grass,
2:00.4	intellectual touching of grass, if you know what I mean.
2:03.4	So anyway, if you're interested, go to the unspeakeasy.com request information. Again,
2:09.6	Seattle area, April 17th through 20, Los Angeles, February 18th and 19th. Okay, my guest, journalist Tara Henley, is also an author and a
2:22.1	podcaster. She's based in Canada. And she has become one of the most celebrated figures in the,
2:28.3	are we going to use this term again? Heterodox space, the free thinking space, critical thinking space, take your pick.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Meghan Daum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Meghan Daum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.