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The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Lessons from Vox’s first 5 years

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.610.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2019

⏱️ 94 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a special episode for me. Vox turns 5 this week! So I sat down with my co-founders, Melissa Bell and Matt Yglesias, to discuss what went right, what went wrong, what changed in the media environment, and what we learned along the way. Matt’s recommendations: Vox’s Explained on Netflix — Episode 4: “K-Pop”“ Our incel problem” by Zack Beauchamp “We visited one of America's sickest counties. We're afraid it's about to get worse.” by Julia Belluz Vox’s The Weeds podcast Melissa’s recommendations: Vox Observatory by Joss Fong “Apollo astronauts left their poop on the moon. We gotta go back for that shit.” by Brian Resnick Today, Explained: “Friends without benefits” Ezra’s recommendations: “Hospitals keep ER fees secret. We’re uncovering them.” by Sarah Kliff “The rise of American authoritarianism” by Amanda Taub “Show me the evidence” by Julia Belluz Today, Explained: “HQ2-1” This special episode of The Ezra Klein Show was taped in celebration of Vox’s fifth anniversary. Today, we’re hosting live tapings of The Weeds and Recode Decode with Kara Swisher at The Line Hotel in Washington, DC. Subscribe to those shows for free in Apple Podcasts, or in your favorite podcast app, to be the first to hear them when they’re released. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

First, sweet tarts dare to combine sweet and tart, but they didn't stop there.

0:06.0

Now they've combined soft and bouncy to bring you new sweet tarts, gummy fruity splits.

0:12.0

A uniquely delicious dual-sided gummy with one side that's sweet, and the other side that's tart.

0:19.0

But entirely smooth and squishy.

0:22.0

A powerfully perfect combo.

0:24.0

Sweet tarts dare to combine.

0:28.0

When you drive a Chevy electric vehicle, you're getting more than a way to get from point A to point B.

0:33.0

You're saying goodbye to gas stations and hello to open roads.

0:37.0

With a growing network of public charging stations, you'll be able to charge your EV while you shop, work, or do whatever you want to be doing with your time.

0:44.0

Chevy is making EVs for everyone, everywhere. Go to chevrelay.com slash electric to learn more.

0:51.0

Explanation is about surfacing all of that amassed knowledge that the obsessive has, and then organizing it in a way that makes sense to an intelligent, curious person who doesn't happen to have been following this for a long long time.

1:22.0

Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Asurkline show.

1:26.0

This is the week of Vox's fifth anniversary.

1:28.0

We started Vox five years ago.

1:30.0

I don't know if that if it feels like it's been less time or more time, but it is remarkable to me that we're here.

1:37.0

And that we are what we are right now.

1:39.0

So I asked my co-founders, Melissa Bell and Mattaglaces, to join me for a conversation about Vox, about what we were trying to do, about whether or not we did it, about where we fell short, about what happened.

1:50.0

And we were talking about what was short, about what failed, about what succeeded, about what we learned, about what was hard.

1:55.0

I really tried, we really tried to make this not just a bunch of brags. Some things have gone really well. Thank God.

2:01.0

But some haven't.

2:03.0

And we tried to get at both of those and to talk through it in as honest way as we could or felt comfortable doing.

2:10.0

You know, it was hard doing this, launching this.

...

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