The caricature of objectivity I think does a lot of work in battling and arguing against the benefits of objectivity.

The word objectivity is fraught. Many listeners of this conversation will say, come on, there is no objectivity so call it fairness

call it non predetermined conclusions call it many there are many synonyms

that would convey the idea that the journalist's job is not to have one

conclusion that they've decided beforehand and that they can't get knocked off

their conclusion. You have to be curious and be able to give up your premises as you do your

reporting. And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.

My guest today is Mike Peska. Mike is the host of the podcast The Jist, which has a

lovely spirit. He invites people from all over the political spectrum and pushes back on all of them in a really

thorough way. We talked about the transformation of American media in general and radio in particular Mike used to work a lot for NPR.

We were then at Slate together for a little while at the same time, but he views very critically how those media platforms have evolved.

We also talked about a host of other issues, including touching on the upcoming U.S. elections,

and Mike interrogating me a little bit about how we should feel about the

populist threat to democracy about 10 years after I first raised the alarm about it.

Mike Pesca, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, thanks for having me. I've heard dozens of these and to be on it's sort of a dream come true,

like the time I was on Jeopardy.

You on Jeopardy?

I came in third place, I was leading going into final Jeopardy and you know it's a long story but I wound up crossing out the answer Barbara

Striseand and at the last minute I realized it was right but I didn't have enough time to write

Striseand.

So, that is my own personal Striseand effect, losing jeopardy.

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