Working: A TV Critic Pivots to Exposing Hollywood Abuses

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4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host June Thomas talks to journalist Maureen Ryan, author of the book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood. In recent years, Ryan has pivoted from TV criticism to writing stories focused on abuses of power in the TV industry. Her new book touches on troubling situations on shows like Lost, Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Sleepy Hollow, and more. In the interview, Ryan discusses her reporting process and what it's felt like to watch the creators of some of her favorite shows come under fire. After the interview, Thomas and co-host Nate Chinen discuss why there might be some reason for hope in Hollywood after all. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Ryan talks about how her pivot to this kind of reporting has affected her career. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Zak Rosen. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you think that me too and other reckonings fixed the entertainment industries, you are
0:14.6	very mistaken.
0:16.6	And there are reasons to have hope, but the industry very often mistakes identifying
0:22.2	a problem for solving it, and at hand waves and does a performance around, we feel bad
0:28.3	about this, and then it just carries on as usual once everyone forgets.
0:33.9	Welcome back to Working, I'm your host, Nate Shenan.
0:37.7	And I'm your other host, June Thomas.
0:41.1	June, whose voice did we hear at the top of the episode?
0:44.5	So that was Maureen Ryan, known to one and all as Mo, she's a veteran TV critic and entertainment
0:52.3	journalist who's now a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and she has a new book out
0:57.6	called Burn It Down, Power, Complicity, and a call for change in Hollywood, amazing
1:03.4	title, and a really good book.
1:05.6	Yeah, I'm guessing it is the book what led you to want to talk to Mo?
1:09.8	It is.
1:10.8	I've known her a long time and I've been reading her for ages, and I've been really struck
1:15.5	how, over the last few years, she has pivoted away from criticism toward writing pieces
1:21.9	that expose abuses of power in the TV industry.
1:26.2	That's the topic of this book, and so I wanted to know the nuts and bolts of how she does
1:32.2	this kind of reporting.
1:34.3	And as usual, we will also have some bonus conversation, first slate plus members.
1:39.5	What can they expect to hear?
1:41.0	I asked Mo how doing this different kind of writing had affected her career.
	...

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