Radio Atlantic - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I love new iteration of this show! Hanna Rosin is as quick and clever in podcast form as she was as a writer. Great topics and guests. Have definitely recommended to friends. Keep em coming!

Hanna’s curious, compassionate, and clever mind draw me into the podcast. I hope she’ll continue to shine a light on how we can all learn new things - and change our minds along the way.

As a longtime reader of The Atlantic, I appreciate the topics and depth of presentation by Hanna and her crew. I find these topics interesting (even if I wasn’t hooked by the title initially). This is the goal of solid authorship. I read The Atlantic cover-to-cover every month just for that. As one of my favorite authors I thoroughly enjoy listening to Hanna and her guests!

I like the show generally but this episode is complete bunk. I think the host and guest both realize it too from the get-go. The thesis is that present day assassins are different from those in the past in that they are less strictly political and more about mentally unstable people getting attention/recognition (narcissism). It begins by establishing a baseline that assumes assassins of the past to have a political agenda, but then uses as an example Gerald Ford’s, except they are immediately forced to admit that one of his assassins was clearly just nuts (Squeaky Frome) and that the “political agenda” of the other was incredibly irrational. Well, so was Ryan Routh’s. War Room Tom thinks Trump’s assassins were more like today’s mass shooters, which is a thought, but then uses the most absurd example (the Las Vegas shooter) instead of someone like Dylann Roof or the Pennsylvania synagogue shooter both of whom had clear political agendas. Mass shooters do also sometimes have clear political agendas. They even publish manifestos! And go back to the guy who shot Garfield. His “political agenda” was insane. The truth is clearly that this is not a new thing at all; that assassins from John Hinckley to Sirhan Sirhan almost always have some political agenda and some level of mental illness as well, like narcissistic personality disorder. It is a spectrum and always has been. Truly political assassins are rare. Entirely crazy people don’t go after politicians. It’s too hard and complicated. So when the next one appears, except a confused and confusing mix of both.

Just listened to the “Our Strange New Era of Space Travel” episode, featuring Marina Koren, the Atlantic’s reporter assigned to the “space beat.” In the episode, this space beat reporter admitted without shame that she doesn’t really even understand how human flight is possible, as part of her explanation that no, if the opportunity arose, she would not travel to space. Would you hire a medical correspondent who doesn’t understand the basics of biology? How about a war correspondent who prefers not to leave the relative safety of Stamford, Connecticut?

Koren also admitted in the episode, again without shame, that she had never seen an episode of “Star Trek.” This might be inconsequential for a reporter in general, but it’s unprofessionally poor preparation for a “space beat” reporter who is interviewing William Shatner about his experience traveling to space on a suborbital Blue Origin space flight.

The Atlantic has a reputation for serious journalism and writing, but this podcast episode doesn’t support that reputation. There is no excuse for assigning a reporter who is not only willfully ignorant of the subject matter, but dismissively incurious as well.

Entertaining with some interesting angles on (pop) cultures. When it comes to politics and policy though, it can fall back to questionable establishment talking points, e.g. is neocon Anne Applebaum really the best choice to talk about Russian/Ukraine war? Host needs to do some homework before inviting guests who spread certain ideology that led us into endless wars.