S6: Episode 36 - Matt Taibbi

For this week's episode, Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola interviewed Matt Taibbi, a Rolling Stone reporter and author of the recently released book, Hate Inc: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another.

Taibbi is also a host of the new hit podcast from Rolling Stone called "Useful Idiots." He co-hosts the show with Katie Halper, and it often has more listeners (per week) than "Pod Save America."

He starts by describing some of his experience in journalism and what led him to write this insightful and enjoyable polemic about the media.

Taibbi agrees that cable news is terribly grating on our nerves, and he talks about why that's the case. He also describes how the media sells us an identity.

Later in the show, we discuss what happens when media elites decide someone is or should be viewed as a pariah (like Tulsi Gabbard). We speculate on how Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren might do against President Donald Trump.

And Taibbi shares his opinion on the media's lack of solidarity with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is the first journalist to be charged with violating the Espionage Act.