Leah Sottile on Rethinking Your Mission in Journalism

Explicit content warning

09/15/21 • 51 min

"Everyone in every part of the world was having a conversation with themselves: Who am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And I definitely was having that question a lot with journalism."
Leah Sottile is a journalist whose work you'll remember from Bundyville, the Longreads podcast that ran for two seasons and explored domestic extremism in the United States. She also hosted the podcast Two Minutes Past Nine, produced with BBC Radio Four, which looked at the legacy of the Oklahoma city bombing 25 years later. And she's written for many publications including the Washington Post, New York Times Magazine, and High Country News.
She talks about how the pandemic forced her to confront some bigger questions about her own mission in journalism, and what stories she wanted to cover going forward.
Related links:

Leah Sottile on Substack
Did James Plymell Need to Die? (High Country News)
Bundyville (Longreads & Oregon Public Broadcasting)
Two Minutes Past Nine (BBC Radio Four)
The Ghost Hunter (The Atavist)
@leah_sottile on Twitter

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Leah Sottile on Substack
Did James Plymell Need to Die? (High Country News)
Bundyville (Longreads & Oregon Public Broadcasting)
Two Minutes Past Nine (BBC Radio Four)
The Ghost Hunter (The Atavist)
@leah_sottile on Twitter

Support the show

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Dawnie Walton's Musical Journey from Media Exec to Debut Novelist

Dawnie Walton is the author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev. It's her debut novel, and it's a story that came to her at a pivotal moment in her life, inspiring her to make the leap from journalist and media executive to author. The novel tells the story of a fictional rock duo, Opal Jewel and Nev Charles, who shoot to fame in 1970s New York City.

Walton is a MacDowell fellow, a Tin House scholar, and a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Edited by Ashur Rayis
Music by Mark Armstrong and Ashur Rayis
Get updates from EIL: https://markarms.com/newsletter/
EIL on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EIL

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Eric Michael Garcia on What It Means to Be #ActuallyAutistic

Eric Michael Garcia is an autistic journalist whose new book is We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation.
Garcia is the senior Washington correspondent for The Independent, following editorial roles at the Washington Post and The Hill. He’s also been a correspondent for National Journal, MarketWatch, and Roll Call, and has written for The Daily Beast, The New Republic, and Salon.com.

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Related links:

We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation
I'm Not Broken (National Journal / The Atlantic, 2015)
Eric Garcia on Twitter
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#ActuallyAutistic on Twitter
Lauren Melissa (@autienelle) on Twitter

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EIL: Everything I've Learned - Leah Sottile on Rethinking Your Mission in Journalism

Transcript

Leah Sottile: Everyone in every part of the world was having a conversation with themselves about like, Who am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And I definitely was having that question a lot with journalism.

Mark Armstrong: Hi, everybody. This is Everything I've Learned, a podcast about lessons, mistakes, and turning points. I'm Mark Armstrong, founder of Longreads, and most recently a novice homeschool teacher. I hope you're all doing well, I ho