UNDERREPORTED with Nicholas Lemann: Recent Episodes
Columbia Global Reports
From the worldwide rise of populism and medical tourism, to Chinese smartphones and Nigerian Cinema -- each season we’ll travel to different places and bring you the stories that you aren't already hearing about, connecting them to the current news at every turn. On this show, we’ll continue the conversations from our books with the journalists who know these stories best.
Journalist Bethany McLean digs deep into the cycles of boom and bust that have plagued the American oil industry for the past decade, from the financial wizardry and mysterious death of fracking pioneer Aubrey McClendon, to the investors who are questioning the very economics of shale itself. McLean finds that fracking is a business built on attracting ever-more gigantic amounts of capital investment, while promises of huge returns have yet to bear out. Saudi America tells a remarkable story that will persuade you to think about the power of oil in a new way.
In 2008, the U.S. Treasury put Fannie and Freddie into a life-support state known as “conservatorship” to prevent their failure—and worldwide economic chaos. The two companies, which were always controversial, have become a battleground. Today, Fannie and Freddie are profitable again but still in conservatorship. Their profits are being redirected toward reducing the federal deficit, which leaves them with no buffer should they suffer losses again. China and Japan are big owners of Fannie and Freddie securities, and they want to ensure the safety of their investments—which helps explain why the government is at an impasse about what to do. But the current state of limbo is unsustainable.
Bethany McLeans's Shaky Groundchronicles the story of Fannie and Freddie and tells us why homeownership finance is now one of the biggest unsolved issues in today's global economy—and why it must be placed on firmer ground.
From the Underreported dispatch archives: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian travels the globe to meet these willing and unwitting "cosmopolites," or citizens of the world, who inhabit a new, borderless realm where things can go very well, or very badly. The story of twenty-first-century citizenship is bigger than millionaires seeking their next passport.
This episode was recorded on October 3, 2017, at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.
Journalism is in crisis. The heart of the crisis isn't what most people think it is—the bitter struggle between Donald Trump and news organizations. The heart of the crisis is economic. Quite rapidly in the twenty-first century, newspapers, traditionally the major generators of original journalism, have gone into a downward spiral that has resulted in the disappearance of about half of their editorial jobs.
Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan is back again to talk to us about her new book, Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy.
There was a time, and it wasn't that long ago when newspapers could easily have a 30% profit margin. Places like car dealers and grocery stores were able to get their message out. But then, the internet happened and kicked the legs out from under the entire business model.
Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan joins our podcast to talk about her first book, GHOSTING THE NEWS: LOCAL JOURNALISM AND THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. The story Sullivan tells is not a happy one, but this is a book meant to give rise to hope, not despair. She points the way to solutions. That requires first taking a sobering and clear-eyed look at the problem.
The second part of our interview with Krithika Varagur. In her new book, The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project, Varagur traverses three continents to tell the story of the Saudi religious campaign from Indonesia, Nigeria, and Kosovo. She finds Saudi money in all kinds of places, from universities to political parties to extremist and jihadist groups. She meets the people who were swept up in its Cold-War-era peak and those who are still holding up its tarnished international brand today, as well as the victims of the intolerance and fundamentalism that were spread through Saudi dawa, or “call” to Islam. The Call lays out what we really talk about when we talk about Saudi money, and illuminates the global sweep of its ambitions over the last century.
Krithika Varagur's new book, The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project, chronicles the House of Saud’s vast project to systematically transform the Muslim world in its own image by spreading abroad Wahhabism, its brand of ultraconservative Islam. Using billions of dollars, thousands of personnel, and institutions both governmental and unofficial, "Saudi money" is both more complex and more influential than is commonly believed.
On the frontlines of the battle for democracy in China. Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink represents a rare example of deep historical, cultural, and political context produced on deadline about a major ongoing news event. Drawing on a rich store of knowledge and wisdom, and writing with literary power as well as analytic rigor, Jeffrey Wasserstrom makes us understand the deep roots and the broad significance of the tragedy we see unfolding day by day in Hong Kong.
The Story of MS-13 and Its American Roots. "State of War: MS-13 and El Salvador’s World of Violence"makes vividly clear why Salvadorans are fleeing their country, and why Trump’s harsh immigration and asylum policies may only empower the gangs more. Writer and "Detours" podcast host William Wheeler discusses the process of reporting his new book for Columbia Global Reports.
Host Nicholas Lemann sits down with Columbia University law professor, and author of The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age Tim Wu to discuss the politics of Louis Brandeis and Theodore Roosevelt as antitrust has reemerged this year as a major issue in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.
Part two of Nick's conversation with acclaimed Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto. Her most recent book, New Kings of the World, examines the new arbiters of mass culture ―India’s Bollywood films, Turkey's soap operas, or dizi, and South Korea's pop music. Published with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Acclaimed Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto joins the show. Her most recent book, New Kings of the World, examines the new arbiters of mass culture ―India’s Bollywood films, Turkey's soap operas, or dizi, and South Korea's pop music. Published with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Nick speaks with Columbia Global Reports author and veteran reporter John B. Judis about his new book, The Nationalist Revival that examines the worldwide wave of nationalism and how U.S. Democrats can win against Donald Trump in 2020.
We're kicking off season two of UNDERREPORTED with guest Joel Simon, who in nearly two decades at the Committee to Protect Journalists has worked on dozens of hostages cases, to delve into the heated hostage policy debate. We Want to Negotiate is an exploration of the ethical, legal, and strategic considerations of a bedeviling question: Should governments pay ransom to terrorists?
In the last few years, the fracking industry has boomed, leading many—including the President—to declare that soon America will be energy-independent, and free of the influence of foreign oil and gas suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. Not so fast, writes business journalist Bethany McLean in her book Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It's Changing the World. Just as she revealed that Enron looked too good to be true in her 2003 bestseller The Smartest Guys in the Room, McLean connects the dots to show how this burgeoning industry poses a threat to Saudi Arabian and Russian energy dominance, with possible repercussions for our own politics. This discussion between McLean and All the Devils Are Here co-author Joe Nocera will persuade you to think about the power of oil in a new way.
Via "The Investor's Field Guide" podcast | I’ve often heard that good investors are a bit like journalists: doggedly collecting evidence and building an understanding of how all the pieces of a company or investment fit together. My guest this week is one of my favorite writers and journalists, Bethany McLean.
Less than a decade ago, China did not have a single high-speed train in service. Now, the Pan-Asia Railway portion of the One Belt One Road initiative could transform Southeast Asia. Will Doig, author of High Speed Empire, traveled through Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore to chronicle the dramatic transformations taking place. Do ordinary people have a voice in this moment of economic, political, and cultural collision?
Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen is an outspoken critic of Putin and Trump, and was just named one of the Five Most Important Intellectuals in America Today by The Washington Post. Her new book Never Remember with photos by Misha Friedman, commemorates those who died in the gulags and explains how Putin’s totalitarian state is whitewashing Russia’s past. This discussion, moderated by Nicholas Lemann, is a can’t miss opportunity to hear one of the leading experts on Russia today speak about the importance of memory rooted in history and facts.
CGR Director Nicholas Lemann sits down with investigative reporter Erin Banco, author of the new book Pipe Dreams: The Plundering of Iraq’s Oil Wealth. When the United States invaded in 2003, the Bush Administration promised that oil revenue would be used to win the war and to rebuild and democratize the country. But fifteen years later, those dreams have been shattered. The economy has flat-lined, and millions of people are internally displaced. Where did all the oil revenue go?
Nicholas Lemann sits down with Emily Witt, author of the new book Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire. Amid electricity cuts, fuel scarcity, and countless other obstacles, Nigerians are pursuing the very real possibility that Nollywood dramas could become a global brand, as recognizable as the Bollywood musical, the Hong Kong kung fu flick, or the Hollywood blockbuster. How did Nigeria create the second largest movie industry in the world?
This week on UNDERREPORTED, Nicholas Lemann welcomes Atossa Araxia Abrahamian to the studio to talk about her book The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen, published by Columbia Global Reports in 2015. Nick and Atossa discuss the global business of buying and selling citizenships and what it means to be a "cosmopolite." Is globalization good? Should we identify as citizens of more than one place? And what are our responsibilities to people on the other side of the world, when people in our own countries aren't doing so well?
On this week's episode of UNDERREPORTED, Nicholas Lemann sits down with Helen C. Epstein to talk about her new book Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda, and the War on Terror. Is America to blame for decades of war in eastern Africa? Who is Yoweri Museveni? And where is Trump on all of this?
In the first episode of UNDERREPORTED, we bring in the team to talk about Columbia Global Reports' mission, our lessons learned from entering the book business, and populism's role in the German election.
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