| Slate Political Gabfest | |
|---|---|
 Slate Political Gabfest cover image | |
| Presentation | |
| Hosted by | |
| Format | Weekly political commentary |
| Language | English |
| Publication | |
| Original release | December 2005 – present |
| Provider | |
| Website | slate |
The Slate Political Gabfest is an American political podcast by Slate magazine that covers topics on current politics and issues featuring David Plotz, Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson.
The show is usually hosted by former Slate editor David Plotz with regular contributors Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson, likewise Slate alums. [1] It covers three political topics in the week's news. Each topic is discussed from various viewpoints, and the podcast runs about 40 minutes to an hour. Ads are incorporated into the show between topics, with Plotz or one of the other contributors describing the product in a casual way, similar to the manner of early radio and television shows. The Slate Plus version of the program omits advertising spots and adds a shorter bonus section after the closing credits.
The group typically treats Dickerson as their expert on Washington politics and presidential campaigns. Bazelon is turned to for her legal expertise as well as for her experience reporting on online bullying and child sexual abuse. [2] Notable guests of the show have included Stephen Colbert, [3] John Hickenlooper, [4] David French, [5] Jamelle Bouie [6] and Farhad Manjoo. [7]
Plotz, Bazelon, and Dickerson reportedly do not discuss topics with each other before going live. [8]
The Slate Political Gabfest was launched in December 2005. [9] Andy Bowers, executive producer of the podcast, initially read articles from Slate for the podcast, but he said he was struck by how much he enjoyed the magazine's editorial meetings and thought that listeners would also enjoy the banter and analysis if he could capture it on audio. [10] He provided Plotz, Bazelon and Dickerson with the basic structure of the gabfest and a small studio at Slate's Washington headquarters. [10]
From 2012 until 2014, an abridged version of the show was also broadcast on the radio alongside the Culture Gabfest. [11]
On November 10, 2009, the panel held its first live show at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C. [12] That event was the first of what has become a key arm of Slate's podcasting business: live shows. According to Faith Smith, executive producer for Slate Live, live shows are profitable financially, inspire audience loyalty and encourage listeners to join Slate Plus, the website's paid membership program. [13] This live Gabfest is also considered the earliest example in a growing trend of live events from podcast producers including WNYC and Gimlet Media. [14]
In 2012, it was reported to be Slate's most popular podcast. [15] In October 2013, the show peaked at #4 on the US iTunes podcasts charts. [16] As of February 2012 [update] , Political Gabfest has over 75,000 weekly listeners. [8] Some fans have reportedly driven hours or flown from several states away to attend live shows. [8]
Chris Campling of The Times (London) named it his podcast of the week for February 2, 2008. [17] In 2011, the entire Slate series of podcasts received an Advertising Age "Media Vanguard Award" for Digital Native/Best Podcast Series with a specific mention of the Political Gabfest. [18] In November 2012, the Slate Political Gabfest won iTunes informal Facebook poll for the best political podcast. [19]
Slate is a progressive online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company, and since 2008 has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings. Slate is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C.
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing. Streaming applications and podcasting services provide a convenient and integrated way to manage a personal consumption queue across many podcast sources and playback devices. There also exist podcast search engines, which help users find and share podcast episodes.
John Frederick Dickerson is an American journalist and a reporter for CBS News. His current assignment is 60 Minutes and CBS News' Election specials. Most recently, he was co-host of CBS This Morning along with Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King. He served as an interim anchor of the CBS Evening News until Norah O'Donnell took over in the summer of 2019. Previously he was the host of Face the Nation on CBS News, the political director of CBS News, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, and a political columnist for Slate magazine.
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David A. Plotz is an American journalist and former CEO of Atlas Obscura, an online magazine devoted to discovery and exploration. A writer with Slate since its inception in 1996, Plotz was the online magazine's editor from June 2008 until July 2014, succeeding Jacob Weisberg. Plotz is currently the founder and CEO of the local-news podcast network, City Cast.
Emily Bazelon is an American journalist. She is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a senior research fellow at Yale Law School, and co-host of the Slate podcast Political Gabfest. She is a former senior editor of Slate. Her work as a writer focuses on law, women, and family issues. She has written two national bestsellers published by Penguin Random House: Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy (2013) and Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration (2019). Charged won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Current Interest category, and the 2020 Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. It was also the runner up for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize from Columbia University and the Nieman Foundation, and a finalist for the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism from the New York Public Library.
Margaret Talbot is an American essayist and non-fiction writer. She is also the daughter of the veteran Warner Bros. actor Lyle Talbot, whom she profiled in an October 2012 The New Yorker article and in her book The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century. She is also the co-author with her brother David Talbot of a book about political activists in the 1960s, By the Light of Burning Dreams.
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7 Day Sunday is a British comedy radio talk show hosted by Al Murray on BBC Radio 5 Live. Broadcast weekly on Sunday mornings, the show takes an irreverent look at the topical news stories of the past seven days.
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Julia Turner is an American journalist and critic. She is Deputy Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times from 2018 and a co-host of the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast. She was previously the editor-in-chief of online magazine Slate from 2014 to 2018.
Headgum is an American podcasting network founded in 2015 by Marty Michael, Amir Blumenfeld, and Jake Hurwitz. The latter two – known collectively as comedy duo Jake and Amir – built upon the success of their podcast If I Were You to launch the network, with the show serving as its flagship program. Before founding Headgum, Michael sold advertising space and branded content for CollegeHumor. Headgum has studios in Los Angeles and New York and, as of March 2019, hosts 57 shows, 34 of which are ongoing. Headgum also features an active YouTube channel and presents Headgum Live!, a series of live shows featuring podcast hosts from the network.
Jamelle Antoine Bouie is an American columnist for The New York Times. He was formerly chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. David Uberti, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2019, called Bouie "one of the defining commentators on politics and race in the Trump era".
Megaphone is a podcast technology company owned by Spotify, focusing on ad-insertion and hosting. It was formerly an audio content producer started by The Slate Group as Panoply Media, and later shifted to focusing solely on helping companies with production, advertising, and audience metrics.
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... Slate's Political Gabfest: Launched in 2005 and updated weekly, Slate's political podcast is hosted by Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson and David Plotz. The three chat current events ....
