Tag: Podcast

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Entertainment

Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen’s Podcast to Change into a Ebook

Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen's Podcast to Become a Book

In “Renegades,” a podcast collaboration between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, the former president acknowledged that it was, at a glance, an odd partnership.

“On the surface, Bruce and I don’t have a lot in common,” he said. “He’s a white guy from a small town in Jersey; I’m a Black guy of mixed race, born in Hawaii, with a childhood that took me around the world. He’s a rock ‘n’ roll icon. I’m a lawyer and politician — not as cool.”

But they have become vacation buddies and avid collaborators whose podcast — a series of frank conversations about race, fatherhood, social justice and American identity — became one of the podcasts with the most listeners around the world on Spotify.

Now, they will be co-authors of sorts, with the coming release of a book of their conversations. This October, Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is publishing “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a book adaptation of the podcast. The 320-page book includes introductions by Obama and Springsteen, more than 350 photos and illustrations, and archival material such as Springsteen’s handwritten lyrics and Obama’s annotated speeches.

In his introduction, Obama describes how the conversations grew out of “our ongoing effort to figure out how it is that we got here, and how we can tell a more unifying story that starts to close the gap between America’s ideals and its reality.”

As salable book ideas go, a collaboration between a rock star and a former president seems a sure bet. (Crown is suggesting a list price of $50 in the United States and $65 in Canada.)

Springsteen’s memoir, “Born to Run,” which was released by Simon & Schuster in 2016, was a hit, selling nearly half a million hardcover copies in its first few months on sale. Obama’s 2020 memoir, “A Promised Land,” which was published by Crown, has sold 8.2 million copies globally, and nearly five million in North America.

The book version of “Renegades” also marks the latest release from the Obamas’ growing media empire. It is being produced in partnership with Higher Ground, the company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, which has struck exclusive production deals with Netflix for film and television and with Spotify for podcasts. The Obamas sold their memoirs to Crown in 2017 for a record-breaking $65 million. Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” sold more than 16 million copies globally since its release in 2018.

Obama and Springsteen got to know each other in 2008 while Obama was campaigning, and became friends over the years. Springsteen performed at the White House in January 2017, as Obama was preparing to leave office.

In their podcast conversations, the pair largely focused on personal stories about their lives and avoided partisan politics, but spoke generally about the urgent need to understand and address divisions in American society.

“This is a time of vigilance when who we are is being seriously tested,” Springsteen writes in his introduction to “Renegades.” “Hard conversations about who we are and who we want to become can perhaps serve as a small guiding map for some of our fellow citizens.”

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Politics

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pushes podcast as felony probe continues

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pushes podcast as criminal probe continues

Michael Cohen, former personal attorney for President Donald Trump, leaves the U.S. Capitol after testifying before a closed House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on February 28, 2019.

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

Podcasts make for strange bedfellows.

Michael Cohen, who worked as Donald Trump’s personal attorney and fixer for years, is now allied with people investigating the former president – and uses a podcast to promote both his criticism and fellow critics of Trump.

Cohen’s ironically titled show “Mea Culpa” – a Latin phrase for “through my fault” – premiered last year with Rosie O’Donnell, a longtime Trump target, who made teenage cracks in her personal looks, among other things.

Cohen, 54, recently featured porn actress Stormy Daniels as a guest on his show. In 2016, Cohen paid her $ 130,000 to buy her pre-election silence over her claim that she had sex with Trump once years ago.

“You and I have both gone through hell and back,” Cohen said to Daniels. “I’m sorry for the unnecessary pain I caused you.”

“Our stories will forever be linked to Donald Trump, but also to each other,” Cohen said.

That’s probably an understatement.

Trump denies Daniels’ claim and also denies allegations of an affair with another woman, Playboy model Karen McDougal, who herself received hush money from the Trump-friendly editor of The National Enquirer before the 2016 election.

Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen for the payoff from Daniels.

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this article.

The discovery of this payment led to a federal criminal investigation into Cohen, a Manhattan resident who pleaded guilty in 2018 to violating the financial rules for organizing the Daniels and McDougal payouts, as well as other financial crimes unrelated to Trump fight.

Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison, said Trump directed him to arrange the hush money deals so as not to affect his chances of winning the presidency.

These payments were likely the first issue investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Cyrus Vance Jr. It examined how the Trump organization accounted for them.

However, court records suggest that the investigation may now have expanded to include potential banking and insurance fraud, as well as tax crimes.

These areas became a focus after Cohen Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., said during a testimony to Congress in early 2019 that Trump provided insurance companies with excessive real estate values ​​and undervalued assets in an effort to cut his taxes.

“They dump the asset’s value and then file a request with the tax department for a deduction,” Cohen told Ocasio-Cortez.

New York attorney general Letitia James credited Cohen’s testimony for launching her own ongoing civilian investigation into the Trump Organization’s asset valuations.

“I’m ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He’s a racist. He’s a cheater. He’s a cheater,” Cohen said during his testimony. He also called himself a “fool” for working for Trump and believing in him for so long.

Even when he was in jail, Cohen helped Vance’s probe, and he reportedly continued to help after being released from jail last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The concept for creating the podcast came when I was on leave,” Cohen told CNBC in an interview.

“Mea Culpa” promotes its host as a man who “once vowed to take a ball for the president”.

“But that was before the country was brought to its knees by the president’s own lies and personal insanity,” the podcast’s homepage reads.

“Now, locked in his house, his life, reputation and livelihood shattered, Cohen is on a mission to correct the wrongs he committed on behalf of his boss.”

Transport and goods

For someone released from jail less than a year ago, Cohen’s podcast, which now has more than 50 episodes in its archive, has done very well and is at times among the top 10 political podcasts in the US on Apple and other platforms.

“We’re increasing our audience by over 20% week in, week out,” said Cohen.

“Am I surprised?” Cohen replied when asked if it was him. “I’m happy about it. I don’t want to be surprised.”

Rob Ellin, CEO of digital media company LiveXLive, said of Cohen’s podcast, “Traffic is just skyrocketing.

“The competition from podcasts is much tougher than it used to be,” said Ellin. But he added, “I can’t think of anyone who showed up as quickly as him.”

Ellin’s publicly traded company owns PodcastOne, which sells and handles sales for “Mea Culpa,” and another company that does the merchandising for the podcast. Another unaffiliated company, Audio Up, produces “Mea Culpa”.

Cohen’s show this week added a new clothing line for sale that reflects his current take on Trump.

Items include inmate orange jumpsuit that may contain the initials “DJT” – which also happens to be Trump’s initials – or the seal of the President of the United States over the left breast pocket.

Cohen told CNBC the merchandise was inspired by a rift he made about Trump last week after the US Supreme Court ruled against the ex-president to prevent the prosecutor’s office from filing his tax returns and other financial records to receive from his accountants as part of his criminal investigation.

“He should maybe start talking to someone about custom jumpsuit because it doesn’t look good, that’s my prediction,” Cohen told MSNBC’s Katy Tur.

Ellin said Cohen’s criticism of Trump, coupled with the accelerated pace of the DA and New York AG probes, was a justification for his friend and a driver of interest in “Mea Culpa.”

“Michael said a lot of it,” said Ellin.

“A lot of people didn’t believe him before and are starting to believe him.”

Two years before the January 6th invasion of the Capitol by a crowd of Trump supporters seeking to undo the affirmation that day of President Joe Biden’s election, Cohen warned Congress: “Given my experience with Mr. Trump, I’m afraid that if he loses the 2020 election, there will never be a peaceful change of power. “

Trump was indicted by the House of Representatives shortly before he left office on January 20 for instigating the invasion of Congress with false claims of electoral fraud. He was acquitted by the Senate in a lawsuit last month.

Cohen’s podcast discussed the Capitol uprising in an episode that also included an interview with actor and filmmaker Ben Stiller. Another episode was titled “Why Trump Must Be Indicted”.

Friendship and opportunity

Rob Ellin, LiveXLive Media

Source: LiveXLive Media

Ellin has been friends with Cohen since they played tennis together in Long Island High School.

Both Cohen and Ellin describe this period ironically, including playing doubles against opponents that include Patrick McEnroe, brother of tennis legend John McEnroe, and himself a future professional player.

“I think we won 2 points,” Ellin said of the match in which Cohen yelled at him to adjust to McEnroe’s shots.

“Wasn’t that when I smashed the bat?” he asked Cohen while on a call with CNBC.

Cohen and Ellin both remember inventing the phrase “hug it, b —-” to smooth out their sometimes inconsistent arguments on the tennis court.

Ellin’s brother, Douglas Reed Ellin, later used it as one of the signature phrases for the HBO television series “Entourage” which he created.

Despite their four decades of friendship, the connection between Ellin’s company and Cohen’s podcast was the result of chance.

Months after the launch of “Mea Culpa” last summer, the podcast’s distribution platform was moved to PodcastOne. This company, founded by the founder of radio giant Westwood One, Norm Pattiz, has since been taken over by LiveXLive, Ellin’s company.

Cohen said he was on the phone with PodcastOne one day when he was told that Ellin happened to be in the room.

“I said, ‘Put him on the speakerphone with me,'” Cohen said.

Cohen said doing business with Ellin was “incredible”.

“But it brings me back a lot of nostalgia, whichever is the same,” added Cohen.

Ellin also has a warm personal feeling for Cohen, whom he called “a great father and a great husband”.

“I think Michael is humble,” said Ellin. “That was painful.”

But Ellin sees the business opportunity on his friend’s podcast too.

“We now have the opportunity to help Michael,” by attracting more high-profile guests and expanding marketing opportunities, Ellin said. “Who knows? There could be a second podcast.”

Adam Carolla, a radio host and comedian, recently made crossover appearances with Cohen on “Mea Culpa” and his own high-profile podcast, distributed by PodcastOne.

“It was just a great engagement between the two of them,” said Ellin. “Michael did a great job as an initial radio host at staying in the ring with him.”

Ellin credits Cohen for having the moxie to reinvent himself as a podcast host.

“He’s not afraid to take a swing,” said Ellin. “I think he did an exceptional job driving this.”

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Business

‘Reply All’ Podcast Is Paused After Accusations of Poisonous Tradition

‘Reply All’ Podcast Is Paused After Accusations of Toxic Culture

The popular Gimlet Media podcast, Reply All, was paused and its series, which addressed racism allegations by food magazine Bon Appétit, was discontinued after former Gimlet employees complained that one of its hosts and a reporter himself was becoming a toxic work culture had contributed.

On Thursday, co-host Alex Goldman announced to the audience in a two-minute statement posted on the Reply All feed entitled “A Message from the Staff From“ Reply All ”” that senior reporter Sruthi Pinnamaneni and Co -host PJ Vogt had decided to leave the podcast. Last week, former colleagues accused them of opposing union efforts that many black workers believed necessary to increase diversity and create an equal workplace.

“Former colleagues of ours at Gimlet have publicly described several cases of worrying behavior from both Sruthi and my longtime co-host PJ Vogt,” Goldman said in the statement released Thursday. “These reports prompted our team to settle the work culture at ‘Reply All’ and ask us whether we could continue broadcasting the story without asking ourselves and what was going on at Gimlet. We now understand that we should never have released the series as reported, and the fact that we did was a systematic editorial error. “

On Twitter and in interviews last week, former Gimlet employees said they viewed Mr. Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni’s involvement in the “Test Kitchen” series as hypocritical.

Eric Eddings, a former Gimlet employee who co-hosted The Nod podcast, said he couldn’t believe Ms. Pinnamaneni was telling a series about racism and toxicity in the workplace when she and Mr. Vogt asked for a “nearly identical” atmosphere at Gimlet was responsible.

Mr Vogt and Mrs Pinnamaneni publicly apologized after the allegations surfaced. They didn’t respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Mr. Goldman said the remaining two episodes of “Test Kitchen,” which were supposed to be a four-part series, would not be released. He apologized to the audience for “our many mistakes”.

“We apologize to our colleagues and our former colleagues who we hurt,” he said. “We are sorry for you, our listeners. And of course we apologize to the people who spoke to us for the ‘test kitchen’ and told us their extremely personal stories. “

The two previously published episodes of “Test Kitchen” would stay online, Goldman said with an additional disclaimer. “Reply to All” would be interrupted, he said, as the show staff assessed what had gone wrong. “Once we fully understand it ourselves, we want to tell you as best we can what happened,” said Goldman.

A spokesman for Spotify, which acquired Gimlet Media in February 2019, said Mr. Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni would stay with Gimlet despite not being on the podcast. He didn’t give any details about her new roles.

Mr. Goldman and Mr. Vogt started with “Reply All” in 2014 and adapted it from their previous WNYC radio show “TLDR” (too long; not read). Episodes in recent years have taken listeners to phone scam rings in India and on a journey to track down a Song that a director heard on the radio as a teenager.

Mr Eddings and other former Gimlet employees said that Mr Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni were firmly opposed to union efforts, which were seen by black workers as the only way to create an environment in which they could thrive and that the two were theirs Efforts declined to diversify the staff. In one case, according to Mr. Eddings, Mr. Vogt sent derogatory text messages to a Gimlet employee who was involved in the union effort that left the employee in tears.

On the second installment in the Test Kitchen series that Ms. Pinnamaneni recounts, Ms. Pinnamaneni said that Gimlet had “its own version” of the problems Bon Appétit was facing.

“The white people who ran the place hired people of color and promised them changes that never seemed to fully materialize,” she said later. When a group of employees tried to change the atmosphere in Gimlet through union formation, they chose not to join the effort, she said. “As I’ve talked about it, I’ve talked about the way your fight got on my toes.” She said it took her eight months to report on Bon Appétit to realize how wrong she was.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, Mr Goldman said the announcement did not end “Reply All”.

“We’re just finding out what’s next,” he wrote. “‘Answer All’ wasn’t and is not just Alex and PJ. There’s an insanely talented group of people doing this show.”

Categories
Business

Host of ‘Reply All’ Podcast Steps Down After Accusations of Poisonous Tradition

Host of ‘Reply All’ Podcast Steps Down After Accusations of Toxic Culture

PJ Vogt, host of the popular Reply All podcast, said goodbye Wednesday after complaints from former colleagues that he and a senior reporter had contributed to a toxic work environment and opposed union efforts.

Mr. Vogt and senior reporter Sruthi Pinnamaneni each apologized in statements on Twitter.

The allegations at Gimlet Media, which produces Reply All, came after the podcast released its second installment in a series of reports of discrimination in the popular food magazine Bon Appétit video series. Following the Minneapolis Police Department’s murder of George Floyd last year, US newsrooms and media outlets, including the New York Times, have grappled with allegations that they did not adequately address inequalities among their ranks.

Eric Eddings, a former Gimlet employee who co-hosted the podcast “The Nod”, tweeted on Tuesday that “Reply All” and in particular Mr. Vogt and Ms. Pinnamaneni “contributed to an almost identical toxic dynamic at Gimlet” described them in their series on Bon Appétit.

“The BA staff’s stories deserve to be told, but to me it is detrimental that the coverage and storytelling are from two people who have actively and AGGRESSIVELY worked against multiple efforts to diversify Gimlet’s staff and content” , he wrote. “It was so inspiring to hear the words of people who, like me, have suffered from people who have caused this suffering to me and others.”

Mr Vogt, 35, said on Twitter that he “failed profoundly as an ally” when workers unionized and that he apologized to everyone he disappointed. “I should have thought about what it means not to be on the same side of a movement that is largely led by young paintmakers in my company,” he said.

“Today they have my support, but I can lend them,” he wrote. “I was a baby and an idiot in many ways.” He said he asked permission to step back from the show and took time to “think and listen”.

Ms. Pinnamaneni said her behavior regarding diversity and union organization efforts was “poorly informed, ignorant and hurtful”. She said on Twitter: “I didn’t pay enough attention to the colored people in Gimlet and I should have used my strength to support and promote them.”

Mr. Vogt and another presenter, Alex Goldman, started the podcast in 2014 and adapted it from their previous WNYC radio show “TLDR” (too long; not read). In the past few years, “Reply All” episodes have taken listeners to phone scam rings in India, to a maximum security prison in Illinois, and on a trip to track down a guitar song a director heard on the radio as a teenager.

Spotify, which owns Gimlet Media, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Gimlet Media also did not respond to a request for comment.

Her former colleague Mr. Eddings said he heard Mr. Vogt “vilified other colleagues” and “saw personally harassing messages from PJ to union organizers”. Mr. Vogt is not receptive to complaints that employees with color feel that they have no opportunities for advancement, he said.

He also said that he had asked Mr Vogt several times to contribute to diversity efforts, such as joining a diversity group or staff meetings, to show the issue was important to high-profile people, but Mr Vogt was not. He said that people of color on the podcast saw union formation as a way to create an environment in which they could thrive, but that Mr Vogt and Mrs Pinnamaneni were trying to raise support against them.

Brittany Luse, a former Gimlet employee who co-hosted “The Nod” with Mr. Eddings, spoke in support of his statements. “It’s impossible to explain how dark those times were,” she wrote on Twitter, referring to efforts to unite at Gimlet. “Your recoil thickened the air.”

Reggie Ugwu contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Entertainment

Take heed to Episode 1 of POPSUGAR’S Not Over It Podcast

Listen to Episode 1 of POPSUGAR'S Not Over It Podcast

If you’re the person in your group of friends everyone turns to for details on the latest celebrity breakup, a new Spotify playlist, or a TV recommendation, we have the perfect podcast for you. Join POPSUGAR editors Becky Kirsch and Zareen Siddiqui Not over it As they dissolve the biggest headlines in the entertainment world and repeat the pop culture moments we all still think about. On this week’s episode, we break up some of the craziest moments of 2020 (who could forget the “Imagine” video?) And get nostalgic about shows like That’s OKand reevaluate everything we thought we knew about Justin Timberlake.

Categories
Entertainment

Paris Hilton Has a Podcast, With a Twist

Paris Hilton Has a Podcast, With a Twist

Podcasting is a major draw for potential media distraughters and visionaries. In the medium that is still developing, they see moist clay that can be formed into an ideal vessel for long-form narrative journalism or fiction or game shows or musicals or memoirs.

Add Paris Hilton to their ranks. Hilton, master of an earlier era of mass communication in the early years of the tabloid, is stepping into a form with a new company, her own show, and an unusual spin that seeks to create an audio that matches social media.

“This Is Paris” will debut on February 22nd, in partnership with iHeartMedia, the radio giant that has grown to become one of the largest podcast distributors, with more than 750 shows that collect more than 250 million downloads per month. The new show is aimed at Hilton’s 40 million+ followers on social media platforms and features a mix of personal content and conversations with their family, friends and other celebrities. It will be the flagship of a planned list of seven shows produced by Hilton’s London Audio and iHeartPodcast Network. The other programs with different hosts will be released over the next three years.

“I’ve always been an innovator and a trailblazer when it comes to reality TV, social media and DJing, and now I really believe that language and audio are the next frontier,” she said in an interview.

A key feature of their podcast will be their use of a format that Hilton calls “podposts”: short (between one and three minutes), slimmed-down shows designed to mimic the cadence and tone of social media posts. The “This Is Paris” podcast feed will feature longer (around 45 minutes), more traditional episodes each week, with intermittent podposts filling the void several times a week.

“I really think it’s like another form of social media,” said Hilton. “I do so many things – as a DJ, businesswoman, designer, and writer – that I can talk about them a lot.”

Pre-planned categories of podposts are inspired by Hilton’s famous buzzwords, including “That’s Hot” for product recommendations, “Loves It” for cultural recommendations, and “This Is my Hotline,” in which Hilton responds to voicemail messages sent by listeners. Conal Byrne, president of the iHeartPodcast network, said the company is currently looking to partner with brands for sponsorship at various levels.

“Her ability to recommend products she believes in to her fans is almost unrivaled,” said Byrne.

Since the end of “The Simple Life,” her reality television series starring Nicole Richie, in 2007, Hilton, who turns 40 this month, has branched into a variety of industries through her company Paris Hilton Entertainment. The assets include 45 retail stores and 19 product lines in various categories such as fragrance, fashion and accessories. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Hilton was a sought-after DJ around the world, paying her $ 1 million per gig.

With this new deal, iHeartMedia will fully fund the list of shows produced in association with London Audio on a multi-million dollar budget. The two companies will be joint partners at every trade fair and will share all sources of income. After “This Is Paris,” the rest of the list is said to be focused on topics such as beauty, wellness, dating, philanthropy and technology, with Hilton and Bruce Gersh, President of London Audio serving as executive producers.

“This is a medium that has so many dimensions and it really allows you to connect with an audience in unique ways,” said Gersh. “Paris wanted to step in with all of its heart.”

Hilton, who named “Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions,” and Kate and Oliver Hudson’s “Sibling Revelry” as their favorite shows, immersed themselves in the medium during the pandemic at home in Los Angeles.

“I usually travel 250 days a year and work all the time,” she said. “During the whole year in quarantine, I had more free time than ever before in my career. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts and I was really interested in them. When I cook or work or do my art, I always have it in the background. “

Podcasts have become a preferred medium for celebrities looking to delve deeper into fans than a typical post on Instagram or Twitter, while avoiding the control and vulnerability associated with speaking to the press. Name recognition is a huge perk on the platform – shows from celebrity podcasters like Dax Shepard, Jason Bateman, Anna Faris and Bill Burr regularly appear in the top 50 Apple Podcasts charts. (In addition to the Hilton deal, iHeartMedia has partnered with Will Ferrell and Shonda Rhimes to watch shows.) And podcast audiences tend to be relatively friendly: there are no comment areas highlighting uncomfortable behavior and podcasts The Nature requires a level of active engagement that will deter passing critics.

“I think once people understand that this is a platform where they can interact directly with their fans without any sort of middle person, it will be a very attractive proposition,” said Tom Webster, senior vice president from Edison Research, a media research company.

Webster added that Hilton’s podposts concept reminded him of the proto-podcast field of audio blogging, where writers published short audio diaries for sites like The Quiet American and The Greasy Skillet. “It enables them to engage with their personal interests in ways that they cannot achieve in their day-to-day work,” he said.

“This Is Paris” takes its name from Hilton’s YouTube documentary that was released last fall. In this film, which has nearly 20 million views, she distances herself from the carefree, ditsy person she has been identified with since she appeared in the glitz of paparazzi onions two decades ago. Hilton also says she was molested by administrators of a private boarding school she attended as a teenager, an experience that leaves her traumatized.

The podcast is supposed to follow in the same open direction. Hilton records it in a home studio (built for her music projects) and uses her much discussed natural voice (which to my ear is deeper than her girly trill, but no dramatic departure).

“She speaks in a way that is very relaxed and approachable, unlike someone doing a performance,” said Byrne. “Right away she felt like a one-on-one conversation and not a one-to-many media object.”

It was initially uncomfortable for Hilton to include the pilot for the show – unlike on social media, there were no glamorous photos or videos to hide behind. “It’s all about the knowledge you bring and what you say with your voice,” she said.

But soon she fell into a groove. After being the subject of interviews for a lifetime, she has enjoyed turning the tables when asking questions. Compared to their old jobs, the commute isn’t bad either.

“I love being a homebody,” she said, thinking about her new chapter. “I’ve worked so incredibly hard to build my empire – now I can finally enjoy it.”