Show Notes
Mona Chalabi is a writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Guardian, where she is the data editor. Her New York Times Magazine piece “9 Ways to Imagine Jeff Bezos’ Wealth” won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting. “I kind of think of protest as just saying what you believe. And sometimes, it’s considered protest because it’s outside of the institutions of power. So you’re saying, Hey, Palestinians deserve human rights, and that’s considered a form of protest, right? I want the work to change things and I think I’m quite unapologetic about that, and most journalists are like No no no no no, we’re just reporting the world, we’re just reporting things as we see it. There’s no desire for change. I think that is so messed up. This idea that your work has no impact in the world is incorrect. You can’t wash yourself of the consequences of the work, you have to be considering the consequences while you’re doing it.” Show notes:
monachalabi.com
Chalabi on Instagram
Chalabi's Guardian archive
1:00 "9 Ways to Imagine Jeff Bezos' Wealth" (New York Times Magazine • Apr 2022)
1:00 "How Does the Reality TV Show Cops Stack Up with Real-Life Crime Figures?" (The Guardian • May 2019)
6:00 "Striving For Justice: Lowkey in Conversation with Mona Chalabi" (GQ • Jun 2023)
8:30 "NY Times Writers Jazmine Hughes & Jamie Keiles Resign After Signing Letter Against Israeli War on Gaza" (Democracy Now! • Nov 2023)
8:30 Samira Nasr on Instagram
8:30 "Inside MSNBC’s Middle East Conflict" (Max Tani • Semafor • Oct 2023)
16:00 "Mentions of Israeli and Palestinian Deaths in The New York Times" (Instagram • Oct 2023)
18:00 "Circumcision Rates" (Instagram • Oct 2025)
21:00 New America Fellow
21:00 Emerson Collective
21:00 "The Gray-Green Divide" (Brooklyn Museum • Jun-Dec 2022)
21:00 "Am I Normal? with Mona Chalabi" (TED Audio Collective)
54:00 Muntadhar al-Zaidi
54:00 Longform Podcast #276: Azmat Khan
54:00 Yousur Al-Hlou's New York Times archive
54:00 Jazmine Hughes' New York Times archive
54:00 “Regarding the Pain of Others” (Marty Peretz • The New Republic • 1996)
54:00 Longform Podcast #553: Clare Malone
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
More from Longform
Have you ever wondered how your favorite movie or book—or podcast, TV series, documentary, or article—got made? Origin Stories has you covered. Each week, veteran journalist Matthew Shaer talks to a different writer or director about the creation of a work close to their own hearts. Nothing is off the table: not the frustrations and the joys, not the setbacks and the successes. Intimate and incisive, instructive and eye-opening, Origin Stories is the ultimate podcast for anyone curious about the workings of the creative mind. Among the early guests are Noah Hawley, creator of the new Alien show on FX; Mimi Leder, director of The Morning Show; New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe; and Evan Ratliff, of Longform and Atavist fame. Hosted by Matthew Shaer, co-founder of Campside Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and has written for Harper's, The New Yorker, and GQ. He is the author of Pulphead and the forthcoming The Prime Minister of Paradise: The True Story of a Lost American History. “I love making pieces of writing and trying to find the right language to say what I mean. It's such a wonderful way of being alive in the world. I mean, your material is all around you. ... I'm lucky that it has stayed interesting for me. It hasn't faded. The challenges of writing, they still glow.” Show notes:
The hosts answer a few listener questions. Evan’s picks for some podcasts to try:
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author and journalist. His next book is The Message. “I don’t think we have the luxury as journalists of avoiding things because people might say bad things about us. I don’t even think we have the luxury of avoiding things because we might get fired. I don’t think we have the luxury of avoiding them because somebody might cancel some sort of public speech that we have. I then have to ask you, what are you in it for? Like, why did you come here? Did you come here just to make a living? Because there are many other things where you could make more money.” Show notes:
Jay Caspian Kang is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a co-host of Time to Say Goodbye. “At some point, you have to kick it out the door, and it’s never finished to the degree that you would finish a magazine piece. But it, in some ways, is more interesting because it is produced in a short amount of time, and it’s read as something that is not supposed to be complete. It’s just meant to provoke or to provide thought or whatever, to provide some sort of context on a certain issue or not. And I actually like that a lot better than the magazine writing. I respect the magazine writers—obviously, I was one—but for my disposition now, in my lifestyle, I actually enjoy having to produce this thing every week.” Have a question for the mailbag? Email the show or leave a voicemail at (929) 333-2908. Show notes: