Channels with Peter Kafka

The last time I talked to Jesse David Fox about the comedy boom it was… March 5, 2020. Since then, some things have changed. But in other ways it’s just the same: comedy - or at least, some kinds of comedy - seems almost custom-built for our current technological and cultural moment, and it’s easier than ever to get th

A decade ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger freaked out the media industry by acknowledging something many of us saw coming —  his previously unassailable TV business was starting to erode. But even with a 10-year warning, today’s moguls seem unable to copewith 2025’s reality: The pay TV business is permanently eroding, and ther

Reporting on the place you work is not fun. But it is an occupational hazard for media reporters — particularly for NPR’s David Folkenflik. That’s because National Public Radio — along with Public Broadcasting Service, its TV counterpart — is quite frequently the target of attacks from critics on the right, who would l

Here's one way New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum described Condé Nast to me in this week’s chat: “A real exporter of American cultural influence in the late 20th century.” And here’s another one: "A kind of enchanted land” but also a “lost world." And here’s one way I’d describe it: it’s hard to imagine in 2025,

You’re probably a normal person, so you didn’t spend your holiday weekend talking to people at the New York Times about a local politics story that some people didn’t like. But that’s Max Tani’s job: He’s Semafor’s media reporter, which means he’s supposed to burrow into the paper of record — as well as other important

"Black Mirror" creator Charlie Brooker knows that everyone thinks his show is about tech-fueled dystopias. But he says it's really about humans,  not their tools. I loved this chat back when we recorded it in 2023, when Brooker was promoting the sixth season of his Netflix show. Now there's a new season -  and Brooker'