Episode 162 - Investigative Journalism

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

This episode we’re talking about Investigative Journalism! We talk about what makes something journalism, when we don’t read articles, enjoying vs. appreciated media, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love by Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman
• Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump by Sarah Posner, narrated by Cassandra Campbell
• The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer by Nicholas Shaxson
  • "The overall results of this sea change from progressive economics toward identity politics has been an enduring one, and it was crystallized by Hillary Clinton in an election rally speech in 2016. "If we broke up the big banks tomorrow," she shouted, "Would that end racism?" "No!” Her audience replied. "Would that end Sexism?" No!" Although she did say she would tackle the banks if they misbehaved, hers was a pro-big bank message, couched as something progressive.”
• The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
• Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs by John Pilger
  • Murrow on McCarthy (YouTube)
• Dreamland (YA Edition): The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
• The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus, Goop, and the False Promise of Self-Care by Rina Raphael
• Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb by Charles Bowden and Nick Schou
• The Disappearing Act by Florence de Changy

Other Media We Mentioned

• The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion by Diana Greene Foster
• Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church by The Boston Globe
• Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman
• Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson
• Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks (Wikipedia)
• Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom
• Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World by Nicholas Shaxson
  • Also published as Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens
• Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil by Nicholas Shaxson
• Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM by Sarah Berman
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk W. Johnson
• The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth by Sam Quinones
• Hidden Figures: Young Readers’ Edition by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Links, Articles, and Things

• The Librarian Alignment chart
• Jorts the Cat
• Episode 080 - True Crime
• The Unlikely Rise of the French Tacos
• Ed Yong
  • His COVID stories in The Atlantic
• Episode 145 - Anthropology Non-Fiction
• Notes from America
  • The Wolf Pack of White Nationalism
• Hillary Clinton Suggested Breaking Up the Big Banks Won’t End Racism and Sexism. Is She Right?
• How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul
• “kind of a bummer to have been born at the very end of the Fuck Around century just to live the rest of my life in the Find Out century” (Twitter, 2021-02-21)
• The Invisible Substrate of Information Science
• MLM:
  • Men Loving Men: Men who have sex with men (Wikipedia)
  • Multi-level marketing (Wikipedia)
  • Marxism–Leninism–Maoism (Wikipedia)
• Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs
• “Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus” (Twitter, 2021-11-08)

10 Investigative Journalism Books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• The Naked Don't Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees by Matthieu Aikins
• The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power by Desmond Cole
• Stolen from Our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities by Suzanne J. Fournier and Ernie Crey
• We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power by Caleb Gayle
• Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas
• The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine
• Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite by Suki Kim
• The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War by Delphine Minoui
• His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels
• Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga
• The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader by Ida B. Wells

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Join us again on Tuesday, November 15th we’ll be talking about Podcasts!

Then on Tuesday, December 6th we’ll be discussing the genre of Military Fiction!