Inside the Hive by Vanity Fair

This week, Vanity Fair tech correspondent Nick Bilton speaks with cohost Joe Hagan about the recent leaks from Facebook that reveal the company knew of the toxic impact of their platforms, including Instagram, on users, especially teenage girls. In a world in which the social media giants—FAANG, or Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google—are too rich and powerful to be contained by limp political and regulatory systems, “we’re left to the wolves,” says Bilton. After covering the social media world for a decade, Bilton says the only way to beat the media giants is to hack the system—ourselves—by reprogramming our behaviors, which are the literal coins of the social media realm.

This week, Julián Castro, onetime Democratic presidential candidate and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Barack Obama, joins Inside the Hive to discuss the hard-right push on guns, abortion, and voting in Texas, which has become a blueprint for recalcitrant Trumpist states, and what Democrats are going to do about it. Castro is worried about what he calls Biden’s relatively weak leadership—especially his handling of the border crisis. “My hope is that the Biden administration is going to reverse course on this very soon,” he says. He also sketches out a scenario in which his former competitor, Beto O’Rourke, runs for governor of Texas in 2022 and helps Democrats retake power after years of dashed hopes: “I believe that he has a shot to beat Greg Abbott.”

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, photographer and author Gillian Laub talks about her beautiful new book, in which she documents her family’s love and their divide over President Trump.

This week, co-host Joe Hagan talks to novelist Elliot Ackerman, a veteran of both the Afghan and Iraq wars, on the meaning of 9/11 and the long-term impact on American life, politics and culture. A critic of the Biden administration’s exit from Afghanistan, Ackerman has struggled with feelings of bitterness over the wars that defined his life and redefined the nation. As media and politics have become more extreme and polarized in the 20 years since 9/11, the country has become more cynical and demoralized, less able to unify in a crisis. An optimist in a pessimistic time, Ackerman looks for signs of hope in America's founding ideals--enlightenment, reason--even if the country never quite lives up to them.

In the wake of the shocking Supreme Court move that has allowed Texas to effectively ban abortion, cohost Joe Hagan conducts back to back interviews with Amy Hagstrom Miller, of Whole Women’s Health, which operates abortion clinics in Texas, and Wendy Davis, a veteran of Texas politics and founder of Deeds Not Words, a nonprofit committed to gender equality. Addressing the law and its ramifications for women (and especially women of color), Miller and Davis bring front line news and historical context to this demoralizing moment in the years-long battle for women’s reproductive rights. They also consider the political fallout and offer ideas for a path forward in what is sure to be a long and rocky road ahead.

Inside the Hive cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan analyze the latest bad news from Afghanistan and the pandemic resurgence sweeping the country, especially Florida. Twenty years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in search of Al Qaeda, was a bloody and chaotic exit the only possibility? When Donald Trump can’t convince his own followers to get vaccinated (he was booed for suggesting as much), has the weaponized ignorance he helped foment finally gone rogue? How will these world-historical events be woven into our politics? Plus: a touch of good news with a bonus clip from a newly unearthed live recording of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”

Welcome to Food People, a show from Bon Appétit made by, for, and about people who love food. Each week, BA’s editorial director Amanda Shapiro asks a serious or not-so-serious food question: What’s the best way to grill chicken? Can meal prep be less terrible? Are air fryers worth the hype? In search of answers or at least a spirited debate, she’ll bring in staffers, chefs, writers, and experts from across the culinary universe. Expect strong opinions, tons of recipe inspiration, and more food puns than we'd like to admit. Listen and subscribe at http://listen.bonappetit.com/foodpeople-trailer or wherever you get your podcasts: http://listen.bonappetit.com/foodpeople Apple Podcasts: http://listen.bonappetit.com/ba-apple Spotify: https://link.chtbl.com/ba-spotify Stitcher: http://listen.bonappetit.com/ba-stitcher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, cohost Joe Hagan talks to Saad Mohseni, chief executive of the MOBY Group, which has been broadcasting television news and entertainment programming in Afghanistan since 2004. As the Taliban take over the country following the US’s chaotic exit last week, the fate of Mohseni’s media outlet in Kabul, staffed with 450 Afghans, hangs in the balance. Will the Taliban shut down or take over the TV network? Even as Mohseni looks for signs of hope in a young population weened on TV and Internet access (including the Taliban themselves), he remains wary of the Taliban's extremism, misogyny and censorship and expresses anger at the Biden administration’s handling of the pullout, which has left his beloved country to a grim fate after decades of cynical US foreign policy.

It’s one of the wildest scandals in Hollywood history: In 1951, major Hollywood producer Walter Wanger (Jon Hamm) went to prison for shooting an agent who he suspected was having an affair with Joan Bennett (Zooey Deschanel), Wanger’s actress wife. When the dust settled, Wanger was accepted back into Hollywood’s inner circle with open arms, while a puritan panic virtually ended Bennett’s career in movies and her family would never be the same. How did Joan — the youngest member of one of America’s most famous acting families, and one of the key femme fatales of 1940s film noir — end up a real-life fallen woman, paying a public price for her husband’s crimes? In this limited podcast series, Joan and Walter’s granddaughter/filmmaker Vanessa Hope, and film historian/podcaster Karina Longworth (You Must Remember This), tell the untold story of the Bennett/Wanger romance and professional partnership — a film noir played out in real life. Listen now on: Apple Podcasts: https://listen.vanityfair.com/liac-ap Spotify: https://listen.vanityfair.com/liac-s Google Podcasts: https://listen.vanityfair.com/liac-gp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Vanity Fair correspondent Gabriel Sherman joins cohost Joe Hagan to discuss the “Floridization” of conservative politics, from the hanging chads of the 2000 election to Trump’s “Southern White House” in Palm Beach to Governor Ron DeSantis’s ostensible 2024 campaign slogan, “Make America Florida.” The Hive correspondents explore the history of tabloid and conservative media in Florida and the inevitable merger of the two in the form of Trumpism, expanding and riffing on Hagan’s feature in the September issue of Vanity Fair, “Postcards from the Edge."

Cohosts Emily Jane Fox and Joe Hagan discuss the latest COVID wave and how it’s affecting our health, social lives, politics, and summer plans. Mask mandates are back, and not even Barack Obama can throw a birthday party on Martha’s Vineyard without it becoming a national incident. Also discussed: the Tokyo Olympics; what we’re reading on the beach this summer; and what you’ll find inside the newest issue of Vanity Fair.

This week, New York Times reporter Sheera Frenkel, coauthor of the blockbuster book “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination,” describes her and coauthor Cecilia Kang's deep dive into the history and ambitions of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. How and why did Zuck allow his tech behemoth to become a hothouse of hate speech, misinformation and coordinated attacks on world governments? And what has he done about it? Frenkel explains to cohost Joe Hagan how Zuckerberg's pursuit of power has run roughshod over social responsibility, as he cashes in on Kumbaya connectivity instead. With Donald Trump suing Facebook for temporarily evicting him and Joe Biden accusing the platform of “killing people” by spreading vaccine misinformation, Zuckerberg keeps his eyes on the 5 billion customers that remain to be converted to the platform. An in-depth conversation.

Floods, wildfires, skies filled with smoke and ash—it’s been a summer full of alarming signs of climate change. This week, journalist and novelist Nathaniel Rich joins Joe Hagan on Inside the Hive to discuss the looming catastrophe we’ve known about for decades but have consistently failed to slow, let alone stop. Should we take the climate fight to politicians and corporations, or is our system too hopelessly broken to respond to the earth’s rising temperatures? How much do individual choices like eating vegan or driving electric cars really help? The author of Losing Earth: A Recent History talks about his personal response as he paints a portrait of ignorance and bad faith among the powers that be. Rich also suggests new ways to change and deepen our relationship to our planet in crisis—including the power of fiction.

This week, we welcome cohost Emily Jane Fox back to the podcast from paid family leave to discuss some personal breaking news: the arrival of infant daughter J.R. last week and the implications for work-life balance, family, marriage and podcasting. Plus, a review of the summer news cycle, what readers of Vanity Fair can expect in weeks to come, and a squeak or two from the new podcast cohost.

This week, veteran Hive correspondent Chris Smith talks to co-host Joe Hagan about the winner of the Democratic primary for New York mayor, Eric Adams, and his journey toward the most powerful office in the city. Smith has been covering city politics for more than two decades, through Bloomberg’s three terms and Bill DeBlasio’s seven tumultuous years, and understands better than most the risks and opportunities for a city trying to reinvent itself after the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer. Can a former policeman and savvy self-promoter like Adams lower crime, enact police reforms while also earning the trust of the NYPD and shepherd the city to prosperity? Chris Smith explains it all to you.