“Your focus is the most valuable thing you have in any given moment. Part of the project here is reclaiming dominion over our own minds, over our own attention, to put it towards what we will—the things that we love, the people we love, the hobbies and interests we want to pursue—and not to have it taken from us.”
-Chris Hayes, episode 403 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
For more than a decade, Chris Hayes has been one of our most incisive political thinkers. He joins us this week in New York City, hours before taping his hit MSNBC show, All In with Chris Hayes, to discuss his new book, The Sirens’ Call.
At the top, we unpack America’s Constitutional crises (5:30), the editorial inner workings of “All In” (7:00), and how attention became our most endangered resource (12:00). Then, Hayes talks through the challenges of maintaining viewership in the era of cord cutting (14:00), the diversity of his primetime audience (25:00), and how he balances the performative elements of the job with his authentic self (44:00).
On the back-half, Hayes describes the challenges of reaching a wider audience in our increasingly partisan political landscape (50:00), his tenure on television (55:00), his formative years writing at The Chicago Reader (1:05:00), and a short story from Albert Camus that keeps him on course (1:10:00).
Feedback or future guest ideas? Email us at mail@talkeasypod.com.
Show-notes:
- Find Chris’ new book The Sirens’ Call where you do your reading.
- Watch All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC.
- Listen to his podcast Why Is This Happening?
- Follow Chris on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads.
- Fore more talks, hear our conversations with David Remnick, Jia Tolentino, and Jake Tapper.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Illustrations by Krishna Shenoi.
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