This week, we’re sharing stories from Lucas Waldron, Nadia Sussman, Thalia Beaty, and Ryan Gabrielson, as well as Jamil Smith, Cynthia Tucker, Venkatesh Rao, and Sirin Kale.
Rolling Stone
If You Love the Music of the Carter Family, Thank Leslie Riddle
“First, you exclude black people from the festivals. Then write them out by not recording them. And pretty soon, ‘you have this manufactured image of country music being white and being poor.'”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Wesley Lowery, Sarah Bellamy, Shawn Yuan, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, and Gabrielle Bellot.
Greta Thunberg: “We Just Have to Care About Each Other More”
“It has become a disconcerting pattern for Thunberg appearances: Greta tells the adults they are fools and their plans are lame and shortsighted. They still give her a standing ovation.”
‘What’s this guy doing loose in Malheur County?’
He faked an insanity defense, got out, and immediately committed another crime, and this time people are dead. He’s going to plead insanity again.
Took You By Surprise: John and Paul’s Lost Reunion
Five years after the Beatles disbanded, a period fueled by intense acrimony, Lennon and McCartney set aside their differences and got back together one more time. Inside the rollicking atmosphere of that May 1974 recording session.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Sarah Weinman, Stephen Rodrick, Bianca Giaever, James Ross Gardner, and Megan Pugh.
‘What if people found out?’ On the White Male Suicide Epidemic
“I got home and went back to the fetal position for a week.”
Where Have All the Music Magazines Gone?
Inside music journalism post-2008 recession, and how media consumption in the 21st century offers a road map for the continuation of the once-robust medium.
One Dollar a Word? That’ll Be $28,000
Fresh off Watergate, Carl Bernstein next turned to expose the connection between the CIA and newspapers. For his efforts, he was paid $28,000. Inside one of publishing’s biggest boondoggles.