The Monday Media Diet with Matt Shaer
On Say Nothing, The Mare, and graphic novels
Matthew Shaer (MS) is a co-founder of the podcast company Campside Media, a writer at The New York Times Magazine, and an Emerson Fellow at New America. Check out his podcast, Origin Stories.
Tell us about yourself.
I’m lucky enough to get to wear a few different hats: I’m a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, I’m a co-founder of the podcast studio Campside Media, and most recently, I’m the host of a new interview show called Origin Stories. I’m also under contract with Metropolitan to write a book based on a past Times Magazine article on the criminalization of poverty in America, but I’m wildly overdue on the first draft, and if my editor happens to be reading this –– Riva, I’m so sorry. It’s coming.
I’m pretty pumped about Origin Stories. Like, embarrassingly pumped. The show grew out of my own obsession with how great stories are made –– how they’re conceived, how they’re reported, how they’re structured. And now I get to sit down with my favorite writers and talk about this exact topic? It’s a dream come true. It’s also a chance to talk at length about the power and importance of great storytelling at a time when those things can feel under threat.
The other day, someone asked me if I could see myself doing only Origin Stories, if it happened to really take off. I gave the honest answer: No, because I like writing as much as I like talking about writing. Over the past few years, I’ve frequently had the experience where I craved the quiet of an empty room and the chance to work on pieces for The New York Times Magazine or National Geographic. Or the chance to work on a big, complicated narrative podcast like We Came to the Forest. Or the chance to hack away at my novel-in-progress, which has been gestating ever since I finished my MFA in fiction at New York University.
Without that writing time –– without the challenges of wrangling with story myself –– I imagine my interviews would get markedly worse. I’d have less to talk about.
Describe your media diet.
I follow the news through the New York Times app on my phone and the Apple News app on my iPad –– I’m a paid subscriber to the latter. I like the breadth of reporting I can find on Apple News, from the LA Times to the Washington Post to local outlets. My wife and I also keep subscriptions to a bunch of different print magazines: Vanity Fair, Runner’s World, Rolling Stone, Atlanta magazine. I’ll read those on the couch when I have some spare time. I’ll read the New Yorker and The Atlantic and The Times Magazine right before I have to write something myself. They’re good sources of inspiration and reminders of why I do what I do. And every night before I fall asleep, I read about 45 minutes on my Kindle. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I’m the kind of person who reads until the device falls out of his hand, inevitably with a giant clatter. As for TV, I tend to use it for escapism. Always Sunny, old episodes of Law and Order. I know I should be watching more serious fare, but sometimes I need to turn off my brain.
What’s the last great book you read?
Before interviewing Patrick Radden Keefe for Origin Stories, I re-read Say Nothing, his non-fiction chronicle of The Troubles. I was reminded again of what an accomplishment it is: Deeply researched and reported but as compelling as a good police procedural. It’s a work of genius.
What are you reading now?
I’m almost always juggling three different types of books on my Kindle: One book of serious nonfiction, one literary novel, and one mystery or thriller or adventure yarn. Right now, the line-up is A New World Begins: A History of The French Revolution, by Adam Popkin; The Mare, by my old writing teacher Mary Gaitskill; and Last Stand at Saber River, by Elmore Leonard. RIP.
What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?
Depends on the publication. With a magazine like The New Yorker, I start with the writers I admire the most, or the articles that seem like they might be in danger of going stale –– the timely stuff on politics or politicians, for example. With Car and Driver (see below), I start the way God intended and read the whole thing from first page to last.
Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?
Car and Driver. I mean, lots of people already read Car and Driver, but the readership should be larger still, especially among non-car people. For decades, the writing in this magazine has been among the best published anywhere; the letters section is funnier than most Netflix stand-up specials; and the art design is continually surprising. My favorite magazine in the world.
What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?
My Tractive GPS app, which I use to monitor the location of my beagle, Salty Dog. It’s accurate down to, like, the centimeter, and I love seeing the heat maps of Salty’s travels. That man is busy. At least when he’s outside. When he’s inside, he resembles a sedentary, tri-color bean.
Plane or train?
Plane, providing it’s on time and the Wi-Fi is malfunctioning or non-existent. Otherwise, train.
What is one place everyone should visit?
A very special beach in Maine. But if you think I’m going to tell you where it is, you’re crazy.
Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.
I’ve been reading comics and graphic novels since I was six or seven years old. In a lot of ways, the medium taught me how to think about story and structure –– about balancing entertainment and exposition and character development. Now, with Wikipedia, I can find myself tripping down these insane historical tangents, reading about all the different iterations of a character and the ways she or he has been interpreted by generations of artists and writers. I was doing this just the other day with Legion, a character from the X-Men universe –– and a character Noah Hawley, a recent Origin Stories guest, made the centerpiece of a recent FX show. I wanted to brush up on the topic before I sat down with Noah for our interview. (MS)