The Best Time An Interview Subject Wrote About Me

Presenting the interview I think about probably weekly at this point.

Writing is stressful.

A heads-up to those who came here because of the Seinfeld newsletter: not all of these will be funny. Sorry not sorry. ENJOY!

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I did a story last June, one that I thought was...fine. It was fine.

It was on the decline in religion in the U.S., and what that means for the Republican Party (which, you may be aware, relies a lot on religiosity -- particularly that of white self-proclaimed evangelicals -- for its strength).

I don't know if it's bad to admit that I thought it was a middling story as far as my stories go. But then, this is a newsletter about demystifying political journalism, and I figure it's best to just be transparent here.

The issue in this particular case is that I bit off more than I could chew. The subject of the relationship between the GOP and white evangelical Christianity, it turns out, is bigger than the 5-minute radio story I ended up making.

And biting off too much is a problem I have. I tend to step up to the plate and try to hit a dinger on every single story, and smack the guts out of the ball while I'm at it.

(I get the sense that my editor desperately wants me to quit this habit. He can assign me a tight 3 minutes on the polling for the 2022 midterms, and the next day I'll FaceTime him with a pushpin-and-yarn crazyboard in the background and the idea that "ok but what if we did 9 minutes on how generic ballot polling has been totally undermined by polarization and is also an inherently flawed concept?" And he will hang up and, I dunno, sigh heavily and take some Xanax. As is right and proper in this situation.)