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The announcement came as a bit of a surprise, to me at least.
(They would never, of course.
After all, it was capitalism all along!)
Instead, were seeing a radical shake-up.
Youre Wrong Aboutdevotees shouldnt despair, however.
Marshall will continue hosting the show, backed by a line-up of guest co-hosts, for the foreseeable future.
This marked Hobbess third appearance on the program.
More on that in a bit.)
Still, its the end of an era.
And as a longtime listener of the show, I felt compelled to memorialize the moment.
said Hobbes, who is currently in Berlin, when I reached out earlier this week.
We talked about his decision to leave the show, its significance, and what comes next.
For me, so much of the experience ofYoure Wrong Aboutwas tied to lockdown.
We were doing two episodes a week.
If I wasnt recording an episode, I was editing or researching an episode.
Youre Wrong Aboutalso became so much more popular during lockdown.
It started to feel like we were actually influencing what people believed about the world.
Then lockdown was over.
Like the show had moved on from me, or I had moved on from it.
I know myself well enough to know theres always been a two-to-three-year fuse for me.
Same thing within journalism.
So part of me feels like I was reaching the end of my attention span for theYoure Wrong Aboutformat.
And I started thinking about other stories I wanted to tell.
I wanted to interview people who were there, people who lost loved ones, epidemiologists.
I wanted to find out what it was like in San Francisco at the time.
You could tell Mike wasnt really into it.
That wouldnt be fair to Sarah.
It wouldnt be fair to listeners.
Its not fair to myself.
It just felt like a good time to make a move.
The phrasemoral claritygets thrown around a bunch these days, but you two really seem to have that.
A lot of it comes out of doing the research.
Yet its nowhere near remembered as a Watergate-level scandal.
Everyone should be treating huge scandals as huge scandals and not just moving on.
Does that ever make you feel out of sorts?
Thats the best thing about having a podcast by far.
She has made me a more empathic person.
Ive learned much from her about how to really take people seriously as people in a story.
Other people will be like, Now Im really mad about Iran-Contra, and it happened 40 years ago!
And Im like, Yeahhh.
Could you expand on that?
This was another reason why it felt like a good time to leaveYoure Wrong About.
Now, I dont want to take credit.
I dont want to pretend we were the only people doing that.
But it really makes me happy to see all those Britney Spears documentaries.
Why do you think the show caught on the way it did?
Thats not the way people tell stories to each other.
The way we process information involves quite explicitly bringing our own perspectives to it.
This is one of the reasons I like Sarahs work so much.
She comes to stories from a perspective.
Tonya Harding wasnt the monster you thought she was heres the evidence.
This is something I wish journalists would do more.
What comes next for you?
Honestly, I have no idea.
Maybe something will come up; maybe nothing will come up.
Maybe theyll be podcasts; maybe therell be videos or articles.
So Im just going to experiment with that.
I dont know if Ive ever had a period like this where theres little going on in my life.
But I have some time left over now, and Id like to sit with it.
Berlin seems like a good spot for just sitting and being.
Oh yeah, totally.
It robs you of your ambition, Berlin.
The costs are low here.
There are nice cafes to sit in all day.
Theres other nice non-online stuff that Im also looking forward to focusing on.
That show seems like a grind.
Well, Ive been lobbying them to hire Sarah, but shes also going to be really busy.
I mean, I dont know …
I have no idea what I will end up doing.
That sounds exciting, actually.
This is the first time in my adult life that has happened.
