The Atlantic is continuing its expansion in audio and podcasts with the launch of a new weekly interview podcast, Good on Paper, hosted by Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas. With Good on Paper, Demsas will explore some of the most important questions of the day, with each episode examining an idea or development that challenges the conventional wisdom in policy or politics. A trailer is out now, with the show launching on Tuesday, June 4, and episodes coming out each Tuesday.
Good on Paper is a policy show that will challenge popular narratives—ideas that are “good on paper” but don’t always pan or prove out. The show asks: What if the commonly held beliefs driving our public discourse aren’t quite right? What if new evidence on housing or immigration or relationships flies in the face of what we believe? What if the policies we support give us results we don’t like? Each week, a different expert will join Demsas to better examine ideas rigorously and honestly, allowing listeners to deepen their understanding of topics and gain a new way of considering an idea and navigating its complexity.
The podcast builds upon Demsas’s acclaimed reporting for The Atlantic, which includes stories on housing and homelessness, economics, urban development, and democracy. She has recently written the articles “Why Americans Hate a Good Economy,” which offers several explanations as to why Americans report negative assessments of the economy; “Why America Doesn’t Build,” which explores how even green-energy projects get quashed by local opposition; and “Americans Vote Too Much,” about how no one can be a full-time political animal.
Good on Paper joins a growing network of audio journalism at The Atlantic and can be found in a new audio landing page along with all podcasts and narrated articles. The Atlantic’s flagship show, Radio Atlantic with host Hanna Rosin, relaunched last spring, and yesterday, the first episode dropped for How to Know What’s Real, the sixth season of our social-science franchise, hosted by Megan Garber and Andrea Valdez.
The audio team at The Atlantic announced the recent hiring of Jinae West as a senior producer, who came to The Atlantic from New York magazine and Vox, where she was a founding producer of the pop-culture podcast Into It. Dave Shaw has also joined The Atlantic’s podcast team as an editor. Shaw has more than 20 years of experience in editing, newsroom management, and show development, and most recently worked at The New York Times, where he launched new shows and was a supervising editor for The Daily.
The trailer for Good on Paper is now available, and listeners can subscribe here or wherever they get podcasts.
