Things Fell Apart - Season 2 - Jon Ronson podcast [split topic]

[thugler]

Entirety of this is out now. I'm about half way through. Some interesting parts but less so than the first season. Really infuriating 'both sidesing', when from the story being told things are pretty one sided as far as i can tell, false equivalence and presumption that because someone is infuriated by something they must be justified.

I'd say I'm a fan of Ronson, but anyone who goes on about people being 'ideological' as if him or anyone else are somehow devoid of such a thing is pretty annoying.

One of the episodes that really annoyed me is episode 4, which covers some of the don't say gay bill stuff.

The idea that schools might keep a child's sexuality/gender identity from their parents if they ask them to sounds entirely sensible to me and not some kind of aberration, i expect this happens pretty rarely anyway. It's not like school's are giving kids medical treatments behind their back. And if a student is going by another name at school it matters not a jot as far as I'm concerned, what's the harm in that whether it's a phase or not. The fact the student in this case is not interviewed and we only hear from their concerned parent says it all.

The most irritating thing about this is Ronson's refusal to take a fucking side when it's very obvious which one is in the wrong.

[Dr Rock]

Teachers shouldn't be snitches.

[Ferris]

I was just about to start this thread with the title "Ronson's doing his podcast again". I was similarly annoyed by the both-sidesing noted by @thugler - you can have an opinion mate. Maybe you save it to the end, Theroux style, but it's still ok to think things.

If anything, you've done all the research so you tell us, frankly. He does pick a side, a bit, but still falls back to some extent of "both as bad as each other eh? Cuh!" Describing the "left" and "right" of US media was particularly egregious in the militia episode. Fox News is a multi billion dollar org and the Intercept is a website with like 3 journalists that isn't necessarily left wing anyway.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the series with that caveat. He's a good interviewer and the topics are usually fascinating even if he dances around it a little.

[Ferris]

Teachers shouldn't be snitches.

Teaches get steetches.

[GolazoDan]

Listened to them all today and revisited the first lot (had some time to kill). Definitely go along with the frustration about Ronson not taking a side, I suppose he wants to let them do themselves in with their own words but that doesn't really work for me, brother. Not with some of these topics. He does save one slight comeback for the final episode though, big fist pump for that. Really good overall though, they're well made and I'm a big fan of Ronson in general.

[iamcoop]

Love Ronson, but I feel he's a bit like Adam Buxton these days, ie so terrified of being cancelled or embroiled in some sort of public beef that he avoids being even remotely forthright about anything. Which I get has always been his schtick, but at least someone like Theroux will say something like "Despite spending a lovely day with Steve, I couldn't help but think that almost everything he said was massively racist" or whatever.

I've always thought he's a better print journalist than any other medium, but these days he seems a bit - how can I put this? - just a bit too overtly timid to really get stuck into the big stuff? I dunno, perhaps I'm being unfair.

Either way I'll always give anything he puts his name to a shot, and there are clearly moments here where people open up to him in a way they'd probably be reluctant to do so with any other journalist.

[Ferris]

I was thinking about this today, re: "the intercept" vs "Fox News" as a right v left dichotomy.

You could ask "hey John, how many million people watch the Intercept's top cable personality every day? Oh they don't have one? Wait, they don't even have a 24hr cable channel? Hmm maybe they're not so fucking equivalent then mate".

Anyway, still enjoying the series. It seems like I'm obsessive over the "both-sidesing" which is mildly irking me, but I'm also listening to the show 2+ episodes of a time. I like it with caveats, as with all of Ronson's stuff really.

[FeederFan500]

I'm 90% certain I listened to the whole first series of this but can only recall the abortion and fake calls of teacher abuse ones. The rest of it for whatever reason just didn't land, whereas I can of course remember much more of the porn one he did. Maybe it's having to have 30 minutes for radio rather than the choice you get with podcasts.

I'm reckon he both sides-es things to let the listener or reader decide in a lot of cases but he does have a tendency common to a lot of his sort of 'feature' journalist to sympathise with the interviewee to an extent. It definitely happened in his Shamed book and he even admits it himself sometimes.

But he also gets access that other journalists don't seem to which gives his stuff a unique character. I've had to treat his stuff with a degree of cynicism though after Robert Hare wrote a fairly critical piece about how he approached The Psychopath Test. A bit like Michael Lewis, I'd like him to do a piece on something I really know about to see whether he writes well and entirely truthfully or is just a very effective storyteller.

[Ferris]

He was sympathizing with his guests to the point that a Glenn Beck (!) cameo interview has lots of soft soap questions and any disagreements came in VO after the fact.

Don't blame him, I wouldn't wanna get eggy with the OG right wing nutcase but that seems like important context for listeners.

[iamcoop]

I'm 90% certain I listened to the whole first series of this but can only recall the abortion and fake calls of teacher abuse ones. The rest of it for whatever reason just didn't land, whereas I can of course remember much more of the porn one he did. Maybe it's having to have 30 minutes for radio rather than the choice you get with podcasts.

I had a similar experience, I loved The Butterfly Effect and The Elephant in the Room but I remember trying to listen to the first series of this and I just couldn't get on with it. I've subsequently listened to both series in the last few days after listening to Ep1 of Series 2 the other morning and finding it a much better experience, so perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it.

I wish he'd do more print stuff again though, his anthology collections of writing are so good. 

[Icehaven]

I didn't know this was back, enjoyed the first one so will probably binge this shortly.

[thugler]

Listened to them all today and revisited the first lot (had some time to kill). Definitely go along with the frustration about Ronson not taking a side, I suppose he wants to let them do themselves in with their own words but that doesn't really work for me, brother. Not with some of these topics. He does save one slight comeback for the final episode though, big fist pump for that. Really good overall though, they're well made and I'm a big fan of Ronson in general.

I think in reality you can never be a truly objective presence in a documentary though. And it's not like Ronson himself has no view, or ideology of his own. Inevitably what he leaves in and out is going to be coloured by this. I don't see what he gets out of pretending to be neutral. I think it's very easy and demonstrable to show precisely why, with examples, teachers shouldn't have to snitch on students who don't feel comfortable sharing certain aspects of their gender/sexuality with their parents the very moment they are trying to figure them out.

Love how when Beck literally says the words 'both sides of this' the little theme tune sting comes in, as if to say 'finally a breakthrough'.

I've seen Ronson get annoyed in the past when anyone wants him to discuss israel palestine, I'm paraphrasing but I recall it being because he thinks it has nothing to do with him and people shouldn't presume it does just because he is Jewish. That's fine, but I just don't see why that precludes him from having an opinion either. It's not like he hasn't been attacked and cancelled in the past anyway (Linehan had a go at him about the terf origins ep in the first series) despite the effort to be as middle groundy as possible.

Much of this series was previously covered on stuff like the QAnon anonymous podcast.

[FeederFan500]

I am 4 episodes in and not really feeling this one much either. During the first episode I thought it was just the distracting Gladiator I noticed doing promo stuff on TV but I think my problem is that it's very US based, and my background knowledge isn't enough to get a feel for it. I don't know what role The Intercept plays in the US media landscape for example (although I didn't really have a problem with it's size compared to Fox, I don't think that was key to the point Ronson was making).

[lazyhour]

I've watched a few recent interviews with Ronson and he seems pretty adamant that he's intentionally not doing what he calls "activist journalism". He wants to engage with individuals and try to understand them on a human-to-human basis, even if what they say or believe is unpalatable or even unconscionable. Then he'll lay out all the pieces and encourage the listener or reader come to their own conclusions. It's usually abundantly clear what he thinks but he doesn't need to spell it out for you. He probably gets access to certain culture wars voices precisely because of this approach.

His chat with Politics Joe on YouTube makes for a really good compassion piece for season two of the podcast.

[Icehaven]

I'm up to episode 5, which I found frustrating as it felt natural to doubt the mother's assurance that the child no longer had any uncertainty about her gender because she (the mum) had such an agenda, so with no input from her/him/them directly it was a bit pointless.

[ASFTSN]

I dunno...I don't think I listened to the first series, but as someone who honestly doesn't have the mental strength/integrity to keep up with whatever latest chaos is happening from (mainly) the USA via Twitter and has seen various people in communities I'm part of online very quickly lose their minds over the last seemingly thousand few years, I kind of appreciated how each of these episodes has summed something up pretty concisely. It does make me feel kind of guilty I'm not nuking my synapses with some of these stories 'directly' (ie giving myself a coronary by using Twitter) and getting them via Ronson-mode but it's been good to hear humans talking directly about all this stuff in the interviews. Cat litter box story wtf.

[Tiggles]

I've enjoyed this season and I love how Ronson finds all the butterfly effect intersections.

I admire how he treats everyone as a human, even those who I find loathsome. As another poster has said, this is definitely how he continues to get access to his subjects, and therefore make such fascinating programmes.

Having said that, I did piss myself laughing at the exchange in the last one when Ronson splutters his response and is genuinely taken aback by the anti-vaccine actor guy.

[BritishHobo]

Finally got around to this, and have listened to the second episode, about Judy Mikovitz. God it's depressing. That short clip of the online 'debate' at the end, with Judy going after her former research student as if he's a demonic evil, while all the conspiracist podcasters laugh along. Just a real sense that we're so absolutely fucked.

[Schnapple]

Avoided the second season of this, largely as I'm all culture warred out. If I wanted to immerse myself further in that sort of bullshit I'd just, er, lurk on here.

Nonetheless, just dipped into RHLSTP, as Ronson was a returning guest and always good value in this context. When Herring asked him if society was moving away from polarisation, he cited "what's happening in Israel and Palestine" as an example that proves that isn't the case.

The show was recorded a few months ago, before the ICJ called genocide. And I'm aware Ronson traditionally refuses to be drawn in on 'the conflict' as a Jewish broadcaster. Nonetheless, I found it massively disingenuous to cite this as if it's on the same level as some Midwestern mystery about a teacher's sexist Facebook comment or whatever.

[Endicott]

This seems overly harsh on Ronson to me. I don't see how he's equating those two things at all.

Secondly and not that it matters but the 2nd series has been about things of more import than a teacher's sexist Facebook comment or whatever.

[Schnapple]

Perhaps. I did enjoy the interview overall, and appreciate the extensive care he puts into his work, so maybe I'll dive into the newer season after all.

I am also somewhat conflict averse, and in the past, have defended him when friends have attacked him for "giving voice" to bad actors or whatever. I'd say his writing saw me through some anxiety myself, so I didn't mean to be too harsh, but I've probably just personally shifted to the left of the centre space he occupies as a reporter.

Echoing @Ferris upthread in regards to his equation of Fox News and The Intercept, I sometimes wonder if his 'both sides' centrality is that useful, or even accurate? In the case of I/P, the world appears to be increasingly wound up by a Western-state sanctioned genocide. Is that really 'polarisation', at least in what Ronson would usually explore? I recognise that I'm basing this observation of a relatively throwaway remark in an interview on a notoriously haphazard comedy podcast, and this isn't something he's covering in-depth. Like others have said, probably just wise to enjoy him with caveats.

Incidentally, I had similar thoughts after seeing Civil War on Saturday as to the frustration of apolitical approaches to political subjects. Looks like they got me too...

[Deskbound Cunt]

Odd criticism of him "both siding". I doubt anyone who listens to his podcasts thinks "Oh, that <right wing culture war maniac> speaks a lot of sense".

His podcasts are great but I wish he was writing again.

I wonder how much rivalry there is between him and Theroux. Theroux probably gets paid loads for doing his BBC docs doing soft interviews with celebs you've mostly never heard of whilst Ronaon is doing far more Interesting actual journalism.