January 4, 2013

Mother Jones’ Best Interviews of 2012


A good interview gives us access to people and ideas that often stay behind the curtain. But it can do more than that: As British journalist Lynn Barber has said, that the best interviews “sing the strangeness and variety of the human race.” We certainly covered both this year, chatting up everyone from children’s author Phillip Pullman to adventurer Felicity Aston to rising star of comedy W. Kamau Bell. Here are 12 of our favorites from 2012, one for each month, with even more below. We hope you have as much fun exploring them as we had talking to these fascinating and talented people.

Tim Gunn leaning his head against a sewing machine

Project Runway‘s Top Gunn
Tim Gunn on revolutionary fashion, the “It Gets Better” campaign, and why you’re never too smart for style.

 

Interrogating the NY Times‘ Anthony Shadid
Just before his death, we spoke to the revered correspondent about sneaking into Syria, being kidnapped in Libya, and the cost of getting the story in a war zone.

Wendell Pierce Goes to Market
The actor from The Wire and Treme on launching supermarkets in New Orleans and why Americans avoid reality on TV.

 

The Woman Who Skied Antarctica Solo
Adventurer Felicity Aston on her 59 days amid ferocious wind storms, treacherous glaciers, and breathtaking white solitude. 

 

Great Divergence book cover

Timothy Noah: Mind the Income Gap
The prize-winning author of The Great Divergence on why the middle class never gets a raise.
 

 

Lizz Winstead Has an Opinion on That!
The Daily Show co-creator on her new memoir, our worthless media, and how people keep trying to mess with her “crazy-ass uterus.”

 

What Regina Spektor Sees from the Cheap Seats
The pioneering pop songstress on invented sounds, gay rights as sci-fi, and how it feels to be labeled a weirdo.

 

Can Code for America Save Our Broke Cities?
Jen Pahlka on dumb bureaucracy, government as a vending machine, and Silicon Valley sexism.
 

Michael Chabon’s Vinyl Draft
The Pulitzer prize-winning novelist on race, procrastination, and his new book, Telegraph Avenue.


W. Kamau Bell

Some of W. Kamau Bell’s Best Jokes Are Black
The star of FX’s new, racially charged comedy show Totally Biased on his white baby—and how Chris Rock saved him from selling condoms.

 

Crow with a face superimposed on it

His Grimm Materials: A Conversation With Philip Pullman
The best-selling author on his new fairy tale collection, writerly superstitions, and what his daemon would look like.

 

Van Jones on Obama: “Climate Is Going to Be the Issue He’s Judged On.”
The green-jobs guru thinks his former boss has an opportunity to tackle global warming. (But will he take it?)

 

Some others you don’t want to miss…
Portlandia star Fred Armisen
Musician and producer Brian Eno
Author and chef Tamar Adler
Electronic dance music pioneer Paul van Dyk
Journalist Elizabeth Weil
Sex columnist and gay-rights activist Dan Savage
Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch
The Shins’ James Mercer
The Wire actress Sonja Sohn
Actor and anti-fracking activist Mark Ruffalo
Jason Olberholtzer, co-creator of the I Love Charts Tumblr
Sportswriter and Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger
Graphic novelist and director Marjane Satrapi
tUnE-yArDs’ powerhouse Merrill Garbus
New media “inventor” Robin Sloan
Radio Ambulante creator and author Daniel Alarcón

You can peruse our entire archive of interviews here.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

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The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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