The New New Girl
A profile of Mindy Kaling.
A profile of Mindy Kaling.
The secret is an exclusive 22-year-old archive of viewer-submitted clips.
Brian Raftery Wired Apr 2011 10min Permalink
An ode to the MSNBC anchor.
Ben Wallace-Wells Rolling Stone Jul 2012 20min Permalink
A profile from Cooper’s early days an an anchor.
Choire Sicha The New York Observer Mar 2004 15min Permalink
The taming of the political reporter.
Alessandra Stanley, Maureen Dowd GQ Sep 1988 25min Permalink
Peter de Jonge New York Times Magazine Oct 2001 20min Permalink
The author recounts playing herself – best-selling author Sloane Crosley – on an episode of “Gossip Girl.”
Sloane Crosley The Believer Jun 2012 20min Permalink
A profile of Univision’s Jorge Ramos.
Laura M. Colarusso Washington Monthly May 2012 40min Permalink
On the set of Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO show The Newsroom.
James Kaplan Vanity Fair May 2012 15min Permalink
At 67, the American Bandstand icon remains “one hard-working mother.”
Steve Pond The Los Angeles Times Jun 1997 20min Permalink
The story behind the story that ended Dan Rather’s career.
Joe Hagan Texas Monthly May 2012 40min Permalink
How reality TV has changed tattooing.
Tattoos and tattoo artists have an undeniable power to attract, repulse, and intimidate. But when confronted with all this life and color, reality TV steamrolls it into the familiar “drama” of preening divas and wounded pride. “Everybody thinks they’re gonna change it,” said Anna Paige, an artist who said she’d turned down her chance at TV stardom. “Everybody thinks they’re gonna have some power.” But wait, isn’t she profiting from tattooing’s mass appeal? “I would have made money anyway.”
Alex Halperin Guernica Mar 2012 15min Permalink
A profile of 25-year-old Lena Dunham, showrunner and star of HBO’s Girls.
Emily Nussbaum New York Mar 2012 25min Permalink
An oral history of The Sopranos.
Sam Kashner Vanity Fair Mar 2012 35min Permalink
Jimmy McNulty, Mike Daisey, and the problems with skirting the system to get to the greater truth.
Aaron Bady The New Inquiry Mar 2012 10min Permalink
An oral history of Saturday Night Live.
Part of our guide to SNL for Slate.
James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales Vanity Fair Sep 2002 45min Permalink
How one of the most maligned cast members in SNL history ended up a talking head on Fox News.
Gus Garcia-Roberts The Miami New Times Jan 2012 20min Permalink
On YouTube’s shift towards professionally created content.
John Seabrook New Yorker Jan 2012 25min Permalink
A conversation with the comedian.
JW: You’ve talked about how you’ve had to explain moral lessons to your daughters, but do it in an inarticulate, catchy way. It’s almost as though you’re writing material for them. What’s the place of morality and ethics in your comedy? I think those are questions people live with all the time, and I think there’s a lazy not answering of them now, everyone sheepishly goes, “Oh, I’m just not doing it, I’m not doing the right thing.” There are people that really live by doing the right thing, but I don’t know what that is, I’m really curious about that. I’m really curious about what people think they’re doing when they’re doing something evil, casually.
Jonah Weiner, Louis C.K. The Writearound Jan 2012 Permalink
A suburban dad. A fictional television blowhard. And now a political money launderer. How one funny guy became three.
Charles McGrath New York Times Magazine Jan 2012 25min Permalink
On “If You Are the One”, the smash hit Chinese dating show that raised the ire of censors.
Edward Wong New York Times Jan 2011 10min Permalink
A profile of Carrie Brownstein, riot grrrl and creator of Portlandia.
Margaret Talbot New Yorker Dec 2011 20min Permalink
Enlightened is probably the sharpest satire of modern white-collar work since the original British version of The Office, and its skewering of this world intertwines with its portrait of individual personalities so deftly that you can’t separate them. Creator Mike White captures the unsettling blandness of office protocol, politics and jargon, from the chill that workers feel when Human Resources calls them out of the blue to the impressive-sounding word salad labels that the company gives to its departments and projects. (The experimental department to which the newly demoted Amy is assigned is called “Cogentiva.”)
Matt Zoller Seitz Salon Nov 2011 Permalink
Why Whitney is Lucy, only less lovable:
This may sound like blasphemy to anyone who loves Lucille Ball, the woman who pioneered the classic joke rhythms that Whitney Cummings so klutzily mimics. Cummings has none of Ball’s shining charisma or her buzz of anarchy. Yet she does share Lucy’s rictus grin, her toddler-like foot-stamping tantrums, and especially her Hobbesian view of heterosexual relationships as a combat zone of pranks, bets, and manipulation from below. “This is war,” Whitney announces, before declaring yet another crazy scheme to undercut her boyfriend, and it might as well be the series’ catchphrase.
Emily Nussbaum New Yorker Nov 2011 Permalink
A profile of the talk queen.
Caitlin Flanagan The Atlantic Dec 2011 20min Permalink