Introducing Bully Pulpit with Bob Garfield

Bully Pulpit is a wry and pointed take on politics, media and society from longtime public radio personality Bob Garfield. His astute cultural criticism, infused with wit and humor, has earned him many prestigious journalism awards, as well as praise such as “very brave” and “national treasure.”

For more than 20 years, Bob Garfield was co-host of public radio’s weekly, Peabody Award-winning On the Media, following 12 years as a roving correspondent for NPR’s All Things Considered. He currently hosts The Influencer video series at RealGarfield.com and recently performed a national tour of his one-man show, “Ruggedly Jewish.”

A heroic multimediocrity, Garfield has been a columnist or contributing editor for the Washington Post Magazine, The Guardian, Advertising Age, Mediapost, Folio, Civilization and the op-ed page of USA Today. He has also written for The New York Times, Playboy, Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, Wired and the Mainichi Shimbun, and been employed variously by ABC, CBS, CNBC and the defunct FNN as an on-air analyst. A lecturer and panelist, he has appeared in 37 countries on six continents. He wrote a dreadful episode of the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender, and co-wrote a song recorded by Willie Nelson (long story). He is a six-time New York Times worst-selling author. His latest book, American Manifesto, explains how our society came to insurrection.

If you haven’t yet, please consider a paid subscription to Booksmart Studios! It’s only $7/month or $70/year and will get you extra podcast episodes, extended guest interviews and an opportunity to engage directly with our hosts. Plus, you’ll be supporting all of the work we do here at Booksmart.

Bully Pulpit is just one of at least three shows that we’ll launch this summer. Others include:

* Banished: An earnest and thought-provoking show about our reassessment of the many people, ideas, objects and even works of art that conflict with modern sensibilities. What can we learn about our present obsession with cancel culture by examining history, and what might it mean for freedom of expression?

* Lexicon Valley: A close examination of language — its power to inform and misinform, to elucidate and obfuscate — from renowned Columbia University linguistics professor John McWhorter. A true polymath, McWhorter will analyze the words and phrases that dominate our discourse and make the headlines.

And finally: As we craft the first season of Bully Pulpit, we want to hear from you. What topics do you want us to tackle? Which voices do you want to hear from? Simply respond to this e-mail, or tweet to us at @BooksmartSocial.

Get full access to Bully Pulpit at bullypulpit.substack.com/subscribe