Hear Me Out
Hear Me Out is Slate's destination for tough, topical discussions with integrity, and without cliches. Join host Celeste Headlee and a guest each week for a smart, fair debate on issues that matter.
Episodes
September 10, 2024 • 46 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: a fond farewell.
This is the last episode of Hear Me Out. And it comes at a volatile, strange time in the world of podcasting. Networks’ priorities have shifted, the money has shifted, and “success” means different things to different people.
Nick Hilton of Podot and Future Proof joins us for a discussion about the future of podcasting… whether we’re in it or not.
The Hear Me Out team is grate...
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September 3, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: pardon interruption.
What’s the purpose of the presidential pardon? Well, depends on who you ask — hypothetically, it’s meant for course-correction and honoring restorative justice. But presidents on both ends of the spectrum have used it for purposes that are distinctly not that. So do we need the pardon or do we need to get rid of it… and either way, what’s next?
Kim Wehle joins us once again ...
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August 27, 2024 • 54 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: PSL (not the drink).
Claudia de la Cruz cannot, mathematically, win the presidency. But she’s running anyway… because the two-party system doesn’t lend itself to real representation or the public interest.
Claudia joins us to make the case for voting socialist, because the parties with all the power aren’t as different as they want you to think.
We’ll also share an important update about the fu...
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August 20, 2024 • 45 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: sharpen up.
Public schooling in this country has had a lot of champions — including some that you might not expect. But did we ever actually agree on what we wanted schools to do for society?
Elizabeth Newcamp of Slate’s Care & Feeding joins us to argue for a reappraisal of the whole system… and what it means to educate.
If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a topic we should t...
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August 13, 2024 • 36 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: pants on fire.
The fact-check is a critical tool in the journalist’s toolbox – and now more than ever, it’s a key part of the job. The problem is that it’s already hard to make the case that definitive “true and false” designations exist anymore… and, it turns out, audiences might be made more suspicious of journalists who fact check, not less.
Randy Stein of Cal Poly Pomona joins Hear Me Out to...
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August 6, 2024 • 42 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: opening ceremonies (and a can of worms).
We come to you midway through the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. But amid the patriotism, athletic prowess, and sheer spectacle of these games — the most watched and streamed to date, by some measures — there’s also concerns about geopolitical power, human rights abuses, and the facilitation of facism.
MacIntosh Ross of Windsor University joins us to talk...
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July 30, 2024 • 43 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: who runs the world?
Kamala Harris is having a brat summer, which means that you’re likely seeing lots of questions about what brat summer is and why anyone cares. But the meme being co-opted by the Harris campaign is just a small piece of the bigger puzzle.
Writer and podcast host H. Alan Scott joins Hear Me Out to argue that pop stars have a huge amount of political influence — that, coupled wi...
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July 23, 2024 • 41 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: make the friendship bracelets. Or don’t.
Like all relationships, friendships can grow, change… and, yes, end. Sometimes for good reason. But we romanticize the BFF as the goal – to find your person – and that might not be realistic.
Author and podcast host Kristen Meinzer joins us to make the case for not needing a best friend forever.
If you have thoughts you want to share, or an idea for a...
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July 16, 2024 • 36 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: tried and Turing tested.
Coming into the 2024 election cycle, generative AI was one of the main concerns for democracy watchdogs; its power to create deceptive text, images and sounds at a rapid, unfettered pace seems ripe to spread misinformation. But of all the controversies and current events that have shaped the election thus far… AI, somehow, might not be one of them.
Writer and social str...
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July 9, 2024 • 40 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: Bezos vs. the British invasion.
The Washington Post, like most legacy media outlets, can’t seem to catch a break. Right now, the newsroom is reeling under leadership changeups — and an editor who’s part of what appears to be a British invasion into American media leadership.
It’s hard to imagine Jeff Bezos, a soon-to-be trillionaire, as anyone’s folk hero. When he bought the Post in 2013, many ...
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July 2, 2024 • 46 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: get back to work.
When your job becomes obsolete, is it the government’s job to teach you to do something else?
That’s the theory behind federal workforce training programs – which have existed, in various forms, for a long time. The problem is that studies are starting to show that these programs don’t provide much of an edge to workers… and that the jobs they place for might not be good jobs....
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June 25, 2024 • 43 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: aprons off.
Has there ever been a better time to be a woman in America? Probably not… but that’s a low bar. Modern feminism is having trouble making a case for itself, in the face of a challenging economy and backslides in reproductive rights. So when women on social media present themselves as traditional wives and homemakers, achieving the self-actualization of heteronormativity, have they give...
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June 18, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: all aren’t welcome.
Pride Month festivities have a complicated legacy. On the one hand, being out, proud and supportive in public has been a game-changing force for the LGBTQ+ community; on the other hand, pride began as a protest, and the movement has been, and is, at odds with the status quo and acceptability politics.
So, should uniformed cops be welcome at Pride? Should politicians like Jill...
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June 11, 2024 • 48 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: base instincts.
Democratic strategists are reportedly freaking out about Joe Biden. Despite his opponent’s felony convictions, Biden remains unpopular and isn’t polling well in swing states. Young voters are mad about his handling of the war in Gaza; many Americans remain convinced that the economy is bad and the president is to blame for it.
So if strategists’ worst fears come to pass… how much...
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June 4, 2024 • 37 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: placing bets.
Betting on the results of elections is illegal in the United States – though that hasn’t stopped sportsbooks overseas from cashing in. And that doesn’t mean that Americans haven’t placed bets on election results in the U.S., either; that’s a tradition that dates back centuries.
There’s a push now to make elections betting legal on American soil — and for American companies to run o...
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May 28, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: self-limiting.
Congress is historically unpopular; it’s one of the few things that people on both sides of the aisle can agree on. But what could be done to actually fix our legislature?
Term limits are often posed as a good potential start. But there are those who argue that that’s not the best way to fix our legislature — and the pool of people who feel that way isn’t exclusively career politi...
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May 21, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: don’t scare me like that, colonizer.
Understanding the legacy of colonialism is a project relatively few Americans have undertaken — and most have done so only relatively recently, at that.
But understanding the forces that led to the foundation of this country, and the creation of modern racism as we know it, is an important project. And it’s one that is also increasingly hard to bring into sch...
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May 14, 2024 • 44 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: live from Seattle.
Hear Me Out had its first-ever live show on May 4, 2024 — and it was such a great conversation that we wanted to make sure our podcast listeners heard it, too.
The Cascade PBS Ideas Festival was full of smart, unconventional thinkers on the biggest issues facing this country… so what better place to have a conversation about Donald Trump, and the future of this country?
It’...
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May 7, 2024 • 39 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: prosecuting parents.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents didn’t pull the trigger that killed 4 students in 2021 — but they’ve been sentenced to prison time for it all the same.
School shootings are devastatingly common in this country, but punishing the parents of the killer is a new tactic of handling the aftermath. Even if you think the Crumbleys were bad parents, though, the questions should be posed: ...
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April 30, 2024 • 44 mins
On today’s episode of Hear Me Out: solidarity?
College campuses across the country are grappling with protests and occupations in the name of a free Palestine. Many hundreds of students, faculty, and outside community members have been arrested in tense clashes with police — called onto campuses by the universities themselves.
Student protestors have shaped public discourse on matters like war and the environment for many decade...
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