Plain English with Derek Thompson

In the mid-20th century, a group of media and communications scholars proposed that the shift from spoken to written language—from orality to literacy—transformed our politics, our media, our social relations, and even our sense of consciousness. Today we’re undergoing another shift: from a literate culture to something stranger—a post-literate world awash in social media and digital communications in which oral traditions are making a comeback. Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal, the cohost of the Odd Lots podcast, has called this one of the most important trends in the world. Today he explains how he got hooked on orality theory and why it’s the skeleton key that unlocks so many oddities of the modern world.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Joe Weisenthal

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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In his epic cover story for The Atlantic this month, staff writer Josh Tyrangiel spoke to dozens of economists, workers, tech CEOs, and AI experts about the danger that artificial intelligence might pose to the labor force. Is AI developing the capacity to automate and even replace millions of white-collar jobs, as many technologists and some economists predict? Or is this a normal technology that, like previous generations of technology, will have a much slower effect on the workforce? We cover several scenarios before asking: Why does it seem like nobody in politics is paying close enough attention to this story?

Links: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/03/ai-economy-labor-market-transformation/685731/

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Josh Tyrangiel

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Hello! I’m back from paternity leave just in time to talk about the biggest media earthquake of the year (so far): the Washington Post meltdown. For decades, the Post was a journalistic gem with superior coverage of politics. Last week, billionaire owner Jeff Bezos decided to gut roughly a third of the staff after the paper lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the last few years.

Today’s guest is Jim VandeHei, the cofounder of Politico and Axios and a former Post reporter. We talk about the decades-long rise and fall of the Post before zooming out to talk about the most important changes in news media over the past 20 years, the secret of 21st-century media success, and the coming storm of AI.

To read more about Derek’s opening comments on how the future of the news industry is going back to past, check out his Atlantic article on the subject here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/post-advertising-future-media/578917/

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek Thompson

Guest: Jim VandeHei

Producer: Devon Baroldi
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Throughout December and January, we’ve been re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond, and today's episode marks the end of our "best of" series for this year! This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!“What’s the Matter With America’s Food?” originally aired September 26, 2025.If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]: Derek ThompsonGuests: Julia Belluz and Kevin HallProducer: Devon Baroldi
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Throughout December and January, we’re going to be re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond. This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!

“This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst” originally aired September 23, 2025.

If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected].

Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Paul KedroskyProducer: Devon Baroldi
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