Ross Douthat: The Exit Interview | The Ezra Klein Show

My colleague Ross Douthat is leaving The Times after 17 years to become a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” Before he goes, I’m asking him a few questions.

Douthat has had a unique vantage point on the news media and politics over the last few decades. He’s typically held the role of explaining the right to more liberal audiences, starting as an undergrad, when he was a conservative columnist for The Harvard Crimson. Douthat has also lived through the seismic changes in the media from the both the inside and the outside: He’s made his career at legacy media institutions, but I first got to know him – and spar with him – as an early-2000s blogger (and I have the 20-year-old Bloggingheads.tv clips to prove it).

So what does Douthat make of the transformations he’s lived through? How did blogging change journalism? How did a Republican Party powered by evangelical Christians become a political party dominated by Catholics and pagans? What has he learned about persuasion from writing for liberal audiences? And with the resources of “60 Minutes” behind him, will he finally crack the U.F.O. story once and for all?

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:03:57] What was early blogging like?

[00:08:51] Blogging as a conversational debate

[00:15:39] Being a conservative in liberal institutions

[00:18:16] How to write persuasively

[00:26:37] The decline of social conservatism

[00:31:12] The rise of post-religious politics

[00:38:50] The search for strength in conservatism

[00:41:10] The "national greatness" split

[00:44:30] The shift in political character

[00:49:10] The left's relationship with religion

[00:57:40] What has media taught Ross?

[01:11:32] Book recommendations

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