The Facebook Files & The Gutenberg Parenthesis (A Tale of Today, Episode #14)
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A two-part meditation on the history of journalism and the fate of investigative journalism under tech fascism begins with the model of Ida Tarbell, the epochal Wall Street Journal reporting on Facebook in 2021 [6:00], the professionalization of journalism during the Gilded Age and interbellum periods [38:00], the relationship between Silicon Valley and news organizations in the 21st century [54:00], the legacy of newspapers [63:00], and a periodization of print media [71:00].
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Cast (in order of appearance):
Gil Duran is a freelance journalist who has written extensively about tech fascism for The New Republic, among others. He also has a newsletter and a new podcast: The Nerd Reich.
Jeff Horwitz is a technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal and, who was the lead investigator on “The Facebook Files.” That experience combined with new reporting became Broken Code: Inside Facebook & The Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets (Doubleday, 2023)
Andie Tucher is the H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and the author of Not Exactly Lying: Fake News & Fake Journalism In American History (Columbia UP, 2022).
Jacob Silverman is a freelance reporter and the author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk & The Radicalization of Silicon Valley, forthcoming from Bloomsbury.
Jeff Jarvis is Visiting Professor at the Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism and the author of The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print & Its Lessons For The Age of The Internet (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
Soundtrack:
All music for this season of The American Vandal Podcast comes from the Tennessee-based roots ensemble DownRiver Collective. Most of the tracks come from their most recent EP, Off The Shelf. You can purchase it direct from the band here. It’s also available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Tracks featured in this episode include “Days Don’t Stop,” “Wasted Time,” “Steam Whistle,” “Kettleridge,” and “Daylight Breaks.”
Narration:
Excerpts from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s The Gilded Age come from the audiobook edition produced by SNR Audio and narrated by Nathan Osgood. Available at Audible, as well as other audiobook retailers. SNR has an extensive catalog of professionally-narrated adaptations of 19th-century Anglophone fiction, including The Complete Mark Twain Collection.
Nathan Osgood is an actor and voice artist who has being appearing in films, scripted television, video games, podcasts, and audiobooks since the mid-’90s. In 2018, he played Mark Twain in the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly vehicle, Holmes and Watson.
Excerpts in this episode come from chapters 12 and 28.
Episode Bibliography:
Jodi Dean, Capital’s Grave: Neofeudalism & The New Class Struggle (Verso, 2025)
Gil Duran, “Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarians Idea” The New Republic (July 22, 2024)
Gil Duran, “The Tech Baron Seeking To Purge San Francisco of ‘Blues'” The New Republic (April 26, 2024)
Gil Duran, “The People of Solano County Versus The Next Tech-Billionaire Dystopia” The New Republic (January 4, 2024)
Gil Duran, “The Most Powerful Crypto Bro in Washington Has Very Weird Beliefs” The New Republic (October 1, 2024)
Gil Duran, “The Tech Plutocrats Dreaming of A Right-Wing San Francisco” The New Republic (February 12, 2024)
Cedric Durand, How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-Feudalism (Verso, 2020) [French Edition, 2020]
Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain & The Gilded Age: The Book That Named An Era (Southern Methodist UP, 1965)
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press As An Agent of Change (Cambridge UP, 1980)
Stephanie Gorton, Citizen Reporters: S.S. McClure, Ida Tarbell, & the Magazine That Rewrote America (HarperCollins, 2020)
Jeff Horwitz, The Broken Code: Inside Facebook & The Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets (Doubleday, 2023)
Jeff Horwitz et al, “The Facebook Files” Wall Street Journal (2021) [“The Facebook Files, A Podcast Series” The Journal (2021)]
Jeff Jarvis, The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print & Its Lessons For The Age of The Internet (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Jeff Jarvis, The Web We Weave: Why We Must Reclaim The Internet From Moguls, Misanthropes, & Moral Panic (Basic Books, 2024)
Matthew Kirschenbaum, “Prepare For The Textpocalypse” The Atlantic (March 8, 2023)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Nicholas Kusnetz & Katie Surma, “A Lawsuit From Backers of a ‘Startup City’ Could Bankrupt Honduras” Wired (September 28, 2024)
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (1922)
Walter Lippmann, Liberty & The News (1920) [2007 Princeton UP Edition]
Walter Lippmann & Charles Merz, “A Test Of The News” New Republic (August 4, 1920)
Marshal McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (U. Toronto, 1962)
Amelia Minkin, “Big Tech Cozies Up To New Administration After Spending Record Sums On Lobbying Last Year” IssueOne (January 22, 2025)
Andrew Pettegree, Brand Luther (Penguin, 2015)
Thomas Pettitt, “The Gutenberg Parenthesis: Oral Tradition & Digital Technologies” MIT Media Studies (April 1, 2010)
Matt Seybold, “Authoritarianism Is The Bailout” The American Vandal (February 21, 2025)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Gilded Network” (March 20, 2025)
Matt Seybold et al, “Half Castle ‘Gainst The Scott Walkers” The American Vandal Podcast (December 17, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Historical Novel” The American Vandal Podcast (October 15, 2024)
Jacob Silverman, Gilded Rage: Elon Musk & The Radicalization of Silicon Valley (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Jacob Silverman, Terms of Service: Social Media & The Price of Constant Connection (Harper, 2015)
Quinn Slobodian, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals & The Dream of A World Without Democracy (Metropolitan, 2023)
Ida Tarbell, The History of The Standard Oil Company (1904)
Andie Tucher, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News & Fake Journalism in American History (Columbia UP, 2022)
Andie Tucher, Froth & Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, & the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium (UNC Press, 1994)
Mark Twain, Correspondence With Henry Huttleston Rogers, 1893-1909 (U. California, 1969)
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) [2006 Modern Library Edition]
Yanis Varoufakis, Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Melville House, 2024)
McKenzie Wark, Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? (Verso, 2019)
Sarah Wynn-Williams, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, & Lost Idealism (Macmillan, 2025)