Why I’ve Decided to Take My Podcast Off Spotify by Roxane Gay

With characteristic clarity, Roxane Gay writes about removing her current podcast from Spotify, part of an exodus of major figures in response to the streaming audio provider’s generous funding of the health-hazard pontificating of the sixth-billed cast member of Newsradio. She’s careful to acknowledge her own hypocrisies in terms of other problematic companies she works with, which only strengthens the power of her argument. As plainly as I’ve seen anyone manage it, Gay lays out the difference between censorship and curation, pointedly explaining why criticism of an irresponsible media host, including criticism expressed through business decisions, isn’t a betrayal of the principle of free speech. This article is published by The New York Times.

How to Make Sense of Our Covid Losses, Big and Small by Kathryn Schulz

The New York Times also gives some column inches over to New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz for an article that’s a companion piece of sorts to her new memoir. With empathy and poignancy, Schulz conveys the sense of disconnection that comes from living through this public health crisis, particularly the way that the mass of feelings that come with regular, day-to-day existence can be warped by the vastness of COVID-19 dilemma.