Margarita Noriega will be appearing at the Difficult to Name Fall Spectacular Sept. 10.
You're the absolute best. What's that like?
Ryan, you're a very gracious and unforgettable guy. I have no doubt you're going to be known as a great, great success who everybody talks about. But many people say that I am not the best. (Crowd boos) Many people say that I am the worst! Can you believe it? I will leave that up to you and the First Amendment people. OK? You know what I mean.
As executive editor at Newsweek, you've made Newsweek much cooler. What's that like?
Well... let me deflect to talk about what I find cool... I do think that the style of writing which people enjoy read the most online, in terms of how long a person will choose to read a single story, ends up being the sort of stories that a magazine best produces and values. That's not intuitive, I realize... No one says, "Oh! This magazine feature is such a great blog post!" but the best blogs in 2016 are producing features. And features is what Newsweek does best. We have come full circle on an old media value proposition which, perhaps surprisingly, survived the new media age. People love to read longer stuff on their phones. We have an excuse to pursue stories that take more time to develop. Taking time to make stuff better is very cool. I sort of feel like I get to sell this thing that everyone is remembering they loved. It's fun.
What can people expect from your discussion with Stefan Becket re: the 2016 election?
Stefan and I hope to use our discussion as a therapy session because, let's admit it: this election is fucked up. 2016 is a bad year.