Michael Barbaro on Covering Today’s America

About the event The La Follette School is committed to promoting thoughtful, informed conversations about public affairs from multiple perspectives. In this spirit, Michael Barbaro, award-winning journalist and host of The Daily, will discuss the challenges and opportunities of covering America during a period of political polarization.

Drawing on years of reporting and interviewing newsmakers across the country, Barbaro will share insights into what issues are shaping public discourse today, and how media coverage influences public understanding of policy and government. During this moderated conversation with Susan Webb Yackee, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, Barbaro will reflect on his career in journalism and discuss recent efforts to promote civil dialogue and whether finding common ground is possible in these turbulent times.

This in-person presentation is part of our Journalist in Residence and Paul Offner speaker series. Michael Barbaro Michael Barbaro created and hosts The Daily, the popular five-day-a-week podcast from The New York Times.

Since its creation in 2017, The Daily has become the most popular news podcast in the world, with more than 3 million listeners. The Daily has won a DuPont-Columbia University Award for audio excellence and has been named a top podcast of the year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, Esquire, Adweek, The New Yorker, and New York Magazine.

Before hosting The Daily, Barbaro was a national political correspondent for The New York Times and host of The Run-Up, a podcast about the 2016 presidential race. Previously, he covered New York’s City Hall and the U.S. retail industry.

Upon graduation with a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale in 2002, he joined The Washington Post as a reporter covering the biotechnology industry, eventually joining The New York Times in 2005. Sponsors Michael Barbaro’s visit is made possible by the Kohl Initiative, the Paul Offner Lecture Series, UW-Madison’s Office of Strategic Communications, and an anonymous donor.

Parking The closest parking is in Lot 6 at Helen C. White Hall, 600 N.

Park Street.