Michael Barbaro — it’s pronounced Bar-bar-oh, as any listener of The Daily will tell you, probably while mimicking his distinct delivery — is in London at the same time as Donald Trump, which is amusing given the President’s animosity towards him.
Back when Trump was a plain old billionaire, he revered journalists from the New York Times. They’d be patched straight through to his office if they called for a quote and treated to treacle-thick praise. “I remember him saying, ‘Michael Barbaro, that’s a big byline.’ It wasn’t a big byline. But it was his ritual of flattery.”
But as Trump’s election campaign got underway, the relationship soured. Barbaro co-wrote an investigation into Trump’s relationship with women, which rattled Trump so much he demanded Barbaro’s resignation over Twitter — an accolade indeed.
Now Barbaro, 39, is very much “a big byline”. He is the host of New York Times podcast The Daily, a new media experiment that has been so successful since its launch in February 2017, it is one of the most downloaded in the world (nearly two million times a day).
About 75 per cent of listeners to the 20-minute segment — which goes out at 6am, US East Coast time — are under 40, and it funnels an entirely new audience through to the paper; two out of 10 don’t even live in the States. When bosses see him in the corridor they want to pull him to their bosoms.
He’s in London to host an event for Intelligence Squared this evening on The Rise of Nationalism Across the Globe, but he’s also been at the BBC talking podcasts, and immediately after our meeting he will Skype a class of Stanford students about podcasts (“Well I hope it’s about podcasting or I don’t know what I’m going to say”).
What’s notable is that when Barbaro, a former political correspondent, was first beckoned over from his desk to ask if he’d be interested in this role, he knew nothing about podcasts. One of his first questions was, ‘Will I write another story?’ (He hasn’t since.)
The show is highly polished, highly produced and always opens: “From The New York Times. I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.” The topic can be anything: a breaking political story, the history of Weight Watchers, The Moral Complexities of Working With Julian Assange, A Russian Assassin Tells His Story, Chinese Surveillance (Parts 1 & 2). Many involve interviewing his NYT colleagues — an impressive bunch of earnest, committed news nerds, not unlike himself.
There are reassuring cosy touches: Barbaro’s “hmms” in response to his interviewees, and the much remarked upon use of the word “so” to begin a sentence. The trust they have built up with their audience “means we can tackle theoretically boring stuff… the Venezuelan economy and the Iran nuclear deal”. The audience can’t get enough (they have nine million unique listeners a month).
And there was something timely about the show’s launch a month after Trump’s inauguration. As he began trashing newspapers, calling journalists “enemies of the people”, always ready with his reflexive refrain “Fake news!” this informal offspring of the strict, stuffy New York Times in print seemed utterly of the moment. “The great flaw of traditional journalism is that it’s this voice from on high that hands you the news,” says Barbaro. “It projects no uncertainty. When people question your authority and all you’re giving them is authority, that becomes a problem.”
Yet here were “a bunch of reporters fumbling around with microphones, figuring out the story in real time, acknowledging when they don’t understand something, at times being emotional as they are telling stories, interacting with people, checking back in — ‘Do you mean…?’ — so all of that ends up quite accidentally being an antidote. Our timing was lucky.”
Certainly they are reversing the fortunes of traditional media. He’s bemused behind his spectacles that People magazine voted him Sexiest Man Alive, although funny on the subject, saying: “So when I got the email, I have to confess I had visions of something grand. Then you read the fine print and discover there is a media subset, and in that subset there is cable news, print, audio…” When the issue came out he’d nearly reached the end before finding a small picture of himself. “I mean look at me,” he says. “I am not sexy.”
Well, he sort of is. He’s also solicitous, worrying that I have enough, worrying he has “screwed” me time-wise (he hasn’t), checking that I think his outfit is OK for the photograph. It is exactly what you imagine a New York Times journalist to wear: open-necked soft-cotton shirt, trousers of an unmemorable colour. Questions about his private life cause him to shift in his seat. “I have a closed Instagram account, this is all you need to know,” he laughs. (Pressed, he admits it’s mostly plates of food. “No filter. I’ve been told filters are out.”)
Actually, he broke up with his husband and fellow Yale graduate Timothy Levin shortly after he took on The Daily and that “wasn’t a coincidence”. The show “was a massive change, and it exposed things to me about my life. It made me reflect on who I was. Anytime you go through a major life change it tests every relationship.” Since his marriage break-up he has begun a relationship with Lisa Tobin, The Times' executive producer for audio.
Barbaro is most confident talking about journalism. In true The Daily style he takes me back “about 20 years ago” when he was 12, with a paper round. “You’d have a bundle of newspapers and you’d crack them open and it was intoxicating.” He asked his mother to subscribe to the New York Times. A librarian, she’s responsible for “my love of words”.
The first big news he recalls was the first Iraq War. He would be glued to CNN. “I knew all the names of the reporters and I would say their names out loud as they said them.” And cut out the station’s letters to stick above his bedroom window. Back then, journalism was still a heroic career. “The thunder clouds hadn’t arrived.”
But a genius aspect of The Daily is its resuscitation of the newsroom. “When we started there was scepticism: could a newsroom make great audio? But these journalists were making extraordinary audio every day in interviews, then deleting the audio. So from the beginning we said, ‘Record everything, send everything, the producers will comb through it, figure out what’s interesting and cut it.’”
He says the key ingredient is the New York Times journalist. “The quality of journalism, their rigour. I have colleagues who have spent 30 years covering the National Security Agency or 40 years covering diplomacy with North Korea.” Whereas before they’d be booked by BBC or National Public Radio, now “we just walk over to their desk”.
So in today’s world is The Daily the most effective way to tell a news story? “Yes.” He’s definite. “I really think it is.”
Listen to the event on Intelligence Squared’s YouTube channel.
