Astead Herndon bot

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[unofficial mirror of @AsteadWH] - no longer active Host of @vox.com’s America, Actually podcast; Political analyst @cnn.com; Former @nytimes.com @bostonglobe.com; Full time Cristian Romero + RHSLC enthusiast

Women face a 75% increased risk of domestic violence when attempting to separate from their partners, per @EndingViolence. Across the the world, the greatest threat to any woman's safety is her partner — by an astonishing margin. May it not be overlooked in today's reporting.
Dr. Heavenly Kimes with Astead Herndon
By removing Donald Trump from the center of the political discussion, I think it gives space to see that new story more clearly. I have always believed this president, while a uniquely authoritarian actor with unique electoral traits, has exploited a political system whose distance from the concerns of most Americans made it even more vulnerable for exploitation. And it's only in flipping our focus, from the concerns of elected officials and the elite bubble of industry and media that follows them to the voters at large, that we political journalists see that distance most clearly. America, Actually will seek to see the country for that diversity of opinion. I joined Vox last year because I want to cut through the noise, amplify voices that political journalism typically hasn't amplified, and help audiences understand the issues that really matter in American politics today. With this new show, we want to create a weekly space to think about the people and ideas who are driving the country's post-Trump future - and prepare us for the 2028 election along the way.
In a decade in political journalism, I've gone to 30-plus states and followed elections big and small, in hopes of doing just that. As a political reporter and host of The Run-Up podcast at the New York Times, I sought to expand the Times' coverage of Black voters, Midwesterners, and evangelicals — communities I felt confident were underrepresented. I was the lead reporter for the presidential campaigns of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and then-Vice President Kamala Harris, exploring the values and limits of representation. I found a niche doing trend stories about Trump voters, either by attending rallies or going to community events (like Trumpstock; "Woodstock for Trump fans," or Charlie Kirk's Turning Point events) to hear from his voters directly. And what I found most was a country that was more politically attuned than it's often given credit for. Working-class people who did not need the latest revised figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to know that the economy was slowing. Voters who could not name gerrymandering — but intuitively understood that Congress had grown more extreme than ever. An electorate that more or less agreed that the mere prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 was a reflection of a political system that had become completely untethered from the desires of its citizenry. The whole narrative of "polarization" came from the process of sorting those views into Team Red and Team Blue. It was not inherent.
The only people with worse poll numbers than President Donald Trump are the political media that cover him. We, the journalists, are in a crisis: of trust, relevance, and being swamped by an attention economy that will either replace us with Claude or an influencer. The skills of traditional reporting: storytelling, man-on-the-street interviews, even the language of "investigations," are the template for the modern TikToker. But it's the process of journalism - fact-checking, waiting for comment, leaning into nuance over sensationalism, or even leading with curiosity generally - that is growing to be a lonelier pursuit, competing for attention from an audience increasingly inundated by hot takes. I'm hoping my new show, America, Actually, will be different. As the country marches toward the 2026 midterms and the first open presidential primary in a decade, it feels like the first steps of a new story for a changing nation. Emerging communities, artificial intelligence, a rapidly shifting work economy, and growing risk of global conflict - all things that should have been front and center in the last presidential election — can now no longer be ignored. The question of "who do we want to be?" is open, and answering it will require the type of journalism that prioritizes the messy over the clean.
@mlcalderone Vox launching "America, Actually," a video-first podcast hosted by @AsteadWH. Launched in partnership with @Report4America, the show will explore the question "What does American politics look like without Trump at the center?"
America, Actually with Astead Herndon By Vox Media (image of Spotify share image of podcast cover)
Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI Bari Weiss's makeover of CBS News has nothing to do with ratings or profit. It would be nice but it's largely incidental to why she was brought in by the Ellisons Aidan McLaughlin @aidnmclaughlin • 19h What's so confounding about the attempt to meddle with/ potentially gut 60 Minutes is it's arguably the one thing that's working. 10-12 million people tune into every episode. It's the most watched primetime broadcast in America. Why destroy that audience?
GRIDIRON AWARDS DINNER 2026 Event Details Milwaukee Press Club Announces 2026 Sacred Cat and Headliner Awards Astead Herndon named Sacred Cat honoree Ken-David Masur and Mary McCormick to receive Headliner Award The Milwaukee Press Club has named Astead Herndon, a host and editorial director at Vox, as the club's 2026 Sacred Cat Award honoree. The award, given annually since 1973, recognizes excellence in journalism at the national level.
The Milwaukee Press Club has named Astead Herndon, a host and editorial director at Vox, as the club's 2026 Sacred Cat Award honoree. The award, given annually since 1973, recognizes excellence in journalism at the national level.
Pretty disgusted but not shocked that the New York Times headline for this story is: "Israel Says Michigan Synagogue Attacker's Brother Was a Hezbollah Commander." the reporting in the story does not even suggest an attempt at independent corroboration. [NYT text excerpt] The synagogue attacker, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, was a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon. Four of his relatives were killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 5: his brother, Ibrahim, and his two children, as well as another brother, Qassem, according to a Lebanese official and a Muslim leader in Michigan. Israel said it had confirmed the death of Ibrahim Mohamad Ghazali and his role in Hezbollah after an intelligence analysis but provided no details about how it had verified the information. It did not link the attacker in Michigan to Hezbollah. A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk to the media, denied that Ibrahim or his family were affiliated with the group. He told The New York Times the Michigan attacker had been motivated by revenge for his family.
@TheStalwart The unemployment rate for white workers hasn't budged, and is actually a little lower than it was a year ago. The move higher in the headline unemployment rate is being borne by Black, Hispanic, Asian workers
Michael Calderone @mlcalderone Since Saturday morning, Trump's spoken by phone — typically briefly — with reporters from ABC, CNN, Fox News, MS NOW, the New York Times, Washington Post, Axios, the Atlantic, New York Post, and Daily Mail. Anyone the president isn't picking up for?
Adam Rubenstein @RubensteinAdam "A source with intimate knowledge of the joint American-Israeli plan informs me that plans for the 'day after' have long been in the works. Chances are good, he said, that when the guns fall silent, a unified coalition ready to take the country in a new direction will emerge." Donald Trump's Strategy of Decapitation From thefp.com
Book Launch: Jazmine Ulloa presents El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory In conversation with Astead Herndon Wine reception to follow New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa launches her new book El Paso, a sweeping human history, revealing violence, power, and privilege at play in America's most famous border town. An extraordinary, can't-look-away reported history, El Paso is a brave new work of narrative nonfiction that gives new voice and perspective to history that has long been checked at the border, or told through the lens of white men alone. Charting the history of El Paso through five families, from the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican Repatriation, to the shifting immigration laws under Reagan and Trump and the violence and bloodshed brought on by the drug war, El Paso captures a place often misunderstood or forgotten by the rest of the country, and the worla. Ulloa discusses the book with distinguished journalist Astead Herndon, before an audience Q&A and signing.
intern @intern if your friends aren't talking about: - claude code - creatine - openclaw - looksmaxxing - ai agents - taste - prediction markets - mac minis you should be grateful & cherish those people