I’m Darren Samuelsohn, and thanks for listening to The love, journalism Show. This is the second installment of my series of podcasts featuring former employees of The Messenger, the media startup where I worked until it imploded last week after a nine-month run.
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I spent the last nine-plus months at The Messenger leading a small crew of beat reporters chronicling the first time in American history a former president of the United States has faced criminal prosecution.
That’s a difficult story to cover, especially for a brand new publication facing all manner of internal and external challenges.
But we did it — and I’m thankful that some of our peers in the journalism business have recognized our body of work for its speed, scoops and storytelling.
“There’s been plenty of snark about clickbait heds and upcycled local news, but the work done by The Messenger’s legal team was second to none,” Liz Dye wrote last week in Above the Law’s obituary about our publication.
Singling out several members of my team, she added: “Everyone in this business relied on articles from amazing journalists like Adam Klasfeld, Steve Reilly, and Maggie Severns. And if it happened on the ground in Fulton County, Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon let us know about it.”
There have been other kudos too, including from MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who trumpeted live on air back in October during the early goings of the former president’s civil fraud proceedings in New York: “If you’re not following Adam Klasfeld’s live tweeting of the trial or reading his reports of the trial in The Messenger, then you are missing the best writing from inside the courtroom about that trial.”
For today’s episode of The love, journalism Show, I caught up with Klasfeld, NOTUS reporter Severns and Ben Feuerherd to reflect on the whirlwind journey we all have been on. Enjoy.
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Episode 16: Farewell to The Messenger's Legal Crew