Mark Ames Interviewed On NPR Radio About “Vanity Fair” Profile, And About Drugs, Whores, & The Sorry State Of American Journalism

eXiled Radio / March 25, 2010

By Team eXiled

Mark Ames joins Vanity Fair writer James Verini for an interview on the NPR radio show “Here & Now” with host Robin Young in Boston. They talk about the incredible 11-year history of the Moscow newspaper “The eXile” which was the subject of a recent Vanity Fair feature profile. Ames also talks about some favorite old themes: drugs, prostitutes, and how the sorry state of American journalism pushed him and former co-editor Matt Taibbi into increasingly desperate acts of journalistic extremism.

Listen here to the interview, which ran earlier this week.

(Or download mp3 file.)

Read more about the Vanity Fair profile on The eXile by clicking here. And read James Verini’s Vanity Fair profile on The eXile, “Lost In Exile: The unlikely life and sudden death of The Exile, Russia’s angriest newspaper” by clicking here.

Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal, and the co-author of The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove).

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19 Comments

Add your own

1. Pascual Gorostieta | March 25th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Man look that picture Mark is about to get his dick wet.
2. Jeanne | March 25th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Great interview. Even though the heads of Jeffrey Sachs and Larry Summers haven’t wound up on pikes (yet) you have fought the good fight. Thank you.
3. John | March 25th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Nice interview, Ames
4. Sweet Jesus | March 25th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
NPR Radio = ATM machine.
5. brent | March 25th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
One quibble: Here and Now is not an NPR show – it is distributed instead by Public Radio International (PRI). Yes there is a difference.
6. Harry Ballsach | March 25th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Ran Prieur “I went to pick up someone at the airport” + Ames on NPR = now everyone’s sold out.
7. Harry Ballsach | March 25th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Oh – and American + more than a few roobles to rub together + russian girls = about to get dick wet.
8. Rate Crimes | March 26th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Inspiring, as always.
9. Eric F | March 26th, 2010 at 11:41 am
All the best writers were Russian or American.
10. Bill Rush | March 26th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Why the hell do they keep mentioning Matt Taibbi? John Dolan is the primary reason the Exiled achieved greatness!
11. Antonio B. | March 26th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I dont even need to listen to the radio interview. Your badassitude has already been cemented to the inside of my skull with that picture of the flock of Breezys’ surrounding you. I can see it in everyones eyes in that picture. The moment of glory comes with a wink of the eye, a bit of charm, and then in a display of dominance your chest puffs out and you take the pick of the litter.
12. literary meanderer | March 26th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Hey remember that piece you published in the Exile by the guy who was portrayed as the bad, druggie boyfriend in Lying Together? That one stuck in my mind. Eventually I ended up reading a book by the dude’s mom–poet Deborah Digges. Did you know she committed suicide by jumping off a football stadium at UMass about a year ago?
I just remembered how I even heard of Digges in the first place… in the Exile.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/poet_tufts_professor_deborah_d.html?category=Amherst&category=Deaths
13. Coke-n-acid | March 27th, 2010 at 10:39 am
It didn’t say in the Vanity Fair piece whether Mark Ames’s brand-new Buick is fully loaded or not. Is it?
14. Jeanne | March 27th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
@12: Wow, that’s a hilariously brutal takedown. Thanks for mentioning it. I hadn’t seen it before.
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7656&IBLOCK_ID=35
15. captain america | March 27th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
them are rooskiye in the picture? thought they were ameryekanki. although, come to think of it, they are a bit too easy on the eye for ameryekanki, aren’t they?
16. RecoverylessRecovery | March 28th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
I gauge the sorry state of American journalism every time I read the NYT.
I’d consider Vanity Fair to be equal to toilet paper …if only it DIDN’T come with those waxy, unabsorbant pages that only smear but don’t really clean.
And drugs & whores looks like what Mark Ames will soon be enjoying with those babes in the picture.
You lucky fucker.
17. Anonymous | March 30th, 2010 at 12:52 am
“how the sorry state of American journalism pushed him and former co-editor Matt Taibbi into increasingly desperate acts of journalistic extremism”?
You poor, poor babies! And here I thought that you weren’t desperate victims, but were instead journalist extremists, and extremists generally, and drug takers, bar brawlers, and whore hoppers, because it was fun and sexy and at the time you were wild young men who were into that sort of thing. Guess you’d have stayed home and gotten a nice office job instead, if American journalism hadn’t been in such a sorry state.
But at least I can still take you at your word about this, and trust you guys to force your readers to confront the brutal, unpleasant truth, even when it suggests that not everyone likes or wants OfficeWorld, right? Because I really hate those other writers whose every word I have to comb through, looking for shameless ass covering, buck passing, career building, conflicts of interest, and the creeping onset of the sold out middle aged mindset.
18. Skol Zafronov | March 30th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
You bad people. I drive cab in Brooklyn now and took ESL so I take you own now. You American women hores not Russian woman. Bye.
19. Alex | June 2nd, 2010 at 7:49 am
How about I shut the fuck up and bow before Ames & Co?