The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: Marshall Curry and Judd Apatow on “The New Yorker at 100,” a Documentary

Date: December 9, 2025
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Marshall Curry (Director), Judd Apatow (Executive Producer), Jelani Cobb (Interviewer & New Yorker staff writer/Dean, Columbia Journalism School)

Overview

This episode offers an in-depth conversation about “The New Yorker at 100,” a documentary marking the centennial of The New Yorker magazine, now streaming on Netflix. Academy Award-winning director Marshall Curry and executive producer Judd Apatow join Jelani Cobb to share insights into the film’s creation, the daunting challenge of encapsulating a century of literary history, and what makes The New Yorker an enduring, culturally significant institution. Touching on the magazine's obsessive editorial process, historical evolution, humor, and its culture of outsider voices, the dialogue is a rich blend of behind-the-scenes storytelling, reflection, and humor.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

The Challenge of Capturing a Century in 90 Minutes

• Scope & Structure
  • Curry compares the challenge to “trying to make a 90-minute film about America.”
  • The team approached it as a “tasting menu” (Curry, 04:02), selecting standout historical events and personal stories that shaped the magazine and culture.
  • Many worthy stories and interviews were left out: “It could have been a 10-part Ken Burns series. And it would not have been boring if we’d had the bandwidth to do that.” (Curry, 04:12)
• Apatow’s Role
  • Apatow shares his trepidation about doing justice to a deeply respected institution and credits Curry’s directorial choices: “For me, I just always think, can every part of it be great?... That’s what Marshall captured.” (Apatow, 04:32)
  • The filmmaking process mirrored the magazine’s tight production cycle, full of tough editorial choices and time constraints, akin to “making an issue of the magazine.” (Apatow, 05:09)

Crafting the Documentary

• Archival Dilemmas
  • The team started with a “greatest hits” list of top New Yorker pieces, narrowing them by story impact and visual potential (Curry, 07:29).
  • Not all filmed interviews and researched stories made the cut: “You have to kill your darlings, and it was incredible. Darling of Darlings.” (Curry, 26:39)
• Editorial Philosophy as Subject
  • The New Yorker’s “obsession” with process and accuracy is depicted through extended editorial meetings and meticulous fact-checking: “...a five hour meeting where they literally go through paragraph by paragraph and argue about whether a word could be a better word…” (Curry, 23:40)
  • Curry likens the magazine’s obsession to the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi—a metaphor for devotion to craft (Curry, 24:35).

Personal Relationships to The New Yorker

• Judd Apatow’s Discovery
  • He candidly admits: “I’m very embarrassed to answer this question... The answer is 42 years old.” (Apatow, 10:46)
  • His entry was social—embarrassed by not being able to discuss The New Yorker with colleagues and friends, he became a fan relatively late.
• Marshall Curry’s Experience
  • Curry grew up with parents who subscribed, started with cartoons, then became a reader, though he notes he wasn’t a “fanatic.”
  • Both guests emphasize the passionate and sometimes obsessive community around the publication and how its staff’s creativity drew them in (Curry, 11:31).

The Magazine’s Outsider Perspective

• Non-Native Editors
  • Curry reflects on how four of five editors-in-chief have not been native New Yorkers, supporting E.B. White’s notion that the magazine is shaped by outsiders seeking the city’s magic (19:19).
  • “If you have an outsider’s view, you can see things that insiders can’t see.” (Curry, 19:19)
  • E.B. White’s “three New Yorks” delineate the city’s energy: stability (natives), churn/money (commuters), and passion (newcomers).

Humor and Editorial Tone

• Centrality of Humor
  • The documentary highlights the publication’s origins as a humor magazine, evolving in tone as the years passed: “We sort of focus on the cartoons near the front and then the politics happens. And then closer to Tina Brown’s era, we discover celebrity profiles…” (Curry, 29:21)

Editorial Process and Fact-Checking

• The Grueling Process
  • Jelani Cobb describes how a submitted piece transforms through editing, copy-editing, and fact-checking: “…it turns into this thing that you wrote but you don’t wholly own. It becomes a part of this entire collective undertaking.” (Cobb, 16:59)
  • Extensive fact-checking compared, half-jokingly, to “getting a colonoscopy while being audited by the IRS.” (Cobb, 17:41)
  • Apatow’s take as a source: “I’ve been on the other side of that... you can’t believe that you have to do it... and then every once in a while you say something really terrible... And they go, ‘Did you say that?’...‘It might be AI.’” (Apatow, 17:42)

Diversity, Race, and Omitted Coverage

• Coverage of Race
  • Curry acknowledges the relatively late inclusion of Black writers and editors: “It was quite a while before they began to explore the Black experience in a serious way…” (Curry, 27:28)
  • References to Charlayne Hunter Gault and Jamaica Kincaid for audiences seeking more on this history (Cobb, 27:52).

The Unseen Stories

• Hopes to eventually release unused interviews and cut material as “DVD extras”—dependent on Netflix (Curry, 23:01).

Final Anecdotes & Notable Moments

• Selection of the Closing Song
  • Curry shares a charming story about securing an unreleased Matt Berninger cover of Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” for the documentary’s finale—secured with Swift’s direct personal approval (Curry, 31:47).
• A Celebration of Journalism
  • Curry closes by emphasizing the documentary as a “celebration of hard, underappreciated work” in journalism, especially inspiring to young viewers (Curry, 30:07).

Notable Quotes

• On the Film’s Challenge:

  “Trying to make a 90 minute film about the New Yorker is like trying to make a 90 minute film about America.”
  — Marshall Curry (03:10)

• On Editorial Choices:

  “It was gonna be a sampler box of chocolates. We weren’t gonna be able to bring you the whole thing, but it was gonna be enough to just give you a sense of what this magazine’s history was.”
  — Marshall Curry (04:02)

• On Fact Checking:

  “It’s been compared to getting a colonoscopy while being audited by the IRS.”
  — Jelani Cobb (17:41)

• On The New Yorker’s Obsession with Quality:

  “It’s like monks who are copying the books over as the barbarians are destroying the libraries… Are they like the saviors of culture and intellectualism?”
  — Marshall Curry (24:35)

• On Outsider Perspective:

  “If you have an outsider’s view, you can see things that insiders can’t see.”
  — Marshall Curry (19:19)

• On Being Inspired by The New Yorker’s Critics:

  “When I made the 40 Year Old Virgin, there was a review that David Denby had for it…. I felt deeply understood in what I was trying to express in the movie. And it kind of gave me the courage to write Knocked Up.”
  — Judd Apatow (21:15)

• On the Editorial Process:

  “…it turns into this thing that you wrote but you don’t wholly own. It becomes a part of this entire collective undertaking.”
  — Jelani Cobb (16:59)

• On Journalism:

  “Being a fact based journalist is really hard today. And this movie is intended to be a celebration of that hard, underappreciated work.”
  — Marshall Curry (30:07)

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:44] — David Remnick introduces the documentary and its filming
• [01:55] — Jelani Cobb on the impossible task of compressing 100 years into a film
• [03:05] — Marshall Curry on the “tasting menu” approach
• [04:25] — Apatow on his initial fears and Curry’s direction
• [07:29] — Marshall Curry on how they approached choosing historical content and visual stories
• [09:30] — Apatow and Curry recount their first exposure to The New Yorker
• [13:01] — Cobb’s anecdote about Bruce, the legendary office manager
• [14:30] — Curry on the absence of a story arc and profiling staff who know the tricks
• [16:27] — Cobb on the collective editing and fact-checking process
• [19:01] — Outsider status of New Yorker editors
• [23:40] — Curry’s surprise at the “level of obsession” witnessed
• [27:17] — Discussion of race, Black writers, and what was omitted
• [29:09] — The central place of humor in the magazine’s history and the film’s structure
• [30:05] — Curry’s final reflections on journalism and the film’s inspiration
• [31:47] — Curry on the documentary’s closing song and Taylor Swift’s approval

Conclusion

This lively roundtable offers an illuminating peek behind the pages of The New Yorker on the eve of its centennial. Through its filmmakers’ eyes, listeners learn not just about a fabled publication, but about the sacrifices, meticulousness, and obsession that go into producing excellence—alongside a reverence for the humor and outsider energy that sustain The New Yorker’s legacy. The episode champions fact-based journalism and leaves the audience both entertained and inspired.