What do you learn after 80,000 love stories?
In honour of Valentine’s Day, we talk to Daniel Jones, the editor of the New York Times column, Modern Love.
Since the column started in 2004, Jones has sifted through thousands of personal essays about love and relationships (yet somehow he’s not jaded). A couple of years ago, the column was adapted into a podcast version, which recently celebrated its 100th episode.
Jones talks about what he looks for in essays, the sometimes-uncomfortable fact-checking process, whether Modern Love is a form of journalism and personal storytelling in the age of Trump.
(This interview was conducted in October 2017, during the HotDocs Podcast Festival. In the episode, Jones references a live recording of actor Andrew Rannells reading his own essay, “During a Night of Casual Sex, Urgent Messages Go Unanswered.”)
