JZ

Jason Zinoman

Things Jason Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Jason Zinoman writes NYC NOW . They have also been a guest on The Daily (NYT) (4 times) , Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing (2 times) and Cannonball with Wesley Morris (2 times) .

Recently: “Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder Keep Us Guessing” on The Daily (NYT) (October 2026); “How 9/11 Changed Comedy” on Cannonball with Wesley Morris (September 2026); “The Most American Episode of The Daily, Ever.” on The Daily (NYT) (July 2026); “Is 'Colbert' the Wrong Late Show to Cancel?” on Cannonball with Wesley Morris (May 2026); “Sunday Special: The 10 Best Horror Movie Franchises” on The Daily (NYT) (October 2025); “Sunday Special: TV's Big Night” on The Daily (NYT) (September 2025).

What They Said

“I mean, she's a genius at saying nothing. And you're left with this question: is she the most naive human being in the world or the most cynical? And my take coming out was there's nothing in between.” — Jason Zinoman, The Daily (NYT)

Asked how Elizabeth Holmes responds when Nathan Fielder suggests she chose a comedian rather than a journalist to avoid hard questions. Zinoman notes that Fielder doesn't show a mastery of the facts of the case.

The Daily (NYT) · 2026-10-18 Permalink → Listen →
The Daily (NYT) Around 35:47 into the episode
Jason Zinoman

…not, he doesn't demonstrate in this film a mastery of the facts of the case. And quite early on, he says to her, You picked me, who's a comedian, basically saying, Did you pick me? Because I'm not going to give you the hard-hitting journalistic questions. She didn't pick a journalist. What does she

Michael Barbaro

say in response, if I can ask?

Jason Zinoman

I mean, she's a genius at saying nothing. And you're left with this question: is she the most naive human being in the world or the most cynical? And my take coming out was there's nothing in between.

Michael Barbaro

Well, so it seems pretty clear, and here I know we'll walk up to the edges of spoiler dumb, that these are two masters of maybe manipulation isn't the right word, but they are very much in control of information and how it's going to be presented, when it's going to be presented. And so I think it…

Jason Zinoman

Completely. I think, look, you know, one thing Alyssa said about her having kids is really remarkable: how she uses the kids in this movie. How does she use

Michael Barbaro

the kids in the movie?

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode
“Penn and Teller came along and they said, all magic is bunk. All magic is fake. That's how they start their show. And then they take you behind the scenes of how this trick is actually done, right? And then they… fool you. And it turns out that the authenticity is the misdirection. Exposing the fraud, exposing the fake, that's the trick.” — Jason Zinoman, The Daily (NYT)

The comedy critic is talking about Nathan Fielder's documentary with Elizabeth Holmes, and why audiences raised on reality TV and paid-for documentaries are so cynical about the form. He compares Fielder's method to Penn and Teller's: you have to earn the audience's trust before you can manipulate them.

The Daily (NYT) · 2026-10-18 Permalink → Listen →
The Daily (NYT) Around 42:20 into the episode
Jason Zinoman

Correct. Correct. And I think that once people see the movie, that would be a really interesting argument.

Michael Barbaro

…manipulated and the authenticity is pretty limited. But there's a lot of kind of incidental revelations that seem to come your way in the work of someone like Nathan Fielder. And maybe I'm overstating that, but it feels like there's a kind of a deeper, more unintended truth that arrives. Yeah.

Jason Zinoman

I also think that you're onto something, which is that the audience is very cynical about, and they should be, about documentaries right now, that so many of them are paid commercials. And what I see Nathan Fielder doing in this movie, I was thinking about this. It reminds me of what Penn and Teller did to Magic. Penn and Teller came along and they said, all magic is bunk. All magic is fake. That's how they start their show. And then they take you behind the scenes of how this trick is actually done, right? And then they trip fool you. And it turns out that the authenticity is the misdirection. Exposing the fraud, exposing the fake, that's the trick. And I think what he, the reason he does that is precisely because people are so understandably cynical about these documentary forms. And they already begin. You know, these are people right now. They've grown up on reality television. They've grown up on these…

Speaker 1

Exactly. I agree.

Michael Barbaro

Is it fair to say that this film and what Fielder has become is advancing the form, this form that I know you have spent so much of your career thinking about and caring about?

Speaker 1

I think that judging from the response to this film, people's excitement for it, the sort of internet meltdown when the trailer came out, I think it's fair to say that it's putting the form in front of people who might not otherwise flock to a more esoteric documentary. And it's entertaining and…

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode