PODCAST · society
Lean Out with Tara Henley
by Tara Henley
Conversations with heterodox authors and journalists from around the world, asking the questions that are not being asked. tarahenley.substack.com
Episodes
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The Next Chapter
In January of 2022, during one of Toronto’s never-ending pandemic lockdowns, I launched Lean Out from the tiny kitchen of my 485-square-foot apartment. I had just left legacy media, somewhat loudly. I had been a current affairs radio producer at Canada’s national public broadcaster, the CBC. And…
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Is It Time To Give Up On Truth? (Nope!)
Hello, everyone! I’ve returned from the tranquility of the Gulf Islands on the West Coast of Canada and I’m now busy trying to get my bearings in the crumbling, crazed (but very much alive) metropolis that is Toronto. I’ll soon have some thoughts to share on the insights my weeks offline yielded…
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On Hiatus
In the maelstrom that is modern life, we’ve lost any sense of seasonality. These days, the summer is as non-stop as any other time of the year and the long, sun-drenched days can come and go without any real rest or relaxation. But I remember a time in the not-too-distant past when July and…
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Why the Media Needs Objectivity
One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is a crisis in confidence in the mainstream media. In a few weeks, my new book on this topic will be released in the United States and Canada. The Trust Spiral: Why the Media Needs Objectivity unpacks where we in the press have gone wrong — and what we…
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Terry Glavin on the Aftermath of the Year of the Graves
It has now been five years since the Kamloops band made an announcement of the discovery of the “remains of 215 children” at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, kicking off an intense period of national grief and anger. A month ago, The Globe and Mail editorial board made news around…
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Eric Merkley on Why We're Polarized in Canada
It’s Canada Day and many of us are reflecting on our nation and where we are at. We know that we are more divided than ever, but how did we get here? My guest on the program today has just written a book on political polarization in the country. He says the roots of our divisions run deep — and…
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In Memoriam: David Cayley
On June 10, the Canadian broadcaster David Cayley passed away, surrounded by loved ones, playing bluegrass music. He died in the Toronto home that he had shared with his wife for the past 42 years. It was a home that I had just begun visiting him at in recent months, drinking coffee and talking...
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Tyler Dawson: Why Alberta Separatism is Back
On October 19, citizens in the province of Alberta will vote on whether they want to proceed with a referendum on separating from the rest of Canada. My guest on the program today has written a new book about the history of these tensions — and why they have now come to a head. Tyler Dawson is an...
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Full Press: How 'Mass Graves' Became Canada's Biggest Journalism Failure
The big news in Canada this week has been The Globe and Mail editorial board’s admission that the industry and the paper bungled the unmarked graves story from 2021 — that this in fact constituted a journalistic failure. In light of this, I am bringing you an episode of my media criticism podcast...
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Is Phoebe Maltz Bovy the Last Straight Woman?
You wouldn’t think that a woman declaring that she is into men would a subversive act — but at some point during recent years, this became the case in certain circles. Particularly online feminist circles. My guest on the program today has written a new book on female heterosexuality and she says...
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Jacob Siegel on Big Tech and the Information State
Most of us are aware that the digital age we are living through is a time of incredible transformation. But we may not have contemplated what we’d like to see preserved — things like free speech. Some years ago, my guest on today’s program began investigating political censorship. What he found…
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Tony Keller on How Canada Lost the Plot on Immigration
Canada’s immigration system was once the envy of the world. And for decades, the country enjoyed a bipartisan pro-immigration consensus. But during the Trudeau years, that consensus fell apart. My guest on the program today delivered the 2025 McGill Max Bell Lectures on this topic. His new book...
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Why Are Gen Z Girls Miserable? Freya India Explains
We know that young women are increasingly unhappy — with high rates of depression and anxiety — and my guest on the program today says there’s good reason for that. In her new book, she argues that girlhood has dramatically changed in the Internet era and that young women have been transformed…
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Tom Junod: What Does It Mean to Be a Man?
What does it mean to be a man? My guest on the program today has published a book that examines that very question. It is part memoir, part meditation on masculinity, and part detective story — as he unearths the secret life of his charismatic alpha male father and forges a new version of…
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John Tomasi on the Diversity We Don't Discuss
In recent years, viewpoint diversity has become a loaded term. But my guest on the program today says it is vital that we renew our commitment to dialogue, especially across lines of difference. He has edited a new book that brings together prominent professors and journalists to make the case…
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Ric Esther Bienstock on Campus Culture Wars
There can be no doubt that we are living through politically charged times — and this is especially true at North American universities. My guest on the program today has spent the past decade making a documentary about unrest on campus. She says many faculty and students are now afraid to debate...
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John Fraser on Canada's Most Misunderstood Job
We are at a pivotal moment in Canada, as we reflect on our past and try to forge a more unified future in the face of tensions with the United States. My guest on the program today says now is a good time to reexamine our key institutions. This week, he has published an entertaining new book…
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Leah Libresco Sargeant: Rethinking Feminism
In the United States right now, a group of feminists is taking stock of the movement — where it is at and where it’s gone wrong. My guest on the program today is one of those feminists. Her new book argues that our problem is we’ve bought into an idea of radical autonomy, which is not possible…
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Laurie Woolever on Addiction, Recovery - and Anthony Bourdain
This week on the Lean Out podcast we are shifting our focus from the political to the personal. My guest on the program today has written a remarkable memoir about her time in the food world, her story of addiction and recovery — and what she learned from her years collaborating with the late...
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Jason Mangone: Inside Trump's America
As tensions mount within the United States — and between the United States and Canada — it has never been more important to understand each other. My guest on the program today is the head of a depolarization non-profit and his latest research paints a nuanced and complex portrait of Trump voters...
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Mark Oppenheimer on the Life and Times of Judy Blume
Many of us grew up reading classics from the great Judy Blume, from Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Blume, now in her eighties, is famous for writing about childhood and adolescence with humour and heart. This week, my guest on the program has published a...
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Eddie Sheppard on Canada's Precarity Mindset
In recent years, the world has become an increasingly unstable place. My guest on the program today says that Canadians have adopted a “precarity mindset.” And now, roughly nine out of ten Canadians believe this uncertainty is here to stay — that it is, in fact, the new normal. Eddie Sheppard is...
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Ryan Zickgraf on the Politicization of Charity
One of the problems with increased polarization is that everything gets politicized, including simple acts of charity. My guest on the program today is an American journalist who’s been tracking this trend in liberal and leftist circles. He’s published an essay making the argument that helping…
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Amanda Ripley on the Media's Trump Fixation
If you follow the news in this country, you know that Canada is currently grappling with a number of crises, from housing to mental health. And yet much of our attention is focused on the United States and on Donald Trump. My guest on the podcast today has just published an essay about this. She...
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Richard Stursberg: Who Killed CanLit?
Canadians who write books, or cover books, or read books will know that something is wrong with our literary industry. But a new book documents just how far off the rails publishing has gone. My guest on the program today is the author of that book, and he says our fundamental problem is an…
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Harrison Lowman on James Bennet, The New York Times and the Era of Activist Journalism
This week on the Lean Out podcast we are taking a look at the chaotic summer of 2020, and the impact of that unrest on mainstream journalism. My guest on the program today has a new interview with the former opinion editor at The New York Times, James Bennet, who was famously ousted by a staff...
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Steven Scherer: The Road From Foreign Correspondent to Uber Driver
We live in an age of economic precarity and journalists are not exempt from this. My guest on the program today has written a powerful Substack essay about his path from foreign correspondent to Uber driver, and how his troubles have helped him to forge a sense of solidarity with the people he...
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Larissa Phillips on the Rift Between Men and Women
Men and women don’t seem very happy these days. They are dissatisfied with dating, polarized politically, trash talking each other online, and both marriage and fertility are on the decline. What is responsible for this rift between men and women? My guest on the program today has been mulling…
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'Enough White Guys Already': Jacob Savage on a Lost Generation
The popularity of identity politics, and the subsequent fallout from this ideology, is something that we’ve tried to unpack and understand on the Lean Out podcast. My guest on the program today has published a viral essay on the impacts of this moment on Millennial white men. He argues that an...
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Elizabeth Grace Matthew: We Need to Move On From Girl Bosses and Trad Wives
With the new year now upon us, we are going to continue our conversation about the state of feminism, and how we might begin to think and talk about women’s lives in ways that are more productive. My guest on the program today is a frequent commentator on modern feminism, and she says the central...
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Valerie Stivers on the Joys of Home Cooking
It’s New Year’s Day and many of us will be at home, contemplating the year ahead. For New Year’s every year, Lean Out brings you an episode that is lighter and more hopeful. This year, we set our sights on food and its ability to bring us together. My guest on the program today has published a...
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Merry Christmas from Lean Out: Father Gregory Boyle on Hope and Healing
It’s Christmas Day and we at Lean Out wanted to bring you a special bonus episode — to celebrate the occasion and to meditate on the meaning of the holiday. My guest on the program today is the founder of one of the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry programs in the world…
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Mike Pesca on Media Insanity
On the Lean Out podcast, one of the topics that we often return to is the media, and the insanity of the media. For our last show of 2025, my guest is a veteran journalist and a savvy media critic, and he has some thoughts on where we are, how we got here — and where we should go from here. Mike...
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Cory Clark on the 'Great Feminization' Theory
With 2025 winding down, we at Lean Out wanted to take a look back at one of the most controversial stories of the year — and to see if we could have a calm, reasonable conversation about a divisive issue. I’m talking about the feminization theory, or the idea that the shifting sex ratios in...
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Amanda Fortini on Jan Kerouac and the legacy of the Beat Generation
One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is the Sexual Revolution — and weighing its benefits and drawbacks, both for women and for men. Today on the show, we are going back to the period that led into that historical moment, to a bohemian movement of art and travel and sexual experimentation…
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Zac Seidler: We Need to Talk About Men's Mental Health
In Toronto, where I live, you cannot walk a block without seeing a young man in distress — sleeping on the street, or slumped over from drug use, or shouting and screaming. It feels like something has gone very wrong for men in this country and that nobody is talking about it. My guest on the...
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Susan Swan on Modern Feminism
In the wake of the #MeToo firing of the University of British Columbia creative writing professor Steven Galloway — which is once again in the news this week — my guest on the program today sat down to write a book of advice for young feminists. But her good friend Margaret Atwood convinced her...
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Molly Jong-Fast on Gen X Overwhelm
Many women in Generation X are now finding themselves overwhelmed. The world is increasingly stressful, but our private lives are not much calmer, as we care for children and aging parents and spouses, stare down middle age, and mull over the legacy of previous generations of women. My guest on…
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Daniel Debow: It's Time for 'Bold Adventurism'
It’s budget day here in Canada. As Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government tables its first federal budget, we will get reaction and hear a lot of different visions for the country. On today’s episode we wanted to bring you one. My guest on the program says that Canada is in crisis — and that it…
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Darrell Bricker on Canada's Breaking Point
One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is the many crises that Canada is facing —and where we go from here. My guest on the program today warns that we are at a breaking point, and in desperate need of a national reckoning. As we face threats from without, he says, we are divided from within,...
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Jason Guriel on Fandom
Before the Internet, before the literary world was overrun by online politics, before everything you read — and wrote — had to advance an agenda, there was the solitary person, in a room, losing themselves in the words on the page. There was the fan. My guest on the program today has written a…
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Adam Szetela on the Publishing Industry's 'Circular Firing Squad'
Many of us that are big readers have been scratching our heads for years, trying to figure out why so many books are now so tedious and moralistic. What’s happened to North American literary culture — and why hasn’t it bounced back? My guest on the program today has some answers. He’s written a...
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Marc Dunkelman on Why Nothing Works
If you live in North America, chances are good that you spend a lot of time wondering why things feel so dysfunctional. Why can’t we make any progress on the big issues of our age, like housing? My guest on the program today has some answers — and he has written a fascinating new book about why...
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David Cayley on the CBC's Populist Era
In recent years, we have seen heated debate in this country around the CBC and its future. With the question of defunding no longer looming, it is a good time to pause, to look back at where our national public broadcaster has been, and to talk through where it might go from here. My guest on...
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Brian Stewart on the 'Spinning Vortex' of News
Today, as we go to air, my guest on the program takes the stage at Toronto Metropolitan University to address the next generation. He is a legendary Canadian journalist and he’ll be reflecting on the highs and lows that he’s experienced in his ringside seat to history, and how to navigate what he...
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Justin Ling on Canada's 'Existential' Election
Earlier this year at Lean Out, we covered Canada’s federal election. It was a contest not just between candidates and parties but between dominant narratives about the challenges facing this country. Was our biggest problem the decline in material conditions, or was it Donald Trump? My guest on...
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Aaron Pete on the Unmarked Graves Controversy
In 2021, Canada was rocked by a discovery at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops: what appeared to be the remains of more than 200 Indigenous children. The story went viral globally and was reported by The New York Times and others as a mass grave. But to date, no remains have…
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Andrew Coyne on Canada's Dysfunctional Democracy
September is here and Lean Out is back with a new season of conversations with writers and thinkers from around the world. We could not think of a more important topic to kick off our fall season than the state of Canadian democracy. My guest on the program today has written a new book that…
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ENCORE: Tristin Hopper on What Happened to Canada
Lean Out is now on our annual summer hiatus. But we while we’re away, we wanted to bring you some popular encore episodes from our archives, including today’s show — from April of 2025. Enjoy, and we’ll see you in September! For some time now, writers and thinkers outside this country have been...
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ENCORE: Ruy Teixeira on the End of the Progressive Moment in America
Lean Out is now on our annual summer hiatus. But we while we’re away, we wanted to bring you some popular encore episodes from our archives, including today’s show — from November of 2024. Enjoy, and we’ll see you in September! With Donald Trump winning the presidency, the popular vote, the…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Lean Out with Tara Henley have?
Lean Out with Tara Henley currently has 259 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Lean Out with Tara Henley about?
Conversations with heterodox authors and journalists from around the world, asking the questions that are not being asked. tarahenley.substack.com
How often does Lean Out with Tara Henley release new episodes?
Lean Out with Tara Henley publishes regularly with 259 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Lean Out with Tara Henley?
You can listen to Lean Out with Tara Henley on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Lean Out with Tara Henley?
Lean Out with Tara Henley is created and hosted by Tara Henley.
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