#34 Scott Carney on journalism, writing books, & rolling in snow
Scott has an impressive resume: he's given a Tedx talk, was a contributing editor at Wired, and has also written articles published in Mother Jones, Playboy, Men's Journal, Foreign Policy, Discover, Outside and Fast Company. He has a degree in Anthropology and loves digging deep into a subject. But even more than that, he fell in love with debunking things. His first two books were exposes on the underworld of organ trafficking and what happens when spiritual retreats go wrong. He had a solid history behind him when he decided to debunk Wim Hof, a Dutch health guru living in Poland. Scott pitched an article about his intense cold-weather conditioning method and set off to Poland to take it apart. Upon his arrival, he beat Hof at chess and then agreed to give his method a fair shot before tearing it apart. The only problem? The method worked. This episode, Scott and I talk about what happens when a skeptic gets converted, how you can turn an article into a book, and what it was like rolling around in the snow in Poland. For those who enjoyed the idea of Stunt Journalism back in episode 19, Scott's latest book definitely qualifies for that topic. I had a blast recording this, especially since Scott and I went to college together and hadn't talked since then. So fun to see what people have done out in the world since graduation.
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