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16 Nov, 5 tweets, 3 min read
Ryan Smith Has a Pitch: I profiled the new owner of the Utah Jazz, an ambitious 43-year-old tech billionaire who wants to rebrand his team—and its home state. Not everyone is on board.

My story for @DeseretMagazine: deseret.com/utah/2021/11/1…
One thing I found interesting about @RyanQualtrics was his strong aversion to the reflexive haterism that so many Utahns practice. “This is the only place I’ve ever seen where people will choose to live here and have a bad attitude about it," he told me. deseret.com/utah/2021/11/1…
On the other hand, Ryan Smith clearly believes certain things need to change in Utah and he's not particularly interested in waiting for his critics to come around: “I always say the hashtag for everything we’re doing is #kickingandscreaming.” deseret.com/utah/2021/11/1…
In our interview, Smith seemed almost gleeful about provoking certain critics—anti-vaxxers, for example, or right-wing media figures who were mad at him for giving out scholarships to students of color. deseret.com/utah/2021/11/1…
Ryan Smith's long-term vision for Utah: More unicorn startups. Way more development. Fortune 500 companies relocating in droves. 20 million residents. Hollywood studios filming movies in SLC. Millions of Jazz fans across Asia and Europe. deseret.com/utah/2021/11/1…

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More from @mckaycoppins

McKay Coppins Profile picture
12 Nov
Inside the plot to take down Mike Lee. My story on the unusual coalition in Utah working to unseat the former Trump critic turned Trump acolyte: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Mike Lee has never been a favorite of the Utah establishment, but frustration with him spiked during the Trump years—especially as he picked fights that appeared to put him in conflict with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. theatlantic.com/politics/archi… Image
Evan McMullin—who ran for president in 2016 as an independent and got 21% of the vote in Utah—is running against Lee as an independent, and has already won a key endorsement from a prominent Utah Democrat who wants the party to coalesce behind him. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Read 6 tweets
McKay Coppins Profile picture
14 Oct
Inside Alden Global Capital, the secretive hedge fund that's gutting local newspapers across the country—and could be coming to your town next. My cover story for the November issue of @TheAtlantic: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
You probably feel like you already know why local news is dying. Craigslist killed the classifieds, Google/Facebook swallowed the ad market, and hapless newspapers failed to adapt to the internet. There's truth to all that—but the Alden story is different. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Alden has figured out how to profit by driving its papers into the ground: Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring as much cash as possible out of the enterprise until readers bolt and the paper shrivels or folds. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Read 12 tweets
McKay Coppins Profile picture
2 Jun
The market for anti-Biden books is ice cold. My latest story, on the state of the conservative publishing industry: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
“In the past, it’s been like taking candy from a baby to write a book about the Democratic president,” one frustrated conservative editor told me. Now? “Nobody is trying.” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
The popular right-wing caricature of Biden as an addled old man doesn't lend itself to book-length villainization. He has "a deeply nonthreatening persona,” says @benshapiro. “You kind of feel bad attacking him, honestly, because it feels like elder abuse" theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Read 6 tweets
McKay Coppins Profile picture
13 May
Conservatives want to weaponize his bitterness. Liberals are inviting him over for dinner. And a generation of jurisprudence could come down to an unnerving question: Is Brett Kavanaugh out for revenge?

My new profile, in the June issue of The Atlantic: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Friends told me Kavanaugh still privately seethes over his confirmation: “I assume when he’s lying in bed at night, it’s hard not to think about it,” one told me. “He was really angry at Democrats for what they did to him and his family," another said. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
But Kavanaugh also desperately wants to gain readmission into polite society. “I don’t think Thomas or Alito gives a shit what The New York Times says about them,” one friend told me. “But I think Brett does.” theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Read 12 tweets
McKay Coppins Profile picture
4 May
In the early weeks of the pandemic, I wrote about what then seemed like a strange new phenomenon: Conservatives turning COVID restrictions into a new front in the culture war. 1/ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Today, with millions of Americans getting vaccinated daily, @emmaogreen expertly captures another phenomenon: Liberals signaling their own political identities with extreme COVID caution—in many cases going well beyond public health recommendations. 2/ theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
“I spent four years fighting Trump because he was so anti-science. I spent the last year fighting people who I normally would agree with … desperately trying to inject science into school reopening, and completely failed.” 3/
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Read 8 tweets
McKay Coppins Profile picture
1 May
Early on in the pandemic, I started a new tradition with my kids where every Saturday morning we'd go out for donuts and hold a "music appreciation" class on the drive, focusing on a different band/artist each week.
My kids are pretty young so this was not like an intensive education. I tried to keep it fun, choosing just a few catchy/accessible songs for each artist. (My selfish motivation was that I desperately needed a break from Kidz Bop.)
After a couple months, I started keeping a playlist of all the songs we'd "learned." Every Saturday, I would play songs and let the kids guess the band/artist. Even as the playlist grew to 150+ songs, it got harder and harder to stump them.
Read 5 tweets

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