Kara Swisher Calls Out NY Times for ‘Dirty’ Tactic of Repurposing Her Old Podcast Feed to Promote Their New Show

Candice OrtizSep 28th, 2022, 1:53 pm
 

(Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media)

Kara Swisher’s reasoning for leaving The New York Times became more evident earlier this week — as fans noticed the paper repurposed the podcast feed for her previous show, Sway, to promote their new show Hard Fork.

Back in June, Swisher announced that she would be departing the Times and her popular Sway podcast for a new venture with Vox Media and New York Magazine.

At the time, she spoke with Bloomberg and cited a growing desire to own her intellectual property as her the reason behind the move.

“I’m 60 years old this year, I’ve made a lot of stuff for a lot of people,” Swisher said in an interview. “I want to do what I want to do. I want to make whatever I want to make, and I think that’s a great thing.”

Her new show, On with Kara Swisher, debuted on Monday with Chris Cuomo as the first guest.

But fans of Swisher were confused when on Tuesday, they began to get notifications from their podcast apps that a new episode of Swisher’s former show, Sway, had uploaded a new episode.

When the notification was opened, it led to the feed of a brand new New York Times podcast called Hard Fork. The show, which is hosted by journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, has no connection to Swisher.

It appears the company repurposed Swisher’s old podcast feed and rebranded the page to get traction for the new show. Fans who once subscribed to Sway, were now grandfathered into Hard Fork subscriptions.

One Twitter user commented by saying, “I both want to check out their new podcast and feel compelled to unsubscribe bc it feels dirty.”

Swisher then entered the conversation and said “Unsubscribe and then subscribe? (It is dirty) ;)”

Another user, Oscar Gastélum, posted a screenshot that showed the Hard Fork podcast page included directions on where fans of Sway could find archived episodes, saying “They definitely repurposed your feed…”

This part of the shows description has now been removed.

Credit – (((Oscar Gastélum))) 🌻 🇺🇦 on Twitter

Swisher agreed, tweeting under the picture, “Yes indeed. I asked for much clearer and more serious disclosure.”

When another person pointed out that Vox did the same thing to her previous show Recode Decode, Swisher clarified that it was an agreed upon move by both her and the team at Vox.

Swisher shared her hope that the show archive would be easy to access once again for fans of the show. Eventually she uploaded another tweet, saying “I can always make a new thing,” and attaching a screenshot that showed her new podcast was ranked at No. 8 on the Apple charts.

Despite the confusion, Swisher placed no blame on Hard Fork hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, saying “Btw in no way do I think @kevinroose or @CaseyNewton are on the hook here. It’s their bosses call obvi.”

Newton replied saying “Have I mentioned I love your new pod. I love it so much Kara.”

“Then retweet the link to the show to your followers before your new overlords find out. And remember who your real overlord is,” Swisher said jokingly, attaching a Game of Thrones gif in the message.

The New York Times seems to have corrected the issue, as Sway is now appearing back in subscriber feeds.

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