If not, allow us to catch you up: Hanna is a Senior Editor at The Atlantic and host of Radio Atlantic, best known for her fearless reporting at the intersection of gender, power and politics. She’s also the author of the international bestseller The End of Men: And the Rise of Women — a must-read if you haven’t picked it up already.
In her podcast We Live Here Now, Hanna turns the microphone on herself and her partner Lauren as they navigate life in post-insurrection America alongside the arrival of new neighbours aligned with the MAGA movement in their otherwise liberal Washington D.C. community.
At a time when democracy feels increasingly fragile and public interest journalism is under threat, Hanna’s work feels more urgent than ever. So when we were offered the chance to speak with her during her visit to Australia for the 2025 Women in Media National Conference, we jumped at it. Here’s what she had to say.
As a woman who has worked at some of the most prominent media outlets in the US — what do you think still needs to change to challenge the underrepresentation of women in the news industry?
Women in media are held back by the same factors as women in many industries. News is a demanding business. It’s often unpredictable. There are very few structural supports for new parents in the US. We still have no paid parental leave! And women still do the lion’s share of parenting and other household management. That combination is fatal for women who want a career writing about serious and breaking news.
You’ve long championed women’s voices — as co-founder of DoubleX, and in your editorial roles. What led you to establish DoubleX, and what impact were you hoping it would have?
DoubleX was born in the blogging age. It was the product of a spontaneous and separate conversation that rose up among women writers at the online magazine Slate when Hillary Clinton was running for president. It was intimate, joyful, brainy and supportive. We really just needed a place to process that a female candidate was received with such shock and horror. Writing about it now, I miss the communal spirit of it all, the working out of problems we were seeing in public and private together.
What kinds of stories do you think remain overlooked or undervalued in the media — and what should we be paying more attention to in 2025?
There is so much writing about young women and social media and phones and loneliness. I would love to hear a lot more young women talking about their own experiences with phones and loneliness. The existing conversation often feels distant and punitive. I’m very curious what young women are defining and craving as community.
On a whole other front, the rise of the manosphere — blogs and podcasts and discussion forums devoted to masculinity — has utterly transformed media. The general tone out there is so aggressive that I worry women will just duck out of it.
You’ve spent much of your career in public interest journalism. With major funding cuts at outlets like NPR, podcasting and public radio feel increasingly under threat. What’s at stake when public interest journalism is defunded — especially in an election year or times of political upheaval?
The media landscape is changing tremendously. It’s not just public outlets that are under threat. So much of what we have relied on as mainstream or institutional journalism has gone under in the last decade. This ranges from giants such as The Washington Post, to magazines, to podcast outlets, to hundreds of small newspapers. What’s at stake in the US is really just basic reporting of the truth. There are so few reliable places out there anymore!
What gives you hope about the next generation of journalists coming up the ranks in this fractured landscape?
I believe in the fractured landscape! It’s not what I grew up in, and I will always prefer community. But I’m thrilled that women can just go online and be their own outlet, to fight back against stereotypes, say the news, dance, whatever. It’s so much messier than what I’m used to but also liberating.
Hanna Rosin will headline the 2025 Women in Media National Conference at ICC Sydney on Friday, 15 August. Tickets are available at www.womeninmedia.com.au