Crooked Media and a Former Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Comms Exec Are Making a Political Show About the South (Exclusive)
Jennifer Palmieri, the former White House communications director under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign comms chief, is co-hosting a new six-part documentary series called Long Play, aimed at exploring the political nuances of the American South. Produced with Crooked Media, the company behind Pod Save America, the show seeks to move beyond daily news coverage to examine deeper shifts and misunderstood dynamics in Southern politics, at a time when many Democrats have written off the region as unwinnable.
Palmieri is joined by former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu and journalist Errin Haines as co-hosts, with Crooked Media co-founder Jon Favreau serving as executive producer alongside them; the series will also stream on YouTube. The debut episode focuses on Georgia and features interviews with Stacey Abrams, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Brian Kemp, while a Texas instalment centres on a rally held by James Talarico in Laredo. Further episodes will cover North Carolina and Oklahoma, with two states still to be confirmed, and the show incorporates music from Jason Isbell and creative input from Bitter Southerner. It is produced by Left/Right Productions, the company behind The Circus, on which Palmieri previously served as a co-host.
In short
- Jen Palmieri co-hosts new Crooked Media series on the political South
- Six-part show Long Play features Mitch Landrieu and Errin Haines
- Georgia episode includes Stacey Abrams, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Brian Kemp
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
This series addresses a genuine journalistic gap by examining the South's political complexity beyond superficial coverage. The region is politically diverse and constantly changing, yet often treated reductively by national media. By featuring a range of voices—from Stacey Abrams to Marjorie Taylor Greene—the show demonstrates genuine effort to understand the region as it actually is. Such dedicated documentary journalism serves important public understanding.
The case against
This project reveals the tension between its documentary pretence and its actual political motivation. Democratic operatives from Crooked Media and former Obama-Clinton positions are explicitly seeking to understand how Democrats might win back an abandoned region—which is electoral strategy, not journalism. Presenting political advocacy as objective documentary content, when produced by transparently Democratic operatives, blurs the line between journalism and political strategy in problematic ways.
Explained simply
The American South has long shaped US politics, but its states and communities have different histories and political priorities. While many Democrats see the region as difficult to win, changes in population and voting patterns have made its politics more varied than a simple red-versus-blue picture suggests.
Jennifer Palmieri is a communications strategist who worked in the Obama White House and on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. She is joined by Mitch Landrieu, a former New Orleans mayor, and journalist Errin Haines; Crooked Media is a politically focused media company best known for the podcast Pod Save America.
The series looks at political life across several Southern states, including Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Its wider context is a debate over how national parties understand the region, and whether local movements and leaders can shift its political direction.
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