Guardian launches Stateside with Kai and Carter, its first US video podcast

The Guardian launched Stateside with Kai and Carter as its first US video podcast, putting Kai Wright and Carter Sherman at the center of a Monday-Wednesday-Friday format built for a news cycle that never seems to slow down. The show is pitched as a place where the news is stressful, but talking about it does not have to be, and each episode runs about 30 to 40 minutes.

Wright brings a long audio résumé to the project. He is a Peabody Award-winning journalist who previously hosted Notes From America, The United States of Anxiety and Indivisible, and his work has centered race, health, history, power and inequality. That background gives the podcast a sharper editorial identity than a routine platform expansion, with Wright’s reputation tied to sustained reporting rather than celebrity packaging.

The launch also marked a larger shift inside the Guardian’s American operation. Around the time Stateside debuted on May 13, the paper’s US editorial team had surpassed 200 staff for the first time, and the Guardian’s US revenue was up 25 percent. Taken together, those figures show a business investing more heavily in American audio and video at a moment when digital news outlets are still sorting out which formats can hold attention and which ones can pay for themselves.

Wright’s personal habits fit the image the Guardian is leaning into. A recent profile says he still refuses to buy a new phone, a detail that lands in the middle of a national argument over upgrade culture, repairability and the pressure to replace devices long before they stop working. In a market shaped by battery wear, software support windows and the assumption that the newest model is the best one, that refusal reads as a small rebuke to consumer dependence and planned obsolescence.

For the Guardian, Stateside with Kai and Carter is not just another podcast title. It is a three-times-a-week bet that an audience will make room for serious conversation, and that a seasoned host with a skeptical streak can help turn American news into something people will return to on purpose.