🎶 Ballad swap🗽 knitted crown and torch 🧶 Captain Hook 🏴☠️ a marathon of mirth 🎈
🍭 👂Let’s hope they’ve been miserable 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, November 25, 2024. In case this newsletter is too long, episode five of this was one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard, this episode lets us witness a special moment with our ears, this was much needed.
xoxo
lauren
P.S - If you’re interested in placing an ad in Podcast The Newsletter or Podcast Marketing Magic, fill out this form.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Sam Sanders
Sam Sanders is an award-winning journalist, radio host, and podcaster who currently hosts The Sam Sanders Show from KCRW and Vibe Check from Sirius. His words have appeared in The Washington Post, The Columbia Journalism Review, Politico Magazine, and New York Magazine.
Describe The Sam Sanders Show in 10 words or less.
Conversations about our popular culture, with people who make it.
Fill in the blank: you will like The Sam Sanders Show if you like ________.
…to talk about a movie or book or tv show for days if not weeks after you’ve finished it.
Do people recognize your voice in public?
Yes. It’s always cool!
Describe your greatest fans in 3 words.
Smart, kind, good-humored
Who has been your favorite person to interview ever?
Michaela Coel
If you could start a new podcast…do not worry about whether or not anyone would like it, or any of the logistics (time and space do not exist)...what is it? Your budget is $1M.
A podcast all about the stories behind weird/strange/poignant/hilarious vanity license plates.
What’s a tip for someone who wants to start a podcast?
Just do it. Iterate, iterate, iterate. It’s not rocket science. Hit record!
What is your theme song?
It’s an original that we had composed just for the show, but we used Lizzo’s Juice as the spiritual DNA and referenced that track liberally. It’s so good!
What’s the first podcast you can remember listening to?
This American Life!
Are there too many podcasts?
No. Are there too many books? Next question!
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Okay so what am I describing?: A killer whale is suspended in the air, a boy stands beneath, his fist triumphantly in the air. … … … It’s the poster for Free Willy! That is what’s at the center of The Good Whale, a podcast from Serial Productions hosted by Daniel Alarcón. It wouldn’t surprise anyone today that a large corporation would be abusing a whale, but back in 1993 when Free Willy was released, it only brought awareness to the plight of Keiko, the star whale who played Willy, and his tiny prison, an amusement park in Mexico City. Fans of the movie were pissed. How hard could it be to free Keiko? We freed Willy! Turns out you can’t just open the door and say best of luck Keiko, it’s very hard. And that is what The Good Whale is about—the wild things experts had to do to free an orca that became a symbol for the ocean itself. You also see, through narration and interviews, why the whale was the perfect star for the movie and how his well being became the center of everyone’s attention. Daniel Alarcón contextualizes all this, placing us smack in the mid 90s, specifically 90s environmentalism, when we thought all we had to do was save the planet was snip open the plastic things that held soda cans together. It’s the year after the Earth Summit in Rio, when we were fundamentally optimistic about the ozone and saving the planet in general. Fast forward to today and we are thinking about one of the many morals of the story: can we unfuck what we did to ourselves in the 90s? (That is something I’ve considered making a podcast about.) This show has beautiful production, it is measured and slow paced, methodically takes us through the whole story. I wrote in my notes that it sounds like a sad song. And speaking of songs, episode five (which will be available to everyone on December 12, I listened to because I’m a NYT subscriber) encompasses a time after Keiko had been released, when scientists did not know where he was. Instead of just saying “it sucks that nobody knew where Keiko was” they had Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who for, among other things, Dear Evan Hansen and La La Land, take the little we know about where Keiko started and how he ended up, and for one song, imagine what might have happened to him in that time in between, and how it felt to him. I would love to know whose idea this was, to have been a fly on the wall during these meetings. What a creative idea to make a podcast that was already so strong something completely innovative and memorable.
notes
✨I am going to be on All Of It with Alison Stewart on Tuesday at 1:30pm ET to talk about podcasts you can listen to over the holidays. We always ask for podcast recommendations. Call in or text, say hi, and give me yours! (212-433-9692)
✨Read how to leverage your award for better partnerships in Podcast Marketing Magic.
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Climate Decoded in EarBuds.
✨On Air Fest announced their first wave line up. Buy tickets, see you there!
✨Samantha Hodder write a great write-up of Cement City that you shouldn’t miss:
💎podcasts i texted to friends💎
🎙️A month after Hurricane Helene, Justine Paradis went to Marshall, North Carolina, a tiny town in the Black Mountains of Southern Appalachia (“one mile long, one street wide, sky high and hell deep”) that had been devastated by Helene, for a piece featured on Outside/In. The piece starts with artist Josh Copus, who restored an old jail in Marshall into a beautiful hotel that also served as a hub for the community and the mutual aid happening there post Helene. This is a great look at what mutual aid really looks like, and an optimistic metaphor for harmony that can be born from disaster. Justine talks to the people organizing, so you get a sense of the level of organization needed, exactly the nuts and bolts of it all. But it’s more than just clean-up and distributing supplies. Justine references the decades of sociological research that shows that often people behave generously, not selfishly or violently, in the wake of a disaster. They share resources, social barriors fall, neighbors help neighbors. This occurs in the honeymoon phase, which is followed by ups and downs that go lower than the disaster in the first place. (Justine sees this visualized in graph form on posters throughout Marshall.) What is needed, and Josh says this but you literally get to hear it happen, is tiny victories to keep people going. That’s why Josh is planning a ballad swap at the Marshall Jail Hotel, and the entire episode is leading up to that, and listeners get to attend it. It feels triumphant and special to witness this with our ears, hearing Appalachian folk music from the healing community. A rare opportunity captured. To paraphrase how Buzzfeed would have titled this story in the early 2010s, This Disaster Recovery Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity. America just got hit with a pretty big and scary disaster at the beginning of the month, and I keep wondering if Trump’s reelection can be compared to a natural disaster. Some of us voted the disaster in, so it’s tricky. But Justine reminds us how hope springs from the gathering of community during hard times. Listen here.
How I discovered it: I’m a subscriber, the episode title (The Ballad and the Flood) is really catchy.
🎙️Last week, Nichole Hill recommended a piece made by the BBC and The Truth called The Missed Lives of Max and Judy, a delightful rom-com with a twist. Max and Judy are in a When-Harry-Met-Sally-will-they-or-won’t-they situation made even magical with outstanding writing and performances. The narrator, a grandmotherly woman who isn’t just telling us the story, she’s playing with it, is the most valuable player, here. She could not be more invested in the outcome she’s steering. She’s an example of the variety of things a narrator can do for a story. I’m sure there is a better way to listen to this but I listened on the BBC site via my Pocket Casts app, which meant I was unable to maneuver away or increase the speed, two things I do a lot. So I was just walking and listening, not multitasking, at 1x, and it felt like heaven. This is exactly what I needed right now and exactly what I hoped Nichole would bring to us last week. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Nichole wrote about it but I was talking to Ilana Nevins and she said, “did you listen to Max and Judy yet?” and I bumped it right up in my queue.
🎙️Accu-Metrics is a Canadian DNA company that promises "99.9% accurate" prenatal paternity tests but routinely delivers false positives, and I’m using the present tense because it’s still operating. Uncover: Bad Results is telling the stories of families all over the world devastated by the results of these fake tests—families locked in never-ending custody battles, people who were delivered the wrong information about their racial identities, men who raised children they thought they were theirs or missed out on their kids’ lives completely, grandmothers whose grandkids were legally ripped away from them, and mothers who were shamed for needing paternity tests in the first place. That seems to be the currency the company is running on, blaming and shaming customers. Woven though these heart-wrenching accounts from families are interviews with whistleblowers and undercover reporting that gives a fleshed out report of a scam that isn’t getting the attention it deserves, and that probably goes back to the blaming and shaming thing. We don’t reserve sympathy for anything that resembles women’s issues, especially if they’re loose women for god’s sake! Even if, I guess, it’s not a woman’s issue at all, and something impacting entire communities and networks of people, as proved by this show. (There’s even a connection to Pretendian’s “Interview with a Pretendian.” Jorge Barrera interviews “Grand Chief” Guillaume Carle who used Accu-Metrics to issue phony Indian Status Cards and says Accu-Metrics is “squeaky clean.”) Listen here.
How I discovered it: I’m a subscriber but I got a really good pitch letter that was actually just like a really personal nice letter from someone on the team.
🎙️Alex Sujong Laughlin, Normal Gossip’s producer, was on as a guest for a really funny and oddly specific story about nepotism, an office fridge robber, and a baby Halloween costume that looks like the statue of liberty. Every time someone said “with knitted crown and knitted torch” I laughed a little. Alex and Kelsey work together, so the chemistry of this episode was perfect. And obviously, nobody gets the assignment and is able to nail it more than Alex. It’s like she’s been preparing for this guest spot since before she was born. (She had a really good piece of gossip that was actually about a podcast she worked on, that I’m dying to know about. Someone on Reddit pointed out that it might be Michelle Goldberg from when Alex was working on The Argument, but to quote someone wise, you didn’t hear that from me.) Listen here.
How I discovered it: I’m a subscriber.
🎙️You realize right up top how young the hosts of Kyleigh McPeek and Grace Carroll, the hosts of True Crime Podcast Podcast, are. They mention they were juniors in college during the Moscow murders, which was two years ago. One of them also mentioned that her first introduction into true crime was when her dad made her listen to Serial, which further puts things into perspective. Kyleigh and Grace watched those murders unfold on social media, TikTokers and Redditors absolutely losing their goddam minds, and they wondered if this obsession with crime is new. And obviously it isn’t, even if the tools we have to exercise our obsessions are. They made this podcast, True Crime Podcast Podcast, which is an attempt to tell the story of true crime podcasts, something you find out at the very end is (spoiler alert) part of their Stanford course credit. This show is extremely 101 in some ways. Kyleigh and Grace weren’t familiar with Amanda Knox, I think discussions about why women are particularly obsessed with true crime and Serial’s impact on the industry have been done! (I am writing this from a huge and comfy podcast bubble.) But it’s interesting to hear two smart young people try to figure out what the hell is going on with all this true crime. The questions is, why didn’t anyone else do this podcast before? Actually, the fact that Kyleigh and Grace are so young is helpful. It’s like they are entering this messy room we all made saying, what happened here, you all good? They do a good job finding people to interview, like the founder of CrimeCon (they GO to CrimeCon!) who I think THINKS he’s coming off great, but isn’t. They ask good questions and let these people talk. Listen, they’re smart. Their research and show notes are great. And I would be thrilled if more smart students made podcasts like this for school projects. It kicks the ASS of anything I did in college. Listen here.
How I discovered it: It was mentioned in Podnews.
🎙️I could be starting a rumor but if it’s not true, let’s go with it anyway. It will make for good lore. Arielle Nissenblatt bumped into Catherine St. Louis on the train and Catherine started talking about a show she is working on, Candyman, something I loved and wrote about. Catherine was obviously excited about what she was working on and knew every in and out of the show. So although she wasn’t pitching Arielle, the non-pitch worked on Arielle. It was the most effective non-pitch pitch of all time. So Arielle was like, what if I could get producers or people behind the production of shows to pitch the stuff they’re working on to potential listeners? Podcast Elevator Pitch was born. We all know that limited run series are really hard to make and market. Arielle’s new show is trying to give them a second life and a real authentic chance at reaching potential listeners. It’s a submission based show, so if you have a limited series of your own that you want to get some more ears on, submit your voice clip here. Listen here.
How I discovered it: I’m pretty sure Arielle launched the feed while she was staying at my house in Philly.
🎙️I don’t usually watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade but now I really want to, I am serious, after hearing Chelsey Weber-Smith’s mini documentary about it on American Hysteria. (Made to celebrate the parade’s 100th birthday.) This wholesome American tradition has origins so “buck wild” it’s hard to believe it has anything to do with the polished procession we see today. Chelsey beautifully paints portraits of earlier versions of the parade—Evacuation Day (a parade that involved man going absolutely insane and dressing in drag) and “the ragamuffin parade” (when kids dressed up as beggars going door-to-door asking neighbors for treats) that contain traces of whatever the parade is now, which is really just a day to usher in the consumerism of the holiday season. Chelsey takes us right up to the present, to all the balloons-gone-wild moments and all. I had no idea that at one point the gigantic balloons were released to the sky and would float above the city for an entire month, and that people able to retrieve the balloon carcasses were monetarily rewarded, turning the entire city into a huge scavenger hunt. This episode is chock-full of fun stuff and will make watching the parade this year worth it, especially if you can tell the people you’re watching with the absolutely nutty history that started it all. You won’t be able to tell it as well as Chelsey but you can try. Their delivery is elegant, poetic, structured, and hilarious. There’s also a bit about why we want to watch live events at all, why we might feel a pull to turn on the TV Thursday morning. It has to do with something called “indeterminism,” and Chelsey explains why. Listen here.
How I discovered it: I’m a Patreon subscriber and listened to it early.
🎙️Loyal readers of Podcast the Newsletter know that I will listen to anything tangentially related to Tinker Bell. What does she have to do with Empire, the show about how empires rise fall and shape the world? Just everything. William Dalrymple and Anita Anand did an episode on Captain Hook, exploring the pirates in real life who started working for governments to blast ships or steal booty from other countries. The pirates, err privateers, would quickly discover that they could make more money if they went off and did it themselves. So this Empire episode is about pirate imagery, and what better example than JM Barrie’s depiction in Peter Pan? The story behind the story is dark—Cookie Passell, do not listen. The back stories to the characters who inspired Wendy, John, Michael, and Peter are too tragic. Kids be dying a lot for no good reason back then. This episode offers an interesting history lesson and a peek into the making of Peter Pan, and a kind of fact check of Captain Hook and the real man he was based on. And of course, how it’s all related to the making of empires. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Shreya put it in the Tink Slack channel.
🎙️Over on Hyperfixed, Alex Goldman got a call about something I hadn’t thought about before: why lots of grocery store refrigerators are just wide open, wasting phenomenal amounts of energy, all day and all night long. Even if you didn’t care about waste and the environment, this costs stores money. So what drives stores to continue the pattern? The answer might be kind of disappointing, but the journey to getting the answer was an interesting look at the psychology of stores, how stores in other countries are being built smarter, and if you listen, the next time you enter the store you’ll be entering as a different shopper. Listen here.
How I discovered it: I’m a subscriber.
🎙️I love you!
📦 From the desk of Tink 📦
At a time when the stakes for sexual and reproductive health and rights couldn’t be higher, rePROs Fight Back, a podcast dedicated to discussing issues related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice, has become a multi-award winning show.
rePROs has received recognition for its impact, earning a Silver Signal Award in the Activism, Public Service, and Social Impact category. Additionally, the show was honored with two Anthem Awards: Gold in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Silver in Human and Civil Rights in the Podcast or Audio categories.
Oh wow, thanks Lauren for the shoutout. It’s a show that’s worth it!!