I’m a month behind on podcast reviews, so to catch up this covers both September and October. Between work, less travel, and what I was curious about, I listened more to ‘prestige’ podcasts, bigger name podcasts from professional studios that have set the standards for audio content one way or another.
Since I’m drifting into the heavyweight and middleweight categories for podcasts, I thought it would be worth highlighting not only what works or what questions I have, but how they validate (or don’t) the format of podcasts. A lot of complaints about podcasts come down to ‘I’d rather read when I have my own time’. I prefer reading to other ways of consuming ideas.
But there is power to the spoken voice that goes beyond ‘something I can listen to when I’m not able to read.’ So I’m considering these seven podcasts in part from that lens, of how the podcast format helps or doesn’t help the story or conversation the hosts are trying to relay.
Wondery – Business Wars
Type of podcast: Storytelling
Episodes listened to: full season on the Pizza Wars
Wondery is one of the biggest independent podcast studios out there – per their site, the biggest. This is the first podcast I’ve listened to from them. Business Wars retells classic business rivalries in a narrative fashion with a little more focus on the personalities involved than the minutiae of business strategy, though there’s a fair portion of the latter. Just glancing at what they’ve done in the second half of this year, those rivalries include the diamond business, dating apps, FedEx vs. UPS, wine, jeans, and the season I listened to, the pizza wars.
I’ve talked about Domino’s once on The Razor’s Edge, and the pizza chain is the one American chain I will occasionally break down and order from abroad (mostly in Bulgaria – you could get a pizza for about 5-6 euros all with their delivery tracking). I knew some of the contours of the company’s history, especially the revolution over the last 10 years, but the overall picture and their rivalry with Pizza Hut was new to me.
Business Wars takes an interesting approach. The host, Dave Brown, reads the story through, and will voice the different characters. I suppose this is close to old-time radio theater, but I found it a little weird. Especially since there were not a ton of hard and firm quotations, as I understood it; the approach really centered on historical reproduction. The exceptions came as we got to the last episode or two, where the famous commercials of Domino’s admitting their pizza stinks are quoted directly.
At the same time, I kept listening. The show did a nice job of serializing the story, so that each episode felt full but also left enough of a cliff-hanger for the next episode. And the narrative itself was compelling and well-pitched: the story went shallower than a book would, but it tied enough together to deliver new information along with being entertaining. This level of depth sometimes betrayed the narrative, as in references to other competitors in the Pizza Wars (John Schnatter, a.k.a. Papa John’s, shows up for about half an episode, starting in a dumpster outside of a Domino’s (or Pizza Hut, I can’t recall). But I think they struck the right balance, especially when you consider the volume of new seasons the show turns out; that volume decision may explain some of these other aesthetic or narrative decisions more than anything else.
Stock Detective Podcast
Type of podcast: Conversation
Episodes listened to: #1 and #3
One of the side effects of 2020 has been a surge of interest in investing. The type of investing that has worked most is growth investing; investing in more expensive stocks (at least on the surface) that appear to have more promising prospects for the years and decades ahead, especially in tech. (Quickly, an opposing school is value investing, which theoretically entails buying companies that are less expensive compared to their earnings power, because there is more uncertainty about their prospects. The one sentence version of growth investing certainly sounds more attractive, and has been borne out in the stock market over the past 5-10 years! Of course, I tend more to the opposing school.)
Combine growing interest in growth investing, often expressed through twitter in the ‘fintwit’ (financial twitter) community, and the growing salience of podcasts, and it’s no surprise that more podcasts are popping up in the investing space (this goes for value investing podcasts, by the way, and I may focus more on the sector next time). Stock Detective Podcast is a good representative of these trends.
Hosted by Kermit Capital – someone I follow and chat with on Twitter – and Dhaval Kotecha, the show looks at growth investing from the perspective of people who have worked in tech and who are public and transparent about how they invest. The show has only had three episodes so far – an ask me anything debut, an interview with another growth fintwit member, and a deep dive into Amazon. They use a hybrid video (with slideshow)/podcast model, and have been doing well on Youtube, it appears.
What the podcast format adds is an ability to talk around more sides of a problem than twitter or even written work can do. Their Amazon review was thorough and exhaustive, and I appreciated the rounded approach they took. I asked a question that they read on the air – basically, how does Amazon fit into an ethical investing framework – and I thought they handled all sides of that question.
I’m a believer in more voices, more investors, more podcasts, and more thoughtful discussion, so it’s good to see this podcast. It stands in for some of the trneds I mentioned above, and a good way to connect with people in this growing space.
Belén Montalvo: Aló Miami: Desmitificando EE.UU
Type of podcast: Deep Dive
Episodes listened to: #17, part of #19, and #20
EE.UU is Spanish for the United States. Belén Montalvo is a Spaniard living in the states. I believe, but am not sure, that her podcast grew out of instagramming and blogging about being a foreigner in the states. Having been on the other side of that story in Spain and elsewhere, and having discovered this podcast on the Spotify charts (which are dominated by radio outlets and Podium Podcast), I thought it was worth a listen.
Aló Miami a Spanish-language podcast, for starters. I was expecting an interview podcast, maybe something a little more madcap, not quite Borat roaming the country but a little bit more digging into the country through speaking to people. The show is more of a deep dive, though, where the host does a good deal of research on a given topic and then reports it back. I heard an occasional gimmick – for one, she refers to her partner as the yankimarido (the Yankee husband) – but she plays it pretty straight.
This works really well in some cases; I found the podcast on why we call ourselves Americans instead of another moniker informative even from the American standpoint. Likewise, I was aware QAnon was a hive of ridiculousness but hadn’t dug into it; hearing it from Montalvo’s perspective was both entertaining and embarrassing (as my friend said after the 2016 election: I weep for my country, bro). On the other episode I listened to, on Silicon Valley, it fell a little flat. Perhaps there was too much to cover for that episode.
Anyway, for anyone who speaks Spanish and wants a learning outsider’s view of the US, this is worth a listen. And the podcast format allows Montalvo to connect with the listener and to put a little more spin on some of the more curious aspects of the States.
Serial/NY Times: Nice White Parents
Type of podcast: Reporting/Documentary
Episodes listened to: Full season (5 episodes)
With respect to the previous podcasts – especially Business Wars, which might protest most – when I referred to prestige podcasts I mostly meant the remaining three. Nice White Parents was the first production out of Serial – the studio credited with accelerating the podcast boom due to its work on S-Town and its eponymous podcast – after the New York Times bought out the studio. The Times promoted the podcast aggressively on its website, and the show had real reporting muscle, editing polish, and a timely topic to cover.
The show is hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt. When I think of the advantages of this being a podcast, a lot of it comes from her hosting. She’s able to position herself as a part of the audience as well as the host, a knowing white parent in New York who is reporting on her class. It’s not exactly an ironic distance, but sort of a ‘can you believe things work like this’ gossipy friend crossed with a mirror on her audience. She translates grim and sometimes complicated concepts into a friendly conversation.
The show focuses on the ups and downs of one school building in New York as it is built in the 1960s and then houses different types of schools, sometimes at the same time, through the years. The things she gets people to say on tape are amazing, especially when directly contrasted with the historical record, including letters they wrote decades ago.
I do think the questions raised in Nicholas Quah’s review of the show are fair; i.e. the narrow narrative lens into one schoolbuilding works, but is also matched by a fairly narrow vocal lens, with mostly white parents speaking to white parents. I wonder, especially with the way the podcast ends – a hopeful counterexample – if this lets the audience off the hook, as if we now understand the problem but won’t actually do anything to solve it. That’s a very 2020 challenge in the wake of the antiracist literature and all the rest.
But as a podcast, this series is exemplary in so many ways. The theme music slaps, and the use of music throughout the episodes is great. The research that went into the podcast – this is the product of several years of work – truly shows up in the narrative. Joffe-Walt’s voice is great, and despite the concerns above, I think the positioning as a friend in the know works well. When I played this for my wife, a teacher and not a huge podcast listener, she kept shouting back to Chana in dismay or bafflement.
And most of all, I come back to the last 12 minutes of episode 1. The episode has seen a group of white parents set upon a mostly Black and Latino and Arabic middle school, instituting a dual language French program and developing big-money fundraising capabilities, but geared only towards that program. Which brings us to the end of the episode, a gala at the French Consulate on the Upper East Side, far from the school’s Brooklyn neighborhood. And there’s a woman, Barbara, who just, I can’t imagine capturing her Barbara-ness in an article or a book the same way as her voice, and I can’t imagine her unleashing sa francais quite as much on camera. Joffe-Walt knows she has something good, she says “I enjoy when a person likes to talk, when you can just get on their ride, sit back.” That sitting back is what makes a great podcast different.
Prologue Projects/Luminary: Fiasco
Type of podcast: Reporting/Documentary
Episodes listened to: Full season 3 and parts of season 1
Links: Apple | Spotify | Luminary
Fiasco is another pace-setting podcast. Hosted by Leon Neyfakh – who hosted Slow Burn, and who guested once on our podcast A Positive Jam – the show has had three seasons so far, diving into the 2000 election, the Iran-Contra scandal, and in this season, the Boston school segregation/integration crisis of the 1970s. Given its focus on education and integration, it has been mentioned quite a bit alongside Nice White Parents (and The Promise, which I’ll save for next month).
Even more than Nice White Parents, Fiasco poses the question of why a podcast instead of a book? For example, I read J. Anthony Lukas’ Common Ground – only because I heard Leon mention it, to be clear – and that is a fairly authoritative, wide-lens overview and study of this topic. Where else can a podcast go that the book didn’t? This pertains more to historically oriented podcasts like Fiasco or Slow Burn than a currents events-oriented podcast like Nice White Parents, I think.
Some of the immediate answers I come up with are that for some people, it’s just easier or more enjoyable to listen to a narration rather than read it. For others, it is like what I said for Business Wars above – one’s interest in the topic is not quite high enough to buy a book, but can work for a podcast. This was the case for me with the Slow Burn season I listened to on Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.’s murders. And there is something about hearing directly from witnesses and participants in the history. Even though the host is asking questions, and editing conversations, there feels like less between us and the story.
Then there’s a way a podcast host/production team can shape a narrative and put color on it; break it into cliff hangers; and come to a conclusion. I listened to some but not all of season 1 after I listened to season 3 (at a certain point, the 2020 election happened and I couldn’t take any more of the prior fiasco), and there were a couple distinctions to the story telling approach. The narrative tension in season 1 was higher, perhaps because there was a more obvious endgame to that election (even if we know what happened in hindsight). But also, Neyfakh flashed a little more humor and personality in season 1. It could be that from the vantage point of 2019 (when that season came out), even though the political stakes of the 2000 election seem on paper higher, the evident absurdity of those weeks allowed for more humor. Whereas the racial issues in this season echo more directly with what was going on this summer in the U.S., and are harder to ironize or laugh at anyway.
Season 3 ends with a look at Joe Biden’s role in killing the busing movement, but also points a finger at the media/oneself over whether the focus on the conflicts of school desegregation obscured the real successes that the movement had. It’s not that you can’t make that point in a book, but the drawing out of the narrative to reach that sort of conclusion may be more effective or heartfelt in this format.
All these are side issues, really, because there’s something about listening to a story that’s different and, when done right, much better. Episode 6 breaks down the famous photo, the Soiling of Old Glory, and the story behind it. Ted Landsmark, the man being attacked in the photo, is the main speaker on the episode. His perspective and the thoughtful way he shares it is one highlight, and the show brings us through the ins and outs of that day and the fall-out effectively.
The episode is framed with the U.S. bicentennial celebration. Landsmark was attacked on April 5, 1976, three months before the bicentennial almost to the day. It was two weeks before Patriots Day, a celebration of the battle of Lexington and Concord marked by a day off from school, the Red Sox playing at 11am, and the Boston Marathon. It’s no surprise that the bicentennial was a big deal in Boston, and Neyfakh starts the episode with the preparations and Boston’s plans to capitalize on tourist interest. The stain of the desegregation crisis, made most visible by the linked photo, looms as a threat in the background of Landsmark’s story, and a reminder of how much economics and money drive our broader thinking.
And then the ending comes, the Boston Pops are playing by the Charles River, Walter Cronkite is narrating, it’s the 1812 overture where they shoot the cannons. It’s a scene you can just picture even if you didn’t grow up in Boston, the cheering, the crowds. But you don’t picture it exactly, because you’re listening. And that withholding is what makes the last line of the episode so powerful. I’ve waxed on enough here, but when I listened back to this, knowing what was coming, it still almost brought me to tears.
Film Nation Entertainment/Neon Hum Media: Murder on the Towpath
Type of Podcast: Reporting/Documentary/Storytelling
Episodes listened to: Full season (8 episodes)
Link: Luminary
Fiasco is on Luminary so I paid for a month, and while I had access I listened to Murder on the Towpath as well. Hosted by Soledad O’Brien, this is positioned somewhere between the classic true crime podcast from Serial and the historical deep dives of a Fiasco or a Slow Burn. The show is about the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer (true crime) but also the Kennedy assassination and conspiracy theories, and about civil rights and the story of an unheralded pioneer, Dovey Roundtree.
The podcast is very well done. I’m a fan of O’Brien’s voice, and she’s even a little more proactive in bringing her own perspective into the story than Joffe Walt. I noticed as a production or writing thing, this podcast is a bit wordier, with less space for air or for beats to land, whether of the script or of the music (and it’s another show with very good music).
To come back to ‘why is this a podcast’ theme, this was a story that fit my ‘mild interest but then it hooks me’ framework. It also, especially (again) towards the end exemplifies the ability of a podcast to craft an ending that feels more personal. O’Brien delves into the legacies of the two women at the heart of the show. I can see this working reasonably well as a video documentary, so I won’t get more argumentative about it as a podcast. It works as a podcast, that’s all.
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This went longer than I planned, really, so I’m going to hold one podcast over to next month, which will be on time. Any thoughts on these podcasts or what does/doesn’t work, let me know in comments or at daniel at shortmanstudios.com, would love to hear from you.