March 26, 2018

THE LIST

1. On The Media  - "The Past Is Never Dead"

We construct our worldviews around the things we see in our community, experience in our day-to-day lives, and the various news chunks that come into our periphery. The media we consume plays a big role in how we interpret the world, especially when it comes to international realities most people don't and can't confront first hand. This episode is an incisive look at contemporary issues surrounding coverage of ongoing crises that have fallen out of the media spotlight, and the strange relevance of big tech intersecting with geopolitics. Via a retrospective of reductive stories from National Geographic and Winston Churchill, this episode also highlights how historical gatekeepers have dictated the public narrative of immensely complex chapters in imperial history.

2. This American Life - "The Walls"

I've long bemoaned TAL's internal identity crisis to be either a home for delightfully kitschy canvassers of the human experience or a producer of hard-hitting long-form investigatory journalism. Both angles have been executed with aplomb, and perhaps it's a problem that doesn't necessarily need to be resolved. This episode splits the difference, taking on a politically charged topic and riffing on it with the requisite amount of oddball verve that guided the show in its early days.

3. Endless Thread - "The Vault"

It's very tempting to hear the first two episodes on the list and feel overwhelmed by the tortured state of the world. "The Vault" is a reminder that, while there is much legitimate fodder for despair, humanity is capable of doing amazing things. Pretty appropriate for an episode of the new podcast from Reddit, as untold degrees of wonder reside in the messages boards of the social forum.

HONORABLE MENTION

Hidden Brain - "The Lonely American Man"

Planet Money - "The Golden Rules"

SOMETHING NEW

Radiotopia's Showcase series is a pretty brilliant gimmick. The initiative provides a home for short-run audio series that have run the gamut in scope: from a musician's documentary about the world of sound, a true-crime-esque fictional investigative dive into an urban legend, and a thematic non-fiction romp through the secrets people keep. That last collection of episodes is what we're here for today, Mohamed El Abed's Secrets.

There's a lot about this project that reminds me of Closer Than They Appear - the premier podcast from Jetty in which Carvell Wallace takes stock of what it means to relate to one another in contemporary America (you can find my review here). Both shows trace autobiographical arcs from the hosts that parallel with the episodic semi-standalone stories - Wallace tracks down his estranged mother, and El Abed reconnects with a sister he didn't realize existed for much of his life. This gambit takes a back seat to the other more compelling tales the respective hosts unravel about their various guests in each episode.

The topic of secrets is prime territory for an audio producer. El Abed, along with co-host and co-producer Martin Johnson, line up some very resonate parables about what happens when the dark is made light. Among the compelling figures are an undercover cop, a team of whistle-blowing Brits, and a pair of double lives rooted in both fiction and reality. Any of these people would be at home on an applicably themed episode of This American Life or Strangers, and that's not surprising given the acumen of Johnson and El Abed. Both men have serious cred in Sweden, and Radiotopia is doing listeners a great service by serving as an amplification point for the podcast creators.

Secrets does stumble a bit in linking together the multi-part autobiographical portions from episode to episode. This might be due to the phenomenal resonance of the other lives canvassed in the series, and the degree to which listeners may become desensitized to hearing the same framework over and over again. El Abed's story is riveting and certainly worth telling, but I'd have preferred if he had not teased it throughout the run and simply dropped it as a self-contained finale. Still, it's an intriguing exercise in exploring a theme across an array of worlds and the total package makes up for the minor shortcomings.

Secrets
From: Radiotopia
Recommended for: People with something to hide.
Drop Schedule: Friday, Seasonal:Weekly (all episodes now available)
Average episode length: 30 minutes
Rating: Gotta Have It