The best podcasts you should listen to this week
By Jaclyn Schiff and Simon Owens
Do you love listening to podcasts but are overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices out there? AudioTeller is a weekly newsletter that tells you the can’t-miss episodes. To have this newsletter delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Hello again, listeners! We’ve got lots of great content this week recommended by our wonderful AudioTeller contributors. If you’re not totally done with S-Town yet, you’re in the right place (Brian Reed interview alert)! Other episode suggestions include a show about Apple App store economics and another about the legality of ICE detention. Let’s go…
From Simon Owens, AudioTeller co-editor:
A young person’s horrifying struggles with the U.S. healthcare system [link]
Podcast: Bad With Money — Episode: A Weird, Messed-Up Game Show (aka Medical Bills)
As a huge Obamacare supporter and amateur healthcare policy enthusiast, I’m well aware of the horrors of the American healthcare system and how it can take people when they’re at their lowest and most desperate, do away with every shred of their dignity or humanity, and then spit them back out, often with thousands of dollars of medical debt.
Still, knowing this reality did nothing to assuage the pain and empathy I felt while listening to these personal stories from otherwise young, healthy people who suddenly found themselves staring down the barrel of a catastrophic health crisis.
The economics of selling apps on Apple’s App Store [link]
Podcast: Decrypted — Episode: The 13 Million Nerds That Apple’s Counting On
If you follow tech news, you may be aware that Apple’s iPhone sales stalled out early last year. Given that the iPhone is, by far, Apple’s most profitable product, then you can imagine what this could potentially mean for the company’s long-term prospects — and stock price. This is why Apple has shown sudden, renewed interest in its “services” division, which contains all its digital products, including Apple Music, iTunes, and, most important, the App Store. This episode of Decrypted performs a great deep dive into how the App Store works and how the company incentivizes the 13 million app developers that it relies on to generate revenue.
From Adam Peri, a marketing consultant in Chicago:
The profitable art forger [link]
Podcast: The Gist — Episode: The Gist Presents the Grift
Last Friday, Slate’s The Gist took a break from original content to feature some new work from an old contributor. “The Gist Presents the Grift” highlights a segment from The Grift, an anthology series devoted to the off-beat tales of swindlers and bunco artists. Maria Konnikova, The Grift’s creator and Columbia University psych PhD, begins by examining the type of personalities covered in the series, including the specific segment that follows.
It’s shocking to hear what people get away with and it feels a bit impertinent to give their stories attention. Somehow though, there’s an inexplicable familiarity that makes it impossible to look away. Every con-man is “so narcissistic” Konnikova explains, they “love talking to you… they think of themselves as artists.” The segment focuses on Ken Perenyi, an artist — or rather forger — who perpetrated massive art fraud in the 70s. Ken is a capricious con-man, but he learned early-on to pick the right friends, taking that lesson from a 1940s master forger who only got booked after selling his secrets to the Nazis. After gaining momentum selling impeccable forgeries, Ken has a fortuitous meeting with Jimmy Ricco, a (more or less) effete collector in New York.
It was a perfect match; pairing Jimmy’s exhaustive love for 19th Century American paintings with Ken’s unrequited lust for attention and cash. Ricco was itching to see his artistic vision reach the mainstream and he knew he had met the perfect swindler to deliver that message to the masses. They quit the grind of selling faux Rembrandt’s to the big wigs, accurately estimating that it’s easier to peddle hoary knock-offs of some guy named James Buttersworth to 2nd and 3rd rate arthouse denizens…
The fallout from Ken Perenyi’s scheme is still being felt today, which is covered in the full episode of The Grift. If you’re feeling apprehensive about warming up to a con-man, remember that Konnikov, explains that they’re all charismatic characters and she eventually finds herself saying: “if you read a quote, it sounds kind of sleazy, but if the same person says it to you you’re like oh my god, what a wonderful person, how endearing.” Let’s face it, bunco schemes do take hard work, and this guy was never actually indicted and he even has a really cool website. The Grift is on episode two. It will explore eight more equally reflective scam stories.
From Sriram Gopal, a DC-based writer and musician:
Two podcasts provide insight on Syria’s civil war
Podcast: Pod Save The World — Episode: Understanding The Syrian Civil War
Podcast: Politically Re-Active — Episode: Journalist Alia Malek on What We’re Missing When We Talk About Syria
Now that the United States has bombed Syria and the Trump administration’s plans for moving forward are about as clear as mud, it might be worth taking a step back and seeing how the world got here with respect to Syria’s civil war. These two podcasts put the conflict into a broader context, but come at the problem from different angles.
On Pod Save The World, host Tommy Vietor interviews Middle East expert Colin Kahl, who served in the Obama administration. The two look the Syrian issue from a technocratic perspective, looking at the events that gave rise to the war and how the Obama administration responded, including the infamous “red line.” Kahl also breaks down the choices that Trump now faces in a very clear way, underscoring the general consensus that the U.S. has no good options in front of it.
Alia Malek talks to Politically Re-Active hosts W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu with a much more personal viewpoint. Malek is a journalist and author whose parents immigrated to the United States from Syria, and she lived there as the Arab Spring was spreading to that region. Her recent book, The Home That Was Our Country, traces Syrian history using her own family’s past as the spine for that exploration. Malek uses insightful comparisons and more grounded language to describe the crisis than the bureaucrats, which in turn makes the suffering there all the more real. The three also address some of Malek’s complaints as an Arab journalist, in that she the “Arab” part of that label is given too much emphasis over being a journalist and writer. To that end, Bell and Kondabolu give Malek the space to talk about her craft and tell stories that aren’t directly related to the Syrian war.
From Lakshmi Sridharan, a physician in New York City:
S-Town’s maker takes the Longform mic [link]
Podcast: Longform — Episode: #239, Brian Reed
As an inconsistent listener of the Longform podcast, I was delighted to stumble upon one of its most recent episodes interviewing Brian Reed. The Longform podcast is a production between Longform.org and The Atavist; the hosts invite a non-fiction writer to the show to discuss the art of non-fiction storytelling.
After the success of S-Town, Brian Reed’s recent podcast novella (discussed by AudioTeller last week), Reed’s perspective has been in hot demand. In this hour long conversation, Reed discusses how he perceived the work he was doing in real time and the actual art of high-quality podcast production. Though I enjoyed the intimate portrayal of his experience, the one area that went untouched was the critical feedback S-Town has received. Vox.com and others have noted that perhaps the S-Town story should not have been told at all since it publicly exposed the intimate details of the protaganist, John B. McLemore, without explicit permission. Indeed, when I listened to S-Town, I too wondered if it was exploitative and that certainly impacted my appreciation for it. Though I hoped Longform would explore the thornier sides of non-fiction podcasting, the episode with Reed was nevertheless a worthwhile adjunct to S-Town.
From Tristan Vick, an accountant from Texas:
Glen Thrush of The New York Times on covering the Trump presidency [link]
Podcast: Bob Schieffer’s “About the News” with H. Andrew Schwartz — Episode: The Real Glenn Thrush: A conversation with NYT’s White House Correspondent
Go inside the scene of what it’s like to be a reporter who interviews the most non-traditional president in American history. From one New Yorker to another, Glenn Thrush is uniquely positioned to cover President Trump. Schieffer keeps the conversation guided, but also uncovers what reporters are thinking when they approach the subjects of Trump, Russia, White House personnel and how to fairly cover the administration.
Schieffer, who turned 80 this year, has transitioned to the podcasting medium as smooth as anyone. He brings experience, curiosity, and nuance to this interview about a subject that surprises veteran and new journalists alike.
From Joel Sanderson, a Nashville immigration lawyer:
The constitutionality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention [link]
Podcast: The Immigration Hour — Episode: Topic: ICE
This podcast is usually just a very successful immigration attorney, Charles Kuck, talking about the not-always-interesting happenings in immigration, with all the ads being for his own firm. But, as an immigration attorney myself, I find it has its moments. In this episode, he takes aim at the constitutionality of ICE detainers (requests from ICE that local police hold someone for ICE for 48 extra hours after that person would otherwise be released).
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said that the administration will punish localities that refuse to obey these “voluntary” requests. Kuck uses past court decisions ruling detainers unconstitutional, the lack of criminal probable cause, the financial burden on localities to hold these individuals, and other problems with detainers to calmly and methodically eviscerate ICE and the detainer policy.
This is a talking-head podcast and a deep dive for most people, but also a potentially enjoyable and valuable listen for people wanting to better understand immigration.
Thanks for reading (and hopefully listening to our recommendations). Think we missed a great episode? Email us at audioteller@gmail.com. Want to have this list delivered to your inbox every week? Go here.
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