Talking points
Pod giants Acast are opening up their platform to amateur creators with a new free service, Acast Open. Currently the platform hosts some of the biggest podcasts around including Off Menu and My Dad Wrote A Porno as well as hosting content for the likes of the BBC and the Guardian. With access to basic analytics and RSS distribution to get users’s podcasts out into the world, could it become the YouTube of podcasting?
Elsewhere, the creator of Disgraceland – the hit podcast about hellraising rock stars – has founded his own podcast company with iHeartMedia, who also recently inked a deal with Scandal creator Shonda Rhimes. The first release from Jake Brennan’s Double Elvis venture will be Dear Young Rocker, “a first-person, coming of age story about the struggles of young adulthood and the power of music.”
Picks of the week
Hunting Warhead
An undercover journalist travels almost 10,000 miles to confront two men who, he has reason to believe, are responsible for hosting some of the most horrific and disturbing child abuse imagery on the internet – and is met with two unlikely suspects. So begins this often difficult to stomach yet compelling six-part podcast from Canadian broadcaster CBC and Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang – all episodes of which are available now – that charts an investigation into the darkest corners of the dark web. Hannah J Davies
The Score: Bank Robber Diaries
Charismatic criminal Joe Loya was so prolific in the 14-month period he was criminally active that he lost count of how many banks he robbed. Now full of remorse, he looks back at the motivation and methods of his questionable working life in this gripping podcast. “I knew how to carry myself and turn on that aggression,” he says; and there is so much sadness as he talks about how he built up that rage by thinking back to the many times he was threatened during his childhood. Hannah Verdier
Guardian pick: Books podcast
When it comes to Russia, it’s often hard to separate fact from fiction. And, more recently, to separate the Russian state from the propagation of fictional ‘fake news.’ Which is why this week’s episode of our Books podcast is so timely. Joining Claire Armitstead in the studio to discuss how nonfiction works in a world of “alternative facts” is travel writer Rory MacLean – author of Pravda Ha Ha, a book about Putin’s Russia and the post-truth age – and the Guardian’s own Luke Harding, who wrote the book A Very Expensive Poison about the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko. There’s also a fascinating discussion about this boundary between truth and fiction, and how travel memoir can sometimes blur that line.
Listener pick: Short Wave
Chosen by Max Sanderson, lead producer in audio
As the former producer of the Guardian’s Science Weekly, I know how hard it can be to make science content that listeners will be riveted by each week. So when I heard NPR was launching a daily science podcast, I was slightly sceptical. Now that Short Wave is out in the world, however, I am pleased to say that the scepticism has subsided and I am loving it.
Promising to reveal new discoveries, shed light on everyday mysteries and explore the science behind the headlines – all in about 10 minutes – Short Wave is as ambitious as they come. So far (they’re only one month in), they’ve managed to keep it varied and, like all good science podcasts, find that balance between over- and under-simplification, meaning it appeals to multiple levels of interest and expertise.
My favourite episode asked: what happens when a whale dies? Have a listen to find out. Spoiler alert; it doesn’t go to whale heaven ...