Each month, Podcast Review’s staff offers recommendations on the best new podcasts to listen to. Here are our favorites for March:
When they’re not busy buying legacy newspapers, Tortoise Media is still producing investigative podcast series that give us pause. In Lucky Boy, the difficult questions come quickly: why did a female teacher have a relationship with the podcast’s subject, Gareth, when he was 14-year-old schoolboy? What does our response to the scandal say about our assumptions towards male victims?
After reflecting on his experience, Gareth wants justice. But none of the teachers who witnessed this “relationship” can remember it. In this important four-part series, reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou challenges societal notions of who gets to be a perpetrator and a victim.
Zach Mack’s first notable personal project was Greetings From Somewhere, an excellent travel podcast that demonstrated his independent creative vision. Now, after focusing on producing big name shows like Power User, he returns with his most intimate project to date. Mack’s three-part series with NPR’s Embedded opens with a bet. His father, a fervent MAGA voter and conspiracist, bets Mack that ten far-fetched predictions will come true. At stake? Not just the $10,000 dollars on the table. His parents’ marriage, their family cohesion, even his father’s own integration in society are apparently on the line.
Sharp, poignant, and brave, “Alternate Realities” is a Turgenevian tragedy for our complicated times. If you devoured Things Fell Apart, you’ll find something compelling in this mini-series.
From the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, Snitch City opens with a mystery person on a fishing boat who claims to be a police officer. He thinks there are drugs on the little fishing boat, but is he telling the truth? The use of police informants to take down drug crime has been rampant over the last two decades, and this new six-part podcast uncovers a deeply flawed system predicated on the never ending war on drugs. Reporter Dugan Arnett explores the clandestine world of police informants with meticulous audio craft. Snitch City is stylish, compelling, and the product of top-rate journalism. It launches March 11.
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Alice Florence Orr is a staff writer and managing editor for Podcast Review. She is a writer and freelance media strategist.