This is a Hot Pod ~exclusive~: after shifting subgenres and taking on the Biggie-Tupac story with Joel Anderson at the helm for its third season — which has brought in over 7 million downloads, and counting — the next iteration will see the franchise dip back into the political history well to examine David Duke’s […]

Slate is developing a What Next spin-off. And unlike the core Mary Harris-led news podcast, it won’t be a daily show. Called What Next: TBD, the spin-off will focus on technology stories on a weekly basis, with new episodes dropping every Friday. Notably, it will be hosted by the great Lizzie O’Leary, the former host […]

I don’t know about you, but I tend to subconsciously associate the concept of “service journalism,” which I’ll describe as reader-focused reporting often towards actionable ends, with the “personal betterment” genre. (Which, by the way, I will always happily dedicate copious amounts of my waking life towards, as I noted in a column about NPR’s […]

As the Swedish dust from last week’s Spotify acquisition-palooza continues to settle, there’s no time to wait. Slate, the veteran digital media company and purveyor of fine podcasts, announced this morning that it’s beginning to roll out something called Supporting Cast, a new technology service meant to help podcast publishers set up paid subscription layers […]

Leon Neyfakh, the writer and narrator of Slate’s Slow Burn, one of the best narrative podcasts to come out this year, is leaving the company to start a new venture. We still don’t know much about his new situation: through a Twitter thread, he noted that more details will be shared in the coming months. […]

Two seemingly conflicting ideas can be true at the same time. Here’s the first idea, which doubts a line of speculation I’ve been seeing a lot lately: Panoply’s divestment from the content business tells us relatively little about the future of the podcast business at Slate, its sister company under the Graham Holdings family. Here’s […]

(1) Panoply appears to be out of the content business. Several sources in the company inform me that, earlier this afternoon, the company internally announced that it will no longer be developing new podcasts and that it will be letting go of its entire editorial staff. I’m told that the layoffs are effective starting the […]