People know I love podcasts and are asking all the time, “Brendan! What podcasts should I listen to? Any new shows out there?” Okay, that doesn’t happen. It’s more like they’re just standing there, unaware of what is about to happen to their ears, and I barrage them with “Oh man! Have you heard about?
ProShow Producer 9 Serial Key also lets you delete or add a photograph from the slideshow, create annotation text for each image, insert music that is different from the models. With this particular computer software, you will get HD video and quality that is sound change pictures into vivid memories for viewing on various presentation news.
Wasn’t last week’s silly? What’d you think of?” Few podcasts have penetrated the mainstream the way Serial has. The team behind the biggest podcast success launched their newest show, and I told you all about it in. S-Town, which is a fourth of the time it took Serial season two and an eighth the time it took Serial season one. (If you’d like to listen to my full podcast on this subject, or through the player at the bottom of this article.) S-Town is the love child of Serial and This American Life, taking after both, and standing on its own in a brilliant way.
These producers created a new experience for listeners, not only familiar but also a remarkable blend of genres. Let’s go back to the sources and see why their collaboration works so well. This is Brian Reed’s first podcast as the full time host. Previously, he produced a few of my favorite segments for This American Life including articles from episode 513 “129 Cars,” episode 524 “I Was So High,” and episode 547 “Cops See It Differently.” Brian’s delivery has a genuine and affable quality, and he charms people to acquire the real story someone may be reluctant to share. On the episode “129 Cars,” This American Life goes to a car dealership to get the real story about the different tactics salesmen use to meet their monthly quota. Brian tries to interview Manny, the top car salesman on the lot, who wants no part of the radio interviews, but Brian persists and finds an opening.
Brian’s ability to read anything his subject throws at him, and that he keeps coming back for more, allows him to get close, personal, and emotional stories. Similarly, in S-Town, Brian reads John McLemore’s recommended short stories by Shirley Jackson, Guy de Maupassant, and William Faulkner the first night they meet in Alabama.
Brian just picks up “The Art of War” and jumps back into interviewing Manny, showing his dedication to understanding the subject he’s covering “129 Cars” of This American Life actually has a web-exclusive clip by Sarah Koenig, his future partner on S-Town. Sarah Koenig is an award-winning journalist and worked at This American Life for a few years, but she may be most well known for her reporting on what was the biggest podcast before S-Town, Serial. The first season covered the flawed case against Adnan Syed for the murder of Hae Min Lee. The second season focused on the story of Bowe Bergdahl who was charged for leaving his post in Afghanistan. Both seasons of Serial are some of the best podcasting in terms of compelling narratives and amazing reporting.
Sidenote: If you enjoyed following Hae and Adnan’s story from Serial season one, check out the podcast. Undisclosed is hosted by three lawyers including Rabia Chuadry who originally brought the Adnan case to Sarah Koenig. They dive deep into the minutia of one case per season and uncover all the details that the state fails to reveal in criminal cases against the wrongfully convicted.
Also, my colleague compiled and wrote about (including Undislosed) if you’re interested. Starlee Kine is the story consultant for S-Town, so I’m going to take this opportunity to share her previous podcast, Mystery Show, as it also includes long unedited phone calls, exposing quirks and passions, and has multiple mysteries that have satisfying resolutions.
I hadn’t re-listened to Mystery Show until I was pulling clips for this episode, and it made me laugh so hard I cried. Mystery Show was my favorite podcast of 2015. Produced by Gimlet Media for one season, Starlee narrates her quirky adventures as she attempts to solve weird mysteries in her guests’ lives. The first episode is about how Laura rents a video from a store, and the next day the store is shut down and empty! What happened? My favorite episode by far is called “Britney” where Andrea, a not-so-well-known author, sees a photo of Britney Spears holding Andrea’s book! How’d she get it?
Did she like it? Starlee goes to awesome lengths to answer these questions and more. Similar to S-Town, many books are mentioned during the episode.
The part that I love best about Starlee’s production style is the long conversations and therapist-style probing questions. Many of the S-Town producers that you don’t hear on the show are seasoned professionals from This American Life. Julie Snyder is the executive producer of S-Town and is the co-creator of Serial.
Before that she was a senior producer at This American Life. Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, was an editorial advisor for S-Town, as was Neil Drumming who is a producer at This American Life, often covering race and family. The whole production team is top notch and it permeates through almost every moment of the show. Through the combined work of many great producers, and Ira Glass insisting that Brian record everything always, pod-listeners were all able to experience a new level of audio storytelling and start the next chapter of podcasting with S-Town. I’ve seen many requests on Facebook and Twitter for other podcasts to listen to that can fill the void left after listening to S-Town, but for the same reasons S-Town is special, it’s impossible to give a good recommendation of another podcast. I could list some true-crime podcasts, or human-interest podcasts, or narrative podcasts, but none of them have that literature quality.
As much as it pains me to say it, to fill the void left by S-Town, you may need to look into audiobooks. Truman Capote’s and Norman Mailer’s are recommendations from my wife Sarah. They’re both close journalistic examinations of murderers, great for anyone who wanted more murder mystery than S-Town provided. You can find more about S-Town at There is also a Facebook group and a sub-reddit,.
'48 Hours Mystery' producer Paul LaRosa questions fellow producer Josh Yager about his recent broadcast: ' - the story of Canadian Air Force Colonel Russell Williams and his confession to rape, murder and sexually deviant behavior. Josh, tell me how you got involved in this story? Having produced TV news pieces on crime, war and current affairs for nearly two decades, I always set out to find stories that seem somehow new to me - stories I feel I haven't covered or even watched before. The Russell Williams case - the air force colonel accused of rape, murder and sex crimes - fit the bill right away. I first became interested in the story when it appeared last fall on the news wires in Washington, where I am based. After a flurry of phone calls, I realized just how surreal this story was - and took off for Canada.
I spent the next six months interviewing victims, experts and other relevant people, while digging into the startling crime spree that made Air Force Colonel Russell Williams infamous as the worst offender in Canadian history. Why do you think the police in Canada did not want to be interviewed, given that they did a good job solving such a high-profile case? That's a very good question. We repeatedly approached the Ontario Provincial Police for interviews, our primary objective being to interview Det.
Jim Smyth, who performed so well in the interrogation. But the OPP, as they're known, refused us any cooperation, citing a press release they'd issued soon after Russell Williams pled guilty in which they said they would not be doing any press interviews on the case. According to the press release - and subsequent correspondence with them - their reasons for declining to be interviewed included a desire to respect the victims' families and a need to avoid divulging interrogation techniques. As the media reviewed and broadcast hugely detailed video excerpts of the interrogation, was the OPP really concerned about protecting interrogation techniques?
They have a right, of course, to grant interviews - and decline them - wherever they wish. But the way the OPP handled the media in the Williams case was the most perplexing I've seen in nearly 20 years working with police around the world. It sent a mixed message to the international media, which were inclined from the beginning to give the OPP the benefit of the doubt for a job extremely well done.
Perhaps they didn't want to respond to uncomfortable questions about their investigation - questions they assumed we would be asking. The big question is why, which you addressed in the broadcast but we're all still curious. Was there anything in Col.
Williams' background or early childhood that at least gives us a clue to his actions? Investigations of Russell Williams' background haven't yielded any definitive clues about why he went off the deep end, or for that matter, why he apparently waited until the age of 44 to act out. We do know that in his childhood, he suffered through a strange family reconfiguration, in which his parents divorced and their best friends did the same. Then his mother married the male best friend. And his father married the female best friend. Later in life, Russell Williams had turmoil in his own romantic life, as he apparently suffered through a devastating breakup in college.
It's a good thing his videotapes of the murders will never be seen. Has anyone besides the police seen them? Was any more revealed about the tapes?
What people have to realize about this case is how utterly shocking the court hearing was. Cameras were not allowed, but the public was. Sitting there listening to details and watching dozens and dozens of photographs being projected on a giant screen - photos infinitely more graphic than the ones in our broadcast - was upsetting and draining. I found it hard to imagine how authorities could also have subjected the public to those tapes. As we noted, they did describe what was on the tapes for the record. Most of the details are too horrible to go into here, but I do recall a collective gasp in court as the lawyers told the judge that rape/murder victim Jessica Lloyd can be heard on one of the tapes pleading with Russell Williams to make sure to 'tell my mother I love her,' or words to that effect.
A story like this shakes the trust we all have in others. Is there any way to predict this sort of behavior? Did anyone Col. Williams work with notice anything, even in retrospect? The short answer is no. While experts tell us there are certain commonalities in the backgrounds of some serial killers, there are others who defy stereotyping.
Killers of the Russell Williams variety are so rare that they're difficult to study. In the Williams case, nobody - from friends, to colleagues, to military screeners - noticed anything awry.
He may have been a bit of a control freak with a strange sense of humor, but Russell Williams was seen by most of those who knew him as a diligent, earnest, responsible man of high moral standing. That image undoubtedly helped him conceal his crimes from those around him - literally ghastly murders and assaults and appearing at public events within days of each other. What happened to Col. Williams' wife?
Has she moved and divorced him? To your knowledge, has she ever visited him in prison? As might be expected, Russell Williams' wife Mary Elizabeth Harriman isn't speaking to the press.
What we do know about her is that she is filing for divorce. And there's this piece of interesting information: After police executing a search warrant in her Ottawa home scuffed up the new hardwood floors, she reportedly sued them for damages. No word yet on whether she'll get William's pension, reported to be about $60,000 per year.