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THE MAKING OF A HIT PODCAST · The Media Odyssey

• Brian Reed: [00:00:00] I wanna hear this show cancel culture where you tried to get canceled a bunch with your daughter. That sounds great. Evan Shapiro: You can, you can download it right now on anywhere you would get your pods. Brian Reed: You're still here, so I guess it didn't work. Evan Shapiro: They tried every week. We did, our first episode was about, we did not Brian Reed: Oh my God. Take it lightly. They, yeah, no, it was whether or not I could tell a rape joke and, it was, yeah, I got out alive. I got out alive. This is the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: And that is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: And we've got a really special episode of the podcast for both of us, because you and I, Marion, we're relatively new to the podcasting game for the whole history of podcasting, but on this episode, we have legitimately one of the giants of the art form, [00:01:00] somebody who has helped shape current podcasting ethos and has made some of the most important and, I would say impactful podcasts in the genre's history. Were you aware of his work before, before we brought him on the show? Marion Ranchet: So I of course, knew about Serial, I've listened to many of their pods. Did not know Brian specifically, but that's what I love about this relationship is that, you are making me discover new folks. Evan Shapiro: Brian Reed, who is our, our guest, and we'll bring on in a second. He specializes in what I would call documentary podcasting. And when you look at the breakdown of most popular podcasts of all time, you've got the current wave of a lot of hosted bro podcasts and other types of podcasts out there. But when you look at the grand history of podcasting documentary, podcasts tend to be some of the biggest, most, I would say paradigm shifting, types of shows out there. I prefer, even though we do a [00:02:00] talk show commentary podcast, my favorite form of podcasting is documentary podcasting, because it just, I get lost in them in a way that I can't on a chat show. What are your favorite genres? What are your favorite podcasts? I didn't even know to ask you that, to be honest. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, on one, I actually started, listening to podcasts thanks to that specific genre. Docu pods for lack of a better word. And actually, one of the first ones might have been from Serial. And then slowly but surely, I was craving for more. And what we'll see today is, I'm assuming those are very heavy in terms of production, lead time, et cetera. And it really became a daily habit for me, like to the point where, I know exactly on which day Smartless, which I love, comes out on Mondays and yeah, I need a good laugh on Monday, so that's my go-to. Every day, the Daily Show, which interestingly enough, [00:03:00] I listen less to the French equivalent. Evan Shapiro: So the Daily, the New York Times. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, I said The Daily Show. Sorry about that. But I listened to that one more than I listened to the equivalent by Le Monde. And yeah, some days I don't even have enough to chew on. And a few of the ones that I've really liked recently are fictional ones actually. Evan Shapiro: Oh, interesting. Marion Ranchet: And there's one that I would recommend, but it's in French, but essentially, it's about the French presidency. And, it's a serialized pod. Evan Shapiro: Like drama. About, exactly, about the in and out of the French presidency, that it's a few years old. But, yeah, I'm a, I'm fond of podcasts Evan Shapiro: Well, and, I made a number of podcasts, over my career. First of all, my introduction to podcasting started in the OG 2007, 08. Era. And I actually was one of the first people to help turn podcasts into television shows. I did that with Comedy Bang Bang which is one of the [00:04:00] legendary comedy podcasts of all time, legendary podcasts of all time, Scott Ackerman and, his crew. And then, we also turned Marc Maron's podcast WTF into a scripted show on IFC as well. And then, we went on to turn Harmon Quest into a television show. My Brother and Me into a television show. And then more recently, I produced a scripted podcast, called National Lampoon's Radio Hour Podcast, Cole Escola who went on to win a Tony Award for Oh, Mary. Megan Stalter, who is now on Hacks. A whole bunch of really amazing talent that went on to do some really fun stuff. And then in more recent times, I did a podcast with my daughter called Cancel Culture. And, it was me trying to get canceled by a bunch of Gen Zers. And then more, most recently, this is our podcast. So I have a long history with podcasts. I've loved podcasts. But I will tell you that I think one of the reasons I love podcasts to [00:05:00] this day is the man we're about to introduce who has, as we've mentioned, had a pivotal role in some of the seminal pieces of work in the art form. So without further ado, let's bring on our guest Brian Reed. How are you? Brian Reed: I'm good. Thanks for having me and for such a nice introduction. Evan Shapiro: Sure, well we have to fill time. You have to, give the them something to fast forward to before the meat of the episode. You know that better. Brian Reed: Exactly. I wanna hear this show Cancel Culture where you tried to get canceled a bunch with your daughter. That sounds great. Evan Shapiro: You can, you can download it right now on anywhere Brian Reed: You're still here, so I guess it didn't work. You're still here in the public eye, so Evan Shapiro: They tried every week. We did. Our first episode was about rape. We did not, Brian Reed: Oh my God. Evan Shapiro: Take it lightly. They, yeah. No, was whether or not I could tell a rape joke and, it was, yeah. I got out alive. I got out alive. Brian Reed: Wow. Evan Shapiro: So you can listen to that now. Brian Reed: Alright. Bless you. Evan Shapiro: But anyway, let's talk about your art form, which is truly, would you call [00:06:00] it documentary podcasting or documentary audio? Brian Reed: Yeah, it's documentary. I think for a long time, the people in my orbit, which is I really, I came up at This American Life and that orbit a public radio narrative podcasting orbit. We stayed away from the word documentary 'cause it sounded stuffy and not fun. But I think the meaning around that shirt, that term has changed over the years since documentary kind of a little more entertaining and exciting, a documentary series and stuff. But yeah, it's documentary, it's journalism, it's reporting, it's long form narrative, long form nonfiction but in audio, Evan Shapiro: So you were, as you said, you were in the school of This American Life, which is, I would say, if not the most successful podcast of all time, and it started as a radio show, let's be honest. But then moved into podcasting. I would say it's probably the most successful if, not the most successful, one of the two or three most successful podcasts of all time. And Ira Glass, who's the founder of that really invented, didn't invent audio [00:07:00] documentaries, but really crafted what I would say the long form podcast and really turned it into what it is. What was it like being in school? How old were you when you got that gig? What was it like working there? And just take us back in time to your origin inside that show. Brian Reed: I got my start in radio at NPR, which This American Life is not technically part of. I could go into all the kind of, arcane, structure of the public radio system if you want, but otherwise I'll spare you. Evan Shapiro: No, that's okay. Brian Reed: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Actually we'll do that a little later in the show. Brian Reed: Yeah, exactly. But, I had a fellowship at the, at NPR shortly out of college called the Kroc Fellowship which was wonderful. It was of people who had no experience in radio. And that's where I even learned that like radio was a thing you could do. That's where I really started to learn about This American Life. But I was just learning chops, like how to use the recorder, how to interview, how to make a spot, how to do a news spot, how to do digital. I got stationed in, I was mostly in DC but got stationed in Seattle at a member station for a period and did reporting there. It was a great training ground. And then shortly after there [00:08:00] in 2010, I got the internship at This American Life. Which was at that point based in New York and was part of, even though it was part of WBEZ Chicago. So This American Life was founded in the mid nineties by Ira with WBEZ Chicago. And, Public radio stations all across the country, and they're all independent for the most part, or part of a, a local university for instance. Like they're all independent organizations and, I promised you I wouldn't do this, but then they form a board that governs NPR, but they can all buy programming on their own from different places. They can create shows and then offer them on the market to public radio stations. And so that's what WBEZ Chicago did with This American Life. But I started there in 2010 as an intern. And, yeah, I just remember it was just such a learning experience to take kind of these skills I'd learned to do more news, audio and news radio spots and apply them to story, and it really just suited me. I was a theater major in college and [00:09:00] a history major, and I found that was actually like the perfect, pairing because it was like the research part of history. I just found that we used terms that were very familiar to me from theater at This American Life. We would talk about characters and bringing characters on stage. Like the first time you hear a character in tape, and stakes and drama and conflict, and scenes. That's how we thought about the stories and that's what I was learning as an intern. And yeah, I got thrown into kind of my first couple big stories. One of which was about, so this was like 2010. So one of the thing, this is right around the time of the financial crisis and, one of the things we were covering was the car industry bailout of that period. And the first big story I worked on was I produced an NPR reporter who was the auto reporter telling like an hour long tale of this car factory called Nummi, which was like this very awesome, interesting collaboration between American car makers and Japanese car makers. And it was [00:10:00] just like going out there interviewing people, thinking about the tapes, structuring it, figuring out the order, figuring out how you wanted to tell the story, who the characters would be. And from there, yeah, it just, I loved it. And became a full-time producer about a year plus later and was there till 2022. Marion Ranchet: When you joined that team within This American Life, how many people were you? How, did that start? How did you, what was the premise? What were you trying to achieve initially? And then we can segue into how big you've become. But I think it's interesting to see the, those early days, within that specific show. Brian Reed: Yeah. It wasn't even the, show had been, I joined in 2010, so the show started in 94, so it had a bunch of eras before me, you know? Evan Shapiro: Was this the era where it was converting into a podcast? At this point? Brian Reed: When I joined, the podcast exists, so one of my jobs as an intern was to take the radio show and create the podcast files and figure out all the delivery on a [00:11:00] Friday night, I'd be there late just, doing all the different versions of the show and how we would release them. So it was, and I think by that point, like the podcast audience was getting close to the radio audience, if not higher. Evan Shapiro: Were you there when Serial first was pitched or brought up? How did that, I think that was really what Marion was thinking about was, Brian Reed: I see. Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Where did that come from and how did, who pitched it? And it's a standard, up until that point, this American Life. When you listen to it, there's what, three or four chapters? Three or four different stories per episode? This was one story through the entire thing. Brian Reed: Yeah, I do think at that point we'd done, we'd been doing more, the show became interested more in the news, and applying the lens of personal storytelling, which it had gotten so good at to current events around nine 11. So before I was there. So by the time I was there, they had done, for instance, The Giant Pool of Money, which was an hour long really kind of canonical exploration of what was happening in the financial system. That really [00:12:00] came out, I believe, before the real crash happened in 2008, and got into a lot of the issues early. And that spawned the creation of Planet Money, which was a podcast at NPR and it was a joint project between NPR R and This American Life using this type of storytelling to talk about pretty complex economic issues and economic news. So they were experimenting a lot with applying, telling stories through a personal lens in audio to things that really matter and that were in the news. And so when I was there, that was very much a part of the ideas we were pitching. Yes, a lot of shows would be three acts and there'd be personal stories or an essay, but also a lot of shows were an hour long documentary that was about something topical or high stakes, like the car story I mentioned that I worked on. We'd done a two-part series about a high school in Chicago that was like undergoing an epidemic of gun violence that won a Peabody. So we were really investing in these kind of long form, hour long, or sometimes two hour long stories as well. But really actually the way Serial came about was [00:13:00] not directly out of that. We'd also experimented a couple times with a show called This Week. Where, usually we had very long lead times on our shows, like it would take three months to do a story. That was like a pretty serious documentary. Sometimes six months for a really, investigative one. But a couple times we were like, we just wanna do something where everything happened in that week, which at that time, this is pre daily, pre any kind of daily podcast. And so we did a couple experiments where we planned a bunch and found a mix of both newsy stories and personal things that were happening in people's lives across the country and documented them into This American Life style just that week. And those were really fun, really hard. I remember around the time of a retreat we were having maybe like 2013 or something like that, the senior producer, Julie Snyder and Sarah Koenig, who was a producer on the show were pitching the idea of turning that into its own podcast. That would be a spinoff of This [00:14:00] Week, This American Life style. This Week podcast, and they pitched it. We wrote this. Evan Shapiro: So it's not specifically that story, but just the concept itself. Brian Reed: The concept of let's do a weekly show where everything happened that week and we tell it in our personal style. So like the Daily, but weekly in a way, in a a little more This American Life-y and personal. And we were at like a retreat center in upstate New York. Again, small staff. And I just remember people not being into it like, this sounds really hard. What's the point? I don't get it. Like that was the vibe, if I recall correctly. But it was like the first time we were talking about let's make another show, aside from Planet Money that's really in-house, that takes our style and applies it to what's happening in the country that week. Anyway, fell flat. And shortly after, I believe around that time, Sarah had gotten pitched the story about Adnan Syed. Like I said, we were doing these kind of long hour, long investigations. Sarah had done a couple [00:15:00] great ones like this one called Dr. Gilmore and Mr. Hyde, which was like a murder investigation in the south around this doctor that was really great and fascinating. And so she was starting to get pitches that were in that realm, like wrongful conviction, murder pitches, and she got pitched the story about Adnan Syed, and she pitched it, I believe, as structured as a multipart serial and laid out how she thought it could go. And the spirit of This American Life is really special. Where it was at that time, especially one of real invention and, exploration. You could try things and Ira was like, yeah, give it a whirl. see how it goes. And she and Julie Snyder went off and worked on the reporting. Dana Chivvis was a producer. Evan Shapiro: Did they move to Baltimore? Brian Reed: No, I don't think so. Sarah lived in Pennsylvania. Which wasn't, it wasn't terribly close to Baltimore, but I don't think she moved there. But she was there a lot. And, but like her, [00:16:00] her, interviews with Adnan were on the phone because he was in jail. Evan Shapiro: He's in jail. Brian Reed: Yeah. Yeah. Evan Shapiro: I can't imagine pulling a podcast mic into, I guess it happens. Ted Bundy was, not to compare, in jail. Yeah. But so the expectations, so she starts making this, and then it turns into this, obviously a show that you're gonna release, and the expectations at the time were, this will do fine, maybe it'll get a few hundred thousand. Yeah. Brian Reed: I wasn't directly, so I was, like working on This American Life, but we're all on the same office, like, talking about this, my understanding was a few hundred thousand downloads was what was expected and what they were planning, budgeting for. Evan Shapiro: and now it's the most listened podcast in the history of podcast. Brian Reed: I haven't checked, but it's hundreds of millions of downloads at this point, probably, for that one season. It just took off and it was, I think a lot of times now investigative podcasts are done when they release. That's certainly what we did with S-Town, my show, but they were reporting it weekly. Like they'd done a [00:17:00] lot of the reporting, but it was not, Evan Shapiro: No it was breaking news. Brian Reed: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Every time. And, to the point where he just got outta jail like last month. Brian Reed: It's continued for years. I can't even keep track of the number of times, like his conviction's been thrown out and then reinstated and he's been outta jail and, Evan Shapiro: But because of the podcast, there's no way that he gets outta jail without that podcast happening. Don't you agree to that? Brian Reed: I, think probably likely, yeah. I don't know if you can directly prove it, but Yes. I think it brought a ton of attention and people looked at the case again and Yeah, for sure. Evan Shapiro: And in the order of things, where does the sale of Serial to New York Times happen in relation to what happened to you, which is you came up with your own version of a serial, so under the label of Serial, you came up with your own show. Tell us the order of all of that. Brian Reed: I'd actually started so that you're talking about Evan Shapiro: As much as your memory holds it. Brian Reed: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Oh, S-town. Yeah. Brian Reed: You're talking about my show S-Town. So that was a story that I started reporting even before Serial was a thought. Evan Shapiro: Oh, interesting. Brian Reed: That's a story that was about a listener to This American [00:18:00] Life named John Macklemore, and he'd written the show, I believe the first email to the show from John came in late 2012. I noticed it and started corresponding with him. I started talking to him more in earnest about a year later in 2013, and, visited him, I think it was 2014, in Alabama, he was from Alabama. So I was it was just this little side thing, like it was a really. Not a lark, but pretty speculative as a story. He, this was a man who'd written us. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Go ahead, tell the story. Brian Reed: This's a man. He was a listener to the show. He wrote our like listener email address to this American life and said, with the subject line, John b Macklemore lives in Shit Town, Alabama. So that's what caught my eye. And and and then he just had this very kind of excited and interesting and expletive-laden writing style, writing. And in his email, he was talking about a murder. A couple things that had happened in his area in Bibb County, Alabama, one of which was a murder he said had happened that someone had gotten away with a local, rich kid basically. [00:19:00] And I was like, all right, this guy sounds interesting and if this happened, that's bad and someone should look into this murder. And again, you have to put yourself in the mindset of like narrative podcasts and true crime podcasts didn't exist at this point. And now it seems yeah, but like they didn't exist. Serial didn't exist. And so I started talking to him and looking into the murder, but also from the first time I talked to him, I was just more interested in him than the murder. Like he was such an interesting person and funny and dark and twisted and surprising. So anyway, that was ongoing, that investigation when Serial came out in 2014. And then, I picked it back up again in 2015. We did talk about it as like another season of Serial, when the after Serial was a success with the first season about Adnan Syed they were like, I guess we gotta do another one. Suddenly there was like a new show, without really [00:20:00] being planned. And then, John B Macklemore ended up dying by suicide in 2015 and that really changed the nature of the story. Things were happening down there in the wake of his death, an estate battle. People were dealing with his death. And so I started focusing more on it right after his death and reporting down in Alabama more and more. At that point I was also running This American Life, so I was like, halftime running this American life. Evan Shapiro: Oh, really? Brian Reed: A senior producer and halftime reporting in Alabama. You're bringing me back to a time that was busy in my head. And yeah, gradually like we decided to make it its own show and to not do it as a season of Serial. It was like, I dunno, I can't remember all the reasons, but we just thought it suited the material to really package it. As its own thing, it would be surprising, like it really still felt like a time, like this is a medium that is new and you can do things for the [00:21:00] first time ever that a listener's ever heard, and I could hear as I was reporting this show, like down in Alabama, the types of interviews I was getting, just the type of material, it was very novelistic, it was very gothic just naturally, like without me having to do much to it in terms of the writing. Like I could hear something in my head that didn't exist yet. I was like, I, it's not gonna be easy, but I could picture what it could be and what that was like a totally true, rigorously reported audio nonfiction novel. AndJulie Snyder who had, yeah, who had made Serial with, who had edited Serial. She's a master audio editor who had edited Serial with Sarah Koenig. She was my editor on this, and we really just, even from the beginning, we were reading novels and talking about that as a model for something in our medium. With Adnan's story, they talked about kind of prestige TV, like HBO, they were like, weekly cliffhangers. That was their model. And with S-Town, we were like, let's, think about novels as a novel, as a [00:22:00] model. And so we ultimately released all the episodes at once, which was also new. I believe that was one of the first times that happened. And that felt new. 'cause even that was even new for Netflix at the time. Like they'd only done that a few times. This was 2017 when we released it, so was seven episodes. We released them once so you could binge them. We labeled them chapters instead of episodes and really tried to give it the feel both in the writing, the structuring, the producing of a novel. And people thought it was like a bunch of people thought they were fictional characters, but they weren't. It was totally reported, in fact checked. Marion Ranchet: What were your expectation? Number one? Brian Reed: I didn't have numerical expectations, but it's a weird story. I thought it was gonna maybe have a cult following, like it was like, it's a guy in the deep south talking about tattoos and nipple piercings and like kind of gothic and weird, gory stuff. Evan Shapiro: Like a lot of twists. Brian Reed: It's strange. And yeah, it starts as a murder investigation, but it's not. [00:23:00] We really leave that after the second episode and it becomes like a character study. So I, don't know. I as a real, as a creative person, I really find that you have to make something that you wanna hear, that speaks to you. You can't be calibrating to an audience. It's like the, I heard Bong Joon Ho the director say this quote, but I believe he was quoting Martin Scorsese, which is like, "the most personal is the most creative." And the thing that really speaks to you in that, that's our job as creatives is to kind of trust that instinct. We're interested in something that an audience doesn't know they want yet, rather than trying to calibrate to what we think an audience wants. And so I, I generally try not to think about that much. So I was just trustin somebody will find this interesting. I find it interesting enough, and if I can try to communicate what that is to them, there'll be a niche audience. But it did quite well. It like, I think was getting maybe 40 million downloads for the first [00:24:00] month, I don't remember the exact timeline, but we're in the hundreds now as well for those seven episodes. And it, but it came out about 10, nine years ago. Marion Ranchet: And you said that you built it as a novel, but actually it's gonna become a TV show, right? Brian Reed: Hopefully. We're in development. Yeah. we're in development at Apple TV plus, as a TV show. And yeah, it's been through a few different iterations, it was gonna be a movie. Evan Shapiro: It feels, when you listen to it, it feels like In Cold Blood a bit, especially at the beginning, it feels, which is not a novel, but feels like a novel. Brian Reed: It might be more of a novel than we know. Evan Shapiro: It might be, exactly. As it turns out, Truman's not the most truthful guy in the world, but Yeah. But it feels like a piece of literary fiction to a certain extent. It also winds up being, I had never been to Alabama. By that point in my life, I've been since.[00:25:00] Brian Reed: Where have you been? Evan Shapiro: Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, went on a human rights food music tour of the South. Brian Reed: Okay, cool. Evan Shapiro: And the Human Rights Museum, which is down there, which is the known as the Lynching Museum, is one of the most, Yeah. Brian Reed: I haven't been yet, honestly, in Montgomery. Yeah, I know it sounds Evan Shapiro: Worth a trip. Montgomery is a creepy fucking town. There's nothing else to you can see it's still celebrating the Confederacy to this day, but it's also one of the most notable civil rights landmarks in the country, if not the world. Yeah. So you have that dichotomy, which I think S-Town really captures beautifully. If you have not listened to Serial, if you're listening to this and you can hear my voice and you haven't listened to either Serial or S-Town, listen to both. they don't read anything about either. Just go and listen to them, for the first time. Remarkable works of art. So right around this time or [00:26:00] after S-Town, Serial gets sold to the New York Times. Brian Reed: The was a few years later. Yeah, that was 2020. So it was during the pandemic, right? Evan Shapiro: Yeah. What was that like? Yeah. What, how did that feel like a divorce? Did that feel, which part did you wind up going with? You were running This American Life, Serial gets sold for I think $25 million to the New York Times. What does that all, how does that all feel? Brian Reed: So by that point, I had been running This American Life. S-Town came out. I was running it again, editing it, overseeing the editorial direction of it, was my job. And then I did another long form investigative series. So that took me away from that job again. And that became too hard to do both. So by the time Serial was sold, I was a This American Life employee. Serial was like a sister company of This American Life producing [00:27:00] serial seasons and some spinoff podcasts. S-Town was the first. I was then working on another one called the Trojan Horse Affair. And in 2020, Serial Productions, but not This American Life was acquired by the New York Times. And so that included S-Town, which was under Serial productions. And then the some other shows, Serial and the show I was working on at the time called the Trojan Horse Affair. So I had this experience working on The Trojan Horse Affair pre serial or pre New York Times and then post, I don't know. It was a weird time in general. Like it was the pandemic. So we went through this kind of change but weren't seeing anybody in person. Like I never went to the New York Times office, Serial didn't even move to the New York Times office. I was still a This American Life employee, on loan to this other company that had been purchased by Serial. In a time when we weren't seeing each other. So I don't know. It's hard to explain how it was like, I was just heads down making something really, and writing [00:28:00] and trying to figure out this very hard series, that I was co reporting with a newbie reporter from Britain. Hamza Syed who had found me at an event who'd pitched me something and became, it's crazy from his perspective. He was a, I met him the night before he was about to start his investigative journalism master's program, so totally new to journalism. He'd been a doctor in a previous career and and he pitched me this story about, an anonymous letter that had caused all sorts of havoc in England and based in his town, specifically Birmingham, England, that nobody had ever figured out the author of. And he pitched that we should go figure out who the author was. And so we started doing that. We were doing that for years. Then suddenly, like he found himself releasing an eight part series with the New York Times years later. This like random student who pitched me something backstage, and we started working on to as This American Life story. And then it was gonna be a series through Serial, which was already a big thing for him. And then suddenly it was [00:29:00] like the New York Times is releasing his first story that he pitched as a student. So that was, Evan Shapiro: It had all the elements. It had all the elements, it was about religion, Muslims, their Brian Reed: Xenophobia, Islamophobia. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Xenophobia, yeah. Racism. Yeah. Brian Reed: Misinformation and lies. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Opportunistic politicians. Evan Shapiro: And The Times probably loved. Marion Ranchet: Yeah, Brian Reed: So anyway, what I ended up doing is, I didn't end up staying at the New York Times. After that came out, I ended up taking a break to be with my daughter who'd been born and then setting out on my own, rather than sticking with the times or going back to This American Life, after that came out in 2022. Marion Ranchet: So you left in 2022, but you, have your own company now. Do you wanna tell us more about that? Brian Reed: Yeah, so I, started a company called Placement Theory, an audio production company, with another long time This American Life producer, Robyn Semien, Peabody [00:30:00] Award-winning, Emmy award-winning producer who worked at this American life even longer than I did, 15 years. I see it in your background. Nice. There you go. Fellow Emmy Award winner. And yeah, we really wanted to, we were looking around the landscape. At that point she and I had done this work for more than 10 years each and we're thinking about, if you wanna make something really ambitious, if you've done this type of work, audio narrative, documentary for a long time, and you wanna push the envelope and really have work, have a place that understands this medium and how to do it specifically 'cause at that point, there were a lot of kind of quick entrants, rushing into podcasting after the, success of Serial and a lot of other shows, there was a boom and we just found like, yeah, there'd be money or there'd be interest from, Hollywood Studios. But you talk to people and it's oh, I'm gonna be drag, I'm gonna be dragging [00:31:00] them along because I'm the one who actually knows how to make this stuff. And they think it's. Like making a TV show. And it's not, it's its own medium. It has its own requirements, its own creative culture, its own kind of supports that creatives need, and its own strengths that you wanna play to, and, really harness that, make it special. And we just weren't finding a place that really had that. Serial had been that place, but now that it was part of the New York Times, the culture of that big corporation wasn't totally what I was interested in, and I know a lot of other people too. And so we decided to start placement theory to be that new place basically because we didn't see a place for people, of our experience and background to go make something great. We wanted to give owner, creators equity ownership in the studio. So that's a big part of our ethos. And we launched our first show a year and a half ago called Question Everything, which I host, which was a baby of mine that had been brewing for years in my head [00:32:00] where I just started to realize it didn't make sense to keep putting normal journalism out into the world, given the state of how people receive facts in America and elsewhere. And it felt, started to feel crazy, just pretending like everything was normal and we should just keep doing the same work without really turning the lens on journalism and the information ecosystem and just like our trust of each other or distrust of each other first. And so question everything is a show that is rigorous journalism like I've always done, but turns its lens on journalism itself, how it's made, how it gets metabolized in the information ecosystem. Evan Shapiro: Investigative journalism about investigative journalism to a certain extent. Brian Reed: Basically, yeah. Though we've expanded the lens to tech and other things that, you know, and just we've responded to the world as it's changed over even just the last year and a half. Just a lot of attacks on the First Amendment, on free speech. So we, we're really trying to [00:33:00] but not in a straight news way, like we're really trying to think about how people get information. How people find the truth. What are better ways we can promote the truth, have people trust the truth, have people feel like they're finding the truth. And that's what we're focused on with our show. And then we have others in development, which we haven't released yet. But that's been our, and that we, that show is in partnership with KCRW, which is a member station, a public radio member station in LA. So it feels quite familiar, frankly, in a certain sense because that's how This American Life started was back at WBEZ Chicago and there's a nice tradition of innovative national shows being incubated and started by local member stations in the public radio ecosystem. So This American Life, but also radio lab at WNYC and Fresh Air at WYY in Phil [00:34:00] Philadelphia. So this feels like a nice part of that tradition. Marion Ranchet: And, you've mentioned that you are an audio production company and I find that super interesting. We can get into the audio versus video transformation happening in your space, but maybe a bit prior to that is how do you make the economics work? I feel it's, there's a bit of a mismatch between, there's like amazing content, super qualitative. And then I always wonder, what, how do you fund that? How do you monetize? Is it just ads baked it to the program? Can you tell us a bit more about that? Brian Reed: It's hard. We're new, we're figuring it out. Like we're still figuring out how to get our show profitable. We have the support of a public radio station, which I find really aligned because yes, we need to be a sustainable show, but they're a nonprofit that has a mission as well, and [00:35:00] they're funded largely by listener giving. And so by having a show that you know is meaningful to people, that also helps drive revenue that way, which then funds the show. So there's this added layer. But yes, we're selling ads and like we're really focused on our show with kind of more bespoke sponsorships. That's the strategy we've taken in our second year. We reorganized our Evan Shapiro: Kind of our model too, by the way. Brian Reed: Yeah, we've reorganized our sales teams to really focus on that and, we're starting to get some proof points, which is nice. And yeah, I think, and then I think just something that's been shown across the podcast ecosystem is that you need to diversify and have listener support subscriptions as well. We're looking into that for the show as well, we'll probably launch something like that soon. So it's that mix of revenue basically. We have this added just layer, buffer just being in the public [00:36:00] radio ecosystem where like I can go and pitch on KCRW and say your support of KCRW, which fully supports our show, allows us to exist, allows this journalism to exist as well. Evan Shapiro: And it's not, and it's not just this show because you like this show. This was named one of the top podcasts by Apple in 2025. In particular, I think Marion's question around the monetization of podcasting opens up a larger question around the monetization or the sustainability of journalism itself. Brian Reed: Yep. Evan Shapiro: So when you've taken this show and you've turned the lens, although it's a mic, on journalism itself, and then you look at, Mystery in Marion, which is this two part episode that really, I think, blew up. But also was a really important story about the nature of journalism and in particular local journalism and the importance of local journalism. But so many newspapers and radio stations and even television stations are now shutting down [00:37:00] around the country. What has those two episodes, Mystery and Marion, which is about the attack of a local police chief on a local newspaper who was investigating him at the time, listened to that as well. But what has this investigation of journalism itself taught you about the state of journalism? Maybe in the United States, but perhaps around the rest of the world. Brian Reed: So much, you mean on the, but specifically from like a business perspective? Evan Shapiro: I don't know. The sustainability of it. What, is the, how can journalism, quality journalism survive? Something that's not pure red meat opinion. Yeah. Which obviously has its place in the world, but that seems to be the only monetizable part of the journalism journalistic ecosystem right now. What has it taught you about both the business and, art and sustainability of journalism itself?[00:38:00] Brian Reed: Here's what I come back to that is useful, like a very kind of basic thing that I. Because honestly it can feel dispiriting. There's a lot, like the state of journalism is really rough. Like the economics are bad. Many thousands of local newspapers have gone away. The trust between the public and journalists is incredibly low. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Brian Reed: Meanwhile, like. The internet is harder and harder to navigate in terms of knowing what's reliable by the day with AI and deep fakes and social media algorithms and propagandists and bad actors. Then there's a lot of very powerful attacks on the press happening, from the highest most powerful people in the country. And the media I think is arguably getting captured in the US and we've covered that a lot on our show. The idea that [00:39:00] you know, the idea that the regime, the government administration really exercises an inappropriate amount of control over aspects of the media ecosystem to make it be more of a megaphone and to stamp out dissenting voices more and more. And there's actually, scholars who've studied the stages of media capture in countries around the world. And like we're hitting them here in the US there's four. One of them is defunding public radio and public broadcasting, which happened last year. Evan Shapiro: They did lose, they lost that case yesterday. I don't know if the money will go back, but the Trump administration lost. Brian Reed: Yeah, that's a good First Amendment win. But that was against Trump's executive order to stop funding. Right? Public radio and public broadcasting. But then Congress defunded it. So it doesn't change that, unfortunately. It's a purist victory in a way, sadly. It could restore a little funding for certain programming, but, so anyway, it can feel really dispiriting. I also [00:40:00] like, as a show, a lot of media shows, I think they live in the kind of the rarefied world of New York media land, right? And it's a lot of or DC and it's a lot of inside baseball and palace intrigue. That's not our interest. I really try to get out in the country and talk to people and news consumers and how they're interacting with the news. Are they paying attention to the things I just mentioned? Do they care that public radio was defunded or not? And what I learned from doing that is that people, A, they do want truth. They want reliable information. There is a true desire there. So that is a market. They want truthful information, but they feel so tired and burned out and overwhelmed and don't know how to find it. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Brian Reed: So, I don't have a solution, but that to me is a classic problem that a business could be poised to [00:41:00] solve a journalism business. You have a market that wants something and there's a problem. They have trouble finding the thing they want. And we try to explore different ways that you might get at that on the show. And I think, like I'm arriving slowly at a grand unified theory of what to do that comes out of all these ideas, but I haven't gotten there yet. And it, it has to do with different incentives on the internet and different ways of presenting reporting and it has to do with influencers and them presenting reporting and like one of the things we've looked at a lot on the show are just the rise of influencers and how a lot of people are getting information that way. And I've reported on a number of them. And I think there's some journalists who are very anti influencers or derisive about them. I don't feel that way. I feel like people, they're reaching audiences and meeting them in their styles. Evan Shapiro: Many of them are doing good work Brian Reed: I do find, I find that when you look under the hood, which I've done a few times [00:42:00] now, like I wouldn't rely on them for my news-news but I think you could with a little bit of work, if they invested, if there was some infrastructure given to them or they invested in a certain amount of infrastructure, like just journalism, journalistic fact checking from certain standards, it wouldn't, it would be like 15% extra work than they're doing and it would be reliable. So I think there are opportunities there too. Like I've imagined like what if you make an associated press out of influencers, and provide support. Like I think there are opportunities to explore so that we, that's what we, those are the stories we tried to tell on the show. What are the problems? How are they affecting people and what are the different things people are trying that seem like they might be nuggets of ideas? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: I'm, I'm, interviewing, someone on stage and by the time this episode comes out, I might have already done this Gaspard G. Who is a journalist and [00:43:00] commentator, young guy in France. There's also a Hugo Décrypte who's in France, who's, done a really good job of this. You've got the News Agents in the UK. Brian Reed: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: But then you've also got people like Don Lemon and, not my favorite, Chuck Todd out there. And, Acosta, all now, independent journalists out there in the world somehow making it all work between various inputs. It does feel like a moment where the creator sphere and mainstream journalism can meet in the middle to create a more sustainable, independent world of journalism. Yeah, and you, I think your, your show is a great example of this. It is deep investigative reporting. It is quality journalism. You're funding it yourself. You have, you partner in the public radio there, but it's your company that's doing it. Brian Reed: We're indie, yeah. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, it's plausible, but we do have to look for new models, I think. Brian Reed: No, [00:44:00] it's exciting. It's exciting in a way like that you could find a new way, like, the flip side of the, of the sadness is excitement, Yeah. Marion Ranchet: You mentioned influencers, but I think we should talk about creators because, the names you mentioned Evan. I put these guys in the creative buckets and there's a difference, right? For me, the influencers, so I don't know exactly how many are operating within news because influencers don't, the business model is essentially someone is paying them to be influential. So I would cast them aside, as a truthful source of truth, the names like Hugo Décrypte on the French market, et cetera, et cetera. Those are big teams now in the background. So it's been growing the same way that you guys grew out of a very small team with a Serial, and I put these guys in [00:45:00] that creative bucket. I do love that idea of saying, they should have more of that tooling, to go that one step further. And I think there's a way to do that: we should see more partnership happening between traditional media and those new sources of truth or hopefully truthful news. Brian Reed: I know, what you find is like traditional media has tried to copy what they're doing. So they're hiring video coach, like the, the Wall Street journal's hiring like a creator coach. I think The Times has one now too. They're, bringing on in. They're, I saw some reporting recently that they've met with different influencers to get tips or, they've been looking at Mr.Beast, like big legacy organizations. Evan Shapiro: But then you look at the CNN Experiment, if you look at the CNN Experiment that came out on now with the podcasting, it just looks embarrassing. It looks like old people trying to be young. I know, but, but Gaspard G is partnering with TF1 in France. You are partnering with public [00:46:00] radio. Yeah. so I think, and by the way, I think Marion and I, think Brian, you would all agree that perhaps public funded media is one of the key answers here to create true independence between commercialization and fact checking. Brian Reed: And, it's, that's what a lot of the creator ecosystem is. It is like support us, basically, it's not public, but it is listener supported or reader supported, viewer supported. Marion Ranchet: I think what makes a big difference here is the fact that, regardless of who right? But it's about, it's very much the personal brands, that you're putting out there. I think that's why it works and that's why traditional media is struggling is that those are big companies, they, don't have that physical existence. You can't relate to the Bloomberg LinkedIn or whatever, but you can relate to hug Gaspard G and Hugo Décrypte using LinkedIn and other [00:47:00] social media to deliver that news, right? So I think it's how do you find a way to embody your brands, just like creators do? Evan Shapiro: Well, and I think one of the key reasons we all love podcasting so much is it feels so personal. I, Brian, I knew you before I knew you because I've listened to your voice in my ear alone in a dark room. Brian Reed: I think most, I think the audio, audio specifically is like most intimate of all of them. Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And is that why you're so resistant to video? Brian Reed: I'm not resistant to video, but I'm aware with the work we make. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Brian Reed: The realities of what it would take to create a video product. Like a lot of the work we make, you'd be having to make a documentary basically. Evan Shapiro: Which is much more expensive. Brian Reed: Yeah. And so then it is like a different enterprise, frankly, than what we're doing, I think there's, certain as, segments and types of segments we do that translate and we have [00:48:00] experimented with video. Like I'm down to try stuff like honestly, like more what I'm interested in is, just doing something separate on TikTok. I've been like experimenting a little, like everybody just lemme do this explainer. There's a lot of things I, ideas I have that don't make it onto our like show proper, which goes through a lot of editing and we really, a lot of stuff hits the cutting floor, cutting room floor. And that seems cool to me to be able to go on TikTok and be like here's an observation I have that didn't make it into the show. that came out of being deep inside at this reporting, Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And when you look at some of the biggest podcasts of all time, they're audio only. This American Life, Planet Money, Serial, didn't have video components. And to your point. If they had tried to add video to them, it would've slowed them down and or added tremendous expense, which would've made it almost unsustainable. Brian Reed: Right. And I think you have to look at where your audience is. So we, we launched with some video, with Question Everything. We do a periodic segment in a wine shop that, [00:49:00] my co-founder, Robyn and her husband own in Brooklyn. We shut it down and get journalists together to talk about different topics like covering Epstein or we got influencers together a bunch one night that was fun. We just did one on Monday night with a bunch of reporters who are covering the rise of gambling and how it's affecting both sports and reporting in general, which was crazy. I just learned a ton. And yeah, we try to get people a little tipsy and talk about stuff late night. And so we started recording those and we did, we invested in it for the first couple, and put, cut them down, put them on YouTube. These are two and a half hour segments that were cutting down to 45 minutes and it's five or six people. So we had four cameras, so it was a real thing. And we just found that we weren't doing them frequently enough to build an audience on YouTube. And meanwhile, our audience was growing on the traditional audio platform, specifically like Apple and NPR, like that's where our audience was. And so we made the decision with KCRW, let's focus on where our audience is. like this, video stuff is cool, but it's a lot of work, [00:50:00] And yeah, when you're, have a certain amount of resources, those are just the decisions you have to make. So it's not that I'm resistant, I definitely feel fomo sometimes when I just see like podcast clips going around and ours aren't in the mix. And I try to think of ways to do that. And that's not something that's off the table for us, but I do have to like prioritize the thing where we have the most audience that is really our strength, frankly. which is like audio narrative. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. I have to say that you could treat video as more of a discovery play. It's shorter content. Yeah. So what you said, right? So there's the main episode, but who, here's that bonus, and then you just take a cam and you shut it places and you try to bring people back to audio platforms to consume the full length, Brian Reed: yeah. Marion Ranchet: Episode. Brian Reed: But though even I think it's still just awareness, like my understanding from just both anecdotally and data been made aware of is that it's very hard to convert people from [00:51:00] social media platforms to audio, to an audio podcast. I just think that conversion's really low. I heard a story about some place that like collaborated with Kim Kardashian, I believe on a, on an episode of something and she posted on her social kicking people over to it. And I don't dunno how many are on our social, like tens of millions, followers. Evan Shapiro: Hundreds of millions but yes. Brian Reed: Hundreds of millions. And I believe like actually, her team, may have accidentally posted it twice, so they got like double or something, and the conversion was like thousands. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: But that might be more about her audience than anything else. Brian Reed: Just consistent with what I've heard though, I think people are in a different mode. Yeah. like you're in a, you're not going to listen immediately. Evan Shapiro: I also think comedy podcasts are different than journalistic podcasts are different. It, it all really. It really is different. Yeah. anyway, we can, that's a whole other debate. Yeah. Yeah. You can invite me over for wine and we can talk about it. Wine. Yeah. Brian Reed: Exactly. Exactly. Evan Shapiro: Before we let you go, what are the stories that you are working on? [00:52:00] Because I feel like you're at the tip of the spear of what's happening in information and truth and journalism in the United States. What are the stories that you're working on right now that have you most excited? Brian Reed: Right now we're covering these social media trials that just happened in the last week. This is something we've been covering on the show, which is just how to get social media companies to create ecosystems that are just healthier and like better to communicate on. And, for a long time they have not had any kind of real accountability brought on them. There's a whole legal system in the US that really doesn't allow 'em to be sued uniquely. Evan Shapiro: Right, section 230. Brian Reed: Section 230. And these, there were two trials that were just decided in the last week where Evan Shapiro: Big losses for Meta. Brian Reed: The cases were allowed to move forward, past section 230, which was totally [00:53:00] rare, and they won, significant verdicts. And so we've been tracking those. We've been tracking section 230 all year. Evan Shapiro: Hundreds of millions of dollars Brian Reed: For New Mexico. Yeah, there was a New Mexico case, which was really interesting, where like the attorney general did a sting operation, basically, where he created fake accounts purporting to belong to minors. And then saw how quickly like sexual groomers and abusers and predators started accessing those accounts. And so he got a $375 million verdict, a jury verdict out of Meta, and they're pushing for more damages for Meta being a public nuisance in the state. And then, and then there was an individual 20-year-old who sued Meta in LA and YouTube, and settled with Snapchat and TikTok before the trial. But in the trial they won basically proving that Meta and YouTube created harmful, negligent products [00:54:00] that harmed her, caused worsening suicidality and depression. And they knew it. And that's what the jury found. And she's the first of thousands of other cases. She's part of this mass litigation. So it's really a big deal and it could change the playing field just for social media. So we're, I have an interview this week with one of the lawyers on the LA case, and then next week, I did this interview, which is one of the most effecting I've done in a long time with one of the upcoming plaintiffs, a 23-year-old named Taylor Little, who's suing these companies for stealing their childhood, frankly, like it was the most incredibly heartbreaking. I feel like you hear these stories, like teenage girls are on Instagram and some of their direct words have gotten out, but just sitting with Taylor for two hours and hearing their story, they're incredibly articulate, explaining just the way that the social media design affected their mental health. It just gave me a whole new way of [00:55:00] thinking about it. Evan Shapiro: And that's the nuance there. It's not the content, it's the design of the platform. And that's where the, loop around Section 230 came, Brian Reed: correct? Yes. That's the argument. That's why these were able to move forward. These are design cases, product like kind of product liability cases and rather than like Evan Shapiro: Like cigarettes. Brian Reed: Yeah, yeah. Evan Shapiro: This has been fascinating. Yeah, thank you so much. We want you to come back after you, you're done reporting on that and talk to us about that in particular. Brian Reed: I would love to. Evan Shapiro: Really? Brian Reed: That's my hobby horse, yeah. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. No, you, are, one of the forefathers of modern podcasting. It is really inspirational to watch you keep at it after all this time. 'cause it's not an easy thing that you're doing. It is, the economics are not easy either. Yeah. So thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for being with us today. Really appreciate it Brian. Brian Reed: Thank you guys. This was really fun. I appreciate it. Evan Shapiro: So a great episode. I'm gonna see you soon in Lisbon. We're gonna hang out there, we're gonna drink some port. You have a great day of programming. I have a great day, three days of programming. [00:56:00] you can use Shapiro10 to get a discount on passes to StreamTV Europe, which is happening April 13th through 15th in Lisbon, April and Lisbon gotta be there. But you have a question of the week you said. Marion Ranchet: We haven't done that in a while, and I think this episode calls for it. Evan Shapiro: I know what is it? Marion Ranchet: So it's more for the audience than yourself. Although, you can answer if you feel like it. But what is your favorite podcast? Besides this one of course. So tell us in the comments, tell us on LinkedIn, wherever you find us. Tell us what you love, when it comes to podcast. And we're gonna be putting, all the links to Brian's content, right? Evan Shapiro: Yeah. I'm gonna answer. I'm gonna say, The Rest is Politics is probably my favorite, podcast right now, both UK and US from Goal Hanger. what's yours? Marion Ranchet: I have too many. I think it's gonna have Smartless for the fun, Totemic [00:57:00] for the best, interviewer ever, and then the Daily for news. Evan Shapiro: Daily is amazing. Truly a great podcast. Thank you Marion. I'll see you soon in Portugal. Thank you for listening to or watching the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: and that is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: We'll see you or hear you soon.