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The Orsini Files: A Forgotten True Crime Saga · Story Scaling

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Story Scaling by Podcastvideos.com, where creators share the truth behind the content, the grind, and the growth.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yo, we are back from a brief hiatus with um another episode of Story Scaling.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: I am super pumped.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm Bang, Jeremiah Pickett, also um known as here at podcastvideos.com.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: As you can see, we got some new logo action going on in the background.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: And for this revamping of Story Scaling, um, we have a special guest with us, none other than Daniel McFadden.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Daniel McFadden.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Daniel, I'm I'm super excited to meet you.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard a lot of really, really cool things about you know you and what you do.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so at this point, I'm gonna introduce you to the listeners.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure some are already familiar, but I'm gonna read this bio.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: And when I finish reading the bio, you tell me if you approve it or if you got some things that you want to add to it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Cool?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Vince, where did you get the bio from?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: I got this particular bio came from Chris.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, okay.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: A mutual friend of ours, shout out to Chris Bond out there.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he he laced me with some uh some research, and you know, so I'm I'm going for it.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: At any point you need to jump in and say hey, you know, or or add some sauce to it, let me know.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to call him after this.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, what were you doing?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you get those facts?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Those are real.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yeah.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: All right, here we go.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: It says Daniel McFadden is a general assignment reporter with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, where he's worked since 2022.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: He previously covered NASCAR and motorsports for NBC Sports and Frontstretch.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: At the Democrat Gazette, Daniel has also been at the forefront of the newspaper's podcast efforts, including co-creating and co-hosting the Orsini Tapes, a narrative crime podcast about one of Arkansas's most complex and sensational murder cases.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: The series uses archival tapes and meticulous research to revisit the 1981 killing of Ron Orsini and the web of suspicion around his wife, Mary Lee Orsini.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is that spot on?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's spot on.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, perfect.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Man, from from NASCAR to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, talk to me a little bit about uh I'm I'm newer into the world of NASCAR.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: I got a buddy of mine.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: He works here, his name is Parker.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's super into NASCAR, super into F1.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: So he's a he's been you know kind of introducing me into that world a little bit.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um talk to me about you know what you what you did for NASCAR and then how do you get from there to Arkansas Democratic event?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, well, I I worked for NBC Sports, covering NASCAR motorsports for basically six years.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh after you know I went to grad school at Indiana for sports journalism for a year, and and right out of that I had a journal uh uh six-month internship at Sporting News in uh Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then really soon after that ended, I got a you know, call or email from someone asking me if I wanted was interested in covering motorsports, turn VC sports for my first job ever.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I said yes, uh instantly.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I did that for six years because NASCAR is my favorite sport.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um watched it since I was, you know, six.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um that lasted for six years, and then COVID happened.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I uh got laid off from that job in October of 2020, and um spent two years trying to find another job.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did some did freelancing stuff, hooked up with French Dredge.com, and then uh the Arkansas Democrat Gazette came along, and uh and I started there in October of 2022, just like I said, doing doing general assignment stuff.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then um in late 2023, um the so this is okay, this is the origins of the Orsini tapes.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so what in late 2023, uh Arkansas State Police announced they had solved a cold case murder from 1991, which was uh the the murder of a woman named Sabrina Underwood.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I had to go down to our morgue at the Gazette, which is where we just keep all our old clips and stuff, newspaper clips from like the 60s up through 1991, basically, um, to try to see if there was any clips related to this homicide.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there was one.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but behind the envelope for Sabrina Underwood was an envelope um that said unsolved murders, unsolved mysteries.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, that's that's intriguing.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I took that envelope, which is it was it was like this thick man.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like it it it had clips from uh the late 60s up to 1990, I want to say three.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took that home right here at my desk, and I sorted through it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, basically I was doing research to figure out okay, which of these unsolved murders actually, you know, wound up being solved eventually, and like sorting it by year and just just to have it an organized envelope.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But at one point I came across a clip from March of 1982 that talked about how the uh mayor of North Little Rock had posted a a reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever was responsible for the murder of businessman Ron Arsini.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I never hadn't seen that name anywhere else in the clips, had never never heard of that name.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did I went to went on to uh the ADG's you know online archive and typed in Ron Arsini and started with the first clip, which was from uh March 13th, uh 1981, and just went went forward clip by clip, story by story, and just got sucked into this bizarre tale uh surrounding uh Mary Lee Rossini with my wife of Ron Arsini and uh the murder of her husband, and it was just so with each story, more red flags were going off.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like this woman is weird um getting all the red flags, and then I get to a story from July of that year where she gets uh a grand jury declined to uh charge her for the murder of her husband, and she decides to throw a champagne party, celebrating not getting indicted.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the the biggest red flag is going up.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like who does this?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you should be somewhere mourning.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, and and the the all my alarm bells went off from a quote in the story where she said, At least the heat's off me.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, excuse me?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: What?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I then I get to this point uh where I come to the point where I get to a story about how uh Alice MacArthur, who is the wife of Marile Orsini's uh lawyer, Bill MacArthur, where Alice MacArthur survives a car bombing in July in um May of 1982, and I'm flabbergasted because Wait a second.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: These are all things that have documented happened in Arkansas.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, because that that's what I was thinking.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: A car bombing in Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1982.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: How I like I've lived most of my life in Arkansas, okay?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Had never heard about any of this.
• 8:27
  unknown: Okay.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what is going on?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I do a good uh I do another archive search for Alice MacArthur, just so I don't miss anything.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately for me, when I did this search, I didn't select oldest first because so it went to the default newest first.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing I saw was a story from 1999 about the trials of the century in Arkansas.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh number one with the bullet was the trial of Mary Liorsini for the murder of Alice MacArthur.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what in the world are we?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I get sucked into this just unbelievable saga of Mary Liorsini.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I read the book that uh Gene Lyons wrote in 1993 called The Widow's Web.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just yeah, Mary Lorcini became my obsession.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then uh at some point uh in early 2024, uh my colleague at the Democratic Gazette, uh Tony Holt, who's who has done true crime podcasts before, walked over to my desk and asking, Hey, do you want to do something about Orsini?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yes, please.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Can we start now?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh in April of tw last year, me and him went down to the uh Pulaska County prosecutor's office.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'd we'd asked to hey, can we see your your your files or whatever for you know the Mary Lee Orsini case?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they pull in on a cart, uh I think it was like three or four boxes, full of grand one boxes or actually like two boxes, are full of just grand jury testimony transcripts, uh just full of it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's another one with just tapes, 40-year-old audio tapes that no one has heard.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: That probably the only other person besides me at this point who would listen to him was Gene Lyons when he's researching his book.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: No one has heard these tapes ever.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like this is the podcast, this is it.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so yeah, for the next year was us putting together the Orsini tapes, which is just documenting this three-year saga, and then also, you know, talking to people who the the few people who are still alive from then uh documenting this case also got to talk to Alice and Bill MacArthur's children, Chuck and Robin MacArthur.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um they don't appear on the the the proper podcast, um, but they appear in our companion stories and you know bonus episodes.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this was the first time they had ever talked on the record about how this case affected their family in uh 40 for 44 years.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so yeah, uh it's the most important thing I've ever worked on.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the most biggest project I've ever worked worked on.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm incredibly proud of it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um I'm very glad to be able to be here talking to you about it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, man, my brain is just over here firing off.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I can I can't I literally can't fathom, you know, how it's been for you.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll bounce around.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: I want to ask some more stuff about you know NASCAR, but while we're here on this this uh topic, what was the most surprising, shocking, mind-blowing thing, piece of data information that you've come across during this process?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because you just spoke about it for a few minutes, and I'm just like, you know what I mean?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: So like I can't imagine what it was like to actually listen to the tapes and actually read the files and you know, and so yeah, like and and that might be a a a big question, but um what's one of the the things that comes to your mind when you think about that?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the I mean I uh I hate that I kind of spoiled the podcast, but I kind of have to just to tell you like how crazy uh but the car bombing, like uh I mean that that she survived that.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how she was killed.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh which would happen two month two months later, July 2nd, 1988.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was his wife that got the car bomb.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and she she she she she she would she would be she would die, she would be murdered uh two months later, July 2nd, 1982.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I won't spoil that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um even uh that uh I hate that's what I like this is this was an important part of doing the podcast for me was making sure I didn't sensationalize this because two two people died over the course of this, uh Ronor Sini and Alice MacArthur.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, for you know, 30 30-ish years there were true crime, you know, documentary style things that you know just did what they had to do to get viewers for 45 minutes, and that that was part of the reason that Chuck and uh Robin McArthur MacArthur had never talked on the record about this because they kept getting burned by um the these projects, projects that got stuff wrong um just really badly, and just sensationalized and also didn't treat their mother as more than just a victim.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that that was one very important important thing for me for two out of the six episodes that we did that revolved around the death of Ron, Orsini, and Alice was to play it very straight, matter-of-factly, this is what happened, and not to you know, make make a uh spectacle of these people's deaths.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that was the most important thing about this project to me.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Outside of that, those two episodes there's there's not a lot of true crime projects that I'm aware of that kind of have a dark humor element to it, and this has a lot of that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are parts of this story that are funny.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so and that that's one thing that appealed to me is like this is tragic, horrible, but there are elements of it that are just absurd.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so but really the the most sensational thing about it was was the the car bombing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because that's just that doesn't happen in Arkansas.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there wouldn't be another major um car bombing event in Arkansas for about 25 years.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um but yeah uh if if there's a lot in this saga, so but no the car bombing happening is the most sensate the just out out there thing of this, really, for me.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: How many episodes and how long are the episodes?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for for the main body of the show, there's six episodes and they range from 45 minutes to an hour.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are there are bonus episodes which feature interviews uh with with like Robin and Chuck MacArthur and uh other people who are connected to the case that we just didn't have time to to put into the the main body.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: When you finish this, is there an exhale of relief like man, I I scratched that itch and it's it's over now, or is it like what what's the next case that I can dive into and and keep this thing rolling?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: How does that work?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was um it was weird because like I said, you know, I I worked on this for a year.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so when the last story was published when the last episode also put out there what yeah, there was this sense of relief, like, oh gosh, you know, finally that's over.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: But then I also was like, yeah, now now what?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's there's a come down um from it, where it's like this thing that's been part of your life, and then it's just not there.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um also, but you know, you also have people saying, Hey, you you need to look into this Arkansas true crime case, and I had lots of that in on Facebook comments of you need to look into this.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I just spent a year with a psychopath.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let me breathe.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I need I need time.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but no, I'm I'm right now I'm hoping to do start a start a new podcast series soon with uh e g related to um no no no Siri, I don't I didn't say anything.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's yeah, related to true crime in Arkansas.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hoping, hoping.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh no, it's it like when you're when you're done with the most the biggest, most important thing you've worked on, uh something you didn't expect to work on, you know, two years earlier when you're writing NASCAR.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's uh yeah, it's it's a relief.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird and surreal.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but no, I'm super, super proud of what Tony and I and our producer Kyle McDaniel is able to put together.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is it more difficult to gather all the information that you need to compel, I mean, to tell a compelling story or to figure out how to tell the story in a way?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, there is a way that, and I was I looked up some of the the story and and clips and you know, excited to kind of dive into it, but there is a way that you all were able to articulate this and like you said, weave in different themes, whether that be humor or you know, um, but do it in a tasteful way and not just put something out there just for the sake of.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so what's what's more difficult?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Gathering all of the information and sifting through the files and listening to all the tapes, or taking that information and communicating it in a way that's entertaining, that does the due diligence and um you know conveys the message that you want to convey.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, honestly, gathering everything was pretty easy.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um exce except for the the month or so where I one one week out one day out of the week, I went down to the the prosecutor's office and had to record all these audio tapes on my phone.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm spending eight hours in this in the windowless room in this building listening to these tapes and you know, writing down what's on each tape for you know future reference.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: That that was the most difficult part of this because it took so long.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but really like we all we had to do was FOIA uh the North Little Rock police's uh case file for it, and they digitized it, sent it to us, and so you have this huge file which I printed off, and so now a good chunk of it is in this box.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So so now you got you know, you know, interview transcripts from 1981 that yeah, so um, so we get that we got that, then we got the little rock um uh case file, and then um we got uh um Gene Lyons, who who wrote Widow's Web, he had uh donated all of his material that he used for that book to the University of Arkansas Library, their special collections.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had uh all of his audio tapes uh that he used to interview people back in the late 80s, early 90s, people who maybe people who are dead.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we there's no way me or Tony could have talked to.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we got those tapes.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, which are tapes that only Gene Lyons has ever heard.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which I mean you can you can read the quotes in the book, but it's different when you're you know hearing the person say it back in 1989 or whatever.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but we yeah, so getting it all together was relatively simple.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It it was the okay, how how do I tell this story in a way that's compelling that hasn't been done before, and then I didn't I didn't want to do what Gene Lyons did.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want our podcast to just be the book all over again.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the only time it's like that is basically like the first 10-15 minutes of the first episode.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um because we needed to get to the tapes, you know, as quickly as possible.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that's that that's that's really the only time we ever copied what Gene Lines did was the basically the first chapter or so of the book.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so but yeah, that that that was the hardest part, figuring out how we're gonna tell this story um and do it in a way that is compelling, entertaining it, but you know, again is also respectful to what happened and the people who were involved.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go back to college real quick.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: So your first job out of college is working for NASCAR, your favorite sport.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, not working for NASCAR, covering NASCAR.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Covering NASCAR for NBC Sports.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but yeah, that that was my first job.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh covering covering my favorite sport for a national publication.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I've always been very proud of the fact that at one point during my internship at Sporting News, one of the you know old timer reporters told me, let's be honest, your your first job out of here is gonna be covering high school sports.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it was like bet.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I I didn't cover high school sports until that you know hiatus between MBC's NBC sports and the Democratic Gazette when I was doing freelance stuff.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So six years I'm covering covering NASCAR, covering a national sport, and you know, being good at it.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that in and of itself is a highlight.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: The fact that, you know, it's just like a student where your professor tells you, oh, you know, you'll you know, you'll only go on to do this, and you do something, and it's like, haha, but I'm actually doing NASCAR.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, that in and of itself is a highlight.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: In that six-year time frame, what's the moment that when you play back in your mind, your time there, you go back and you're like, man, this is you know, this is the highlight right here.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Of my six years covering NASCAR.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, technically I'm still covering NASCAR, so front stretch.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know, uh, you know, covering the Daytona 500 for the first time was was cool.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that that because that that's such a big event, and that the it's just such a massive humanity and the spectacle of it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the first ra the first okay, technically the second race I ever covered in grad school was the Indianapolis 500.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because that I mean when I was at Arkansas State University, that's where I got did went to undergrad.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's where you know I found out about Indiana's sports journalism masters program and said, oh, you could possibly cover the Indianapolis 500.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean I found about found out about that my sophomore year, and so the next three years were dedicated to me and ensuring that I got to go to that program so I could cover the Indianapolis 500.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to do that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I did I did that.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh but yeah, it yeah, just covering certain events, you know, I've won awards for my coverage and stuff, which is cool.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um but there's not like one right off the top of my head, it's like, yeah, oh yeah, this was totally oh covered covered the 500, covered the day 2500.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's great races I've covered um that were fun to write about.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's yeah, you know, so I'll just go, yeah, covering the Dayton 500, covering the 9500.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I guess.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I I have an increasingly growing reverence for what NASCAR drivers do, and I'm now mature enough to say that it is indeed a high-intense sport.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um I used to be in denial, I will admit that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: For those of you who for those people out there that are like, it's just driving, it's not a sport, what would you say to them?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: How do you explain, you know?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, any anybody can do a layup in basketball.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can do that.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Can you sit in a a hot car for three hours driving at 180 miles per hour, uh inches away from another person doing the same thing um without screwing up?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can't.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um to be in the NASCAR Cup series, you have to be the best of the best.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and um you have to drive on super speedways where you're in a pack full of 38 cars non-stop.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have to drive on short tracks, you know, for a three-year period.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: You had to be able to race on dirt at Bristol.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and now you'd have to go to six different road courses in a given year, including on the streets of Chicago this weekend.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um literally this weekend.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: This weekend they're racing in Chicago.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's you for for some reason Formula One is held up as the peak of motorsports, and it's I don't know why.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's you're it's one form form of racing, road courses, and for the most part, it's it's a parade.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Qual the race is usually decided on qualifying day.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Who qualifies on the pole, who gets to turn one first, they're more than likely gonna win.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's you you NASCAR is you have to do everything.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: NASCAR is the peak of motorsports, as far as I'm concerned.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so take that Formula One.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know sure they had a movie that came out with a debut of the$140 million worldwide last weekend, but you know, whatever.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: Soviet.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that it's if you d demean what NASCAR drivers do, you have no idea what you're talking about.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: My buddy told me they go so fast that by the time someone sneezes and opens their eyes, they went through fields.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, that's not true.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, no, no way they're moving that fast.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then he shows me a video and I'm like, oh, there is a way.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's what that's one thing I'm I've never actually asked a driver before.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, do you sneeze?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Can you sneeze right?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Can you safely sneeze in there?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's crazy.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you know, the the you know, the the stereotypical question is oh, what do you need to do when you go to the bathroom?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they go to the bathroom.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're wearing they're wearing plain retardant suits, it's fine.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh, but no, I've never asked that, hey, what do you do if you need to sneeze?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I then maybe I'll find I maybe when I'm covering the brickyard for Andre uh later this month, maybe I'll find I'll ask some of that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do if you need to sneeze?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you you've had a a wide-ranging journalism career um from motorsports to to coverage of of crime reporting.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do you find your way to the Gazette?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just applying.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like like I spent two years basically, you know, unemployed, except for my freelancing stuff.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had job interviews with multiple various outlets, uh, but nothing came of it until I applied for the Gazette.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um went down went down the Little Rock, interviewed with editors, and then a couple days later had a phone call with the managing editor, Allison Hodge, who is actually retiring uh tomorrow.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then yeah, they they offered me the job, and it was the first time I'd gotten that offer that was a realistic offer.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's like I I took it.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I needed the job.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and it was it was, you know, relative, you know, it's based on the rock, I spent most of my life living in northwest Arkansas, so you know it's close to home.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, I I I did not intend to.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Go down this path in life.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was going to be, you know, a sports journalist for all my life.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, but that's I mean, that I'm actually like I said, this is gonna be the last year that I cover NASCAR for Front Stretch.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna be putting that tying a bow on that this year, um, which is a weird feeling to say, oh yeah, that thing you went to grad school for, the thing you have twenty thousand dollars in in debt for, um you're you're gonna be done with that.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's just you know, I got kind of tired of balancing it.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, this is the thing I do for a living, this is the kind of thing to do on the side.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and like it's been cut like I do I write columns for front stretch, and it's just become kind of harder and harder to come up with things to really write about that I care about um when you're not plugged into the sport, you know, every day day of the week like I was when I was with MBC Sports.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um but like doing doing the thing, like there's any tapes.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I I had never done a narrative podcast like that before.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had done podcasts about NASCAR, I had done podcasts about movies, which is my other love.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I had never done this before.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I I did a really good job.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good at it.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I want to do more stuff like that.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so uh yeah, it's yeah, I'm at I'm at a weird um, I guess, fork in the road, I guess, with with my career at this point.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's it's an interesting fork in the road.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, and and and episodic back to the to the Orsini tapes, um to do it like you did it, to structure it like you structure it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me, and you spoke briefly on him, but talk to me a little bit about why you chose the route to go narrative, because you could have done, you know, a a different, more one-to-one interview type style, but you gave it an entire life and a and you know, you you you told a story.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, talk to me a little bit about that approach because I think that's common, but I don't know, at least in my in my space, what I'm seeing, I don't know if that is as common.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that takes a little bit more intentionality and a little bit more attention to detail.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so talk to me about the decision to take that approach as opposed to another approach.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the thing like I don't listen to true crime podcasts.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's I just don't.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I mean it just the way I took it just seemed like the it was the only way really to do it.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, uh like here here's this story, listen to it as it unfolds, and be shocked and amazed.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not oh, I'm in here in the studio with this person.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about what you remember.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: That that's that's boring to me.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh no take taking all this information, taking all my interviews, and building a story, like I I I wrote it when I was writing it.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was writing it as if I would in just any other story for the Democratic set.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I I I I I did my scripts differently than what Tony Holt did.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I went through all the tapes, found all the quotes that I wanted that I thought were relevant, and then structured my story around those quotes.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because that just made most most sense to me.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: He Tony wrote his script and then inserted quotes.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So our episodes are are are different.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's like I I I I I structured well one thing, I I structured the sh the series, I wanted it to structure it like a TV show.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for one part because that seems interesting, but also I want someone to adapt this into a TV show, and so I I I wanted to give them like here's the blueprint.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it and like I I had we have cliffhangers in and stuff, so we we try to entice people to come back and listen to the next episode.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's but yeah, it's just I wanted to basically you're basically you're listening to my version of a book, really.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that's but also a TV show.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: What were there any stories that you wrestled with leaving in versus taking out, or and and if if you know you can either speak to the story specifically or more so the tension of man, what do I share?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: What do I not share?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, talk to me about being in that space.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, no, there there are so many side stories to the Mary Leo Rossini saga that make it even crazier.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um that we had to, you know, cut off.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like we had to keep it focused on pretty much Mary Leo Orsini and not a bunch of these side characters.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um because yeah, there's audio tapes of interviews with people that there's there's interesting stuff in there, um, but we just don't have time.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you we're we're dealing with a case, you know, transpired over three years.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you gotta keep focused on the important stuff.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, I hope someone makes a TV show about this, so they can include the other stuff, which adds to the just absurdity and insane stuff that happened in this case.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um just I mean, there's there's so much you could do about Tommy Robinson, who was the Pulaski kind of sheriff at the time, who he he was he just added to the craziness of this.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: He the the case was made worse by him.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we we we cover him, you know, in the podcast, but there was so much related to him that you could have covered, but we we had to narrow it down like what can we fit in 40 in six 45-60-minute episodes, and that was that was hard.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like uh so but which luckily like we had companion stories in the newspaper.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: We had six stories that were related to each episode that you know better uh told or supplemented the story.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to read those stories, but they're there uh if you want to.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like the first story was a prologue to the podcast, a prologue to the first episode that's the days and you know, weeks leading up to the murder of Ryan Arsini the night of March 11th, uh, 1980 eighty-one.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have what a story uh that's just dedicated to who Alice MacArthur was.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because Alice MacArthur isn't a main character really in the events of this stuff, this things.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a this her death and the car bombing are unfortunate things that happened to her, and she, you know, isn't a main story in this, or main character in this.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that the the fourth companion story the that goes with the fourth episode is just the recollections of Robin and Chuck MacArthur of their mother, of uh what she was like, what she loved, what what what her passions were, um, so that you can read that and then listen to the the episode where she's you know tragically killed.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so because the the way I structured structured that episode, which is for me the best episode of the or also the most important episode, was a minute-by-minute here's the thing that happened July 2nd, 1982, leading up to and then following her murder.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um because it it it comes and then you were moving on.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: It it it's we we deal with you know the repercussions in the aftermath, but the moment the moment of her death is just the thing that happens and we keep going because that's how it happened.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I I that's that episode and that story that I wrote were very important to me.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you people know who Alice MacArthur was.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: This this is who was taken from the world.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't didn't deserve it.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ron Arsini didn't deserve what happened to him.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's um it so it yeah, that that was important to me.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that people knew who Alice MacArthur was and knew uh the impact that this event had on her family for decades afterwards.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I I got two questions that come to mind.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's one there's one question that's like, you know, you talk about being in the dark, windowless room and having to be in there for eight hours getting all the research, and then you talk about, you know, knowing what to put in versus what to put out.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say was the single hardest part, if there is one, about working on the Orsini tapes in general?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like episode four, like, which the July 2nd, 1982, it was the most not difficult, but I had to get it right.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: I had to get all the information and I had to put it together because I'm like, you know, the the box full of of transcripts, you know, have that.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have hours of audio tape to to to cut up and get right, hours and hours of transcripts on on the my laptop that you know I didn't print off.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Finding all these perspectives, all these little stories from this one day in 1982.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then just structuring it in the in a compelling uh I I hate to say entertaining for this episode because of what it's about.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um just it's a compelling about TikTok of a story.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like get dun dun dun dun 10am, this is what happened.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Noon, this person was here, this is what happened.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it it that that was making m getting that episode right and making it good to listen to.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: That would that was the hardest part.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: That that one episode, because it was a lot.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, there's there's other episodes that that deal with months of time with lots of different stories, which you know figuring out okay, which stories from this four-month window can we do we include and what we don't include, that's hard.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: But one day, what one day of time, the the the the most important day, arguably, out of this whole saga, um and then you know, also writing about you know, the fifth our fifth companion story was the Fallout, how it affected Chuck and you know, Robin MacArthur, how it how it affected Bill MacArthur for going years onward.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: That that was the the full July 2nd, 1982, and everything after it.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And just letting people know, hey, that you I'm sure you were especially for people who were alive at the time and just consuming this through newspapers and TV.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this this was just a thing that was happening that they were engrossed by.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, this this was this happened to people.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: This this affected this family and still does.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you still live with this.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um like I'm like I'm not I'm not a fan of the true crime industry, um, because it's it's gross for the most part, um and just sensationalistic in all the wrong ways.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: These are tragedies that happen to people that it still affects them.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't entertainment, um for for them, anyway.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so just putting episode four specific specifically together, um, and doing it in a respectful way, in a compelling way.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that was um that was the most difficult, the most important thing for me to do on this whole thing.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you know, you talk about coming across those case files and being so engulfed in the information.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: What made you say 40 years later, this story has to be told this way?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's a book on it, and like you were saying, um but but what made you say like I I can't because I'm I'm sure that's not the only one that you came across.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like you were saying there was some other stuff in there, but what what made you say like this has to be told right now?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: There there's there's a lot in this story that kind of predates things that are you know going on today, like um, or even since then, like for for me, like this whole case was basically OJ before OJ.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if this case had existed in the early 90s instead of the early 80s, it I I believe it would be a nationwide story, it would have been like because of cap cable news and all of this.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now it it wouldn't I don't think it would have reached OJ levels because he's OJ.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um but this was a huge story for three years in Arkansas in the early 80s, and it's basically a aside from a couple of true crime 45-minute specials in and over the last you know 20 years, it's receded into obscurity.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it baffled me because this, like I said, there's a car bobbing in this.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like there's so much this story, the characters involved, Tommy Robinson.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: He he was basically Donald Trump before Donald Trump.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he is this very over-the-top character who cries about you know, law and order and all of this, and he's just a complete wild card.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um you have no idea what he's going to do and how if as you're you know reading it and listening to it, like what's going to happen because he's just he he he you pull the grenade and throw it into the pool.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: That that's what Tommy Robinson is.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's very there's a lot of whole um like Bill MacArthur, like when as he's going through all this, he he he's a high profile, one of the most successful criminal defense attorneys at the time.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh people assumed like that he was a rich aristocrat, you know, you know, he's he he wears impeccable suits.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: You he you know, he he he must be this kind of person when actually sure he he wears nice suits, has a nice house, but back in the 60s he was a rodeo guy.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like he he he he he's a he's a redneck, he's a country guy.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like he owe he owned uh a club that was you know that opened in late 1981 called, you know, DJ's uh honky honky taunt.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and the so the public assumed so much about the case and the people involved with it, and they they had no idea what was actually going on at the time.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: There was what was happening in the newspapers, and then there was what was happening, you know, in reality.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's when you when you're reading the newspaper's clips and then you know listening to the audio tapes of what was that people recounting what was actually happening, it's two different worlds.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know the the headlines in the newspapers were driven by Mary Lee Rossini for the most part, um, and Tommy Robinson.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um so they they sucked the air out of the room of this story, and but but yeah, going back to my original point, if this case had was transported to now, this would be an insane story that would be driving headlines for all the time, I think.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I I look at a lot I I'll watch a trailer for some true crime special today, and I'm like, oh that's that's cute.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's that's nice.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it it you you have nothing on Mary Eliorcina.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but yeah, it it it I I like I said, I had never I had never heard of this story when I found it.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to tell a story for people like me.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um but and I I do think a large part of our audience was people who were alive when this happened.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so they got to really learn about what what happened back then, and I thought that that appealed to me too.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And like Chuck and Robin MacArthur, um they they learned stuff from this podcast.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh Ron Arsini's uh niece, uh Kelly Arsini, she learned stuff from from this story that she didn't know because she she was 10 years old at the time.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, Ron Ron Arsini's family listened to this podcast.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: His daughter and listened to it with her family.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh she she gave me she she said we did an awesome job.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that that that that was a the was surreal, that was one of the very surreal things was talking to her on the phone after this and say she's yeah, I'm you know, I'm listening to it with my daughters.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like um so if I had to give the advice to anybody who wants to like do a true crime podcast, okay, make it as if the people who were involved and whose lives were affected are going to listen to it.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Keep that in mind.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um, because to have the MacArthur's and the Orsini's approve of this project and what the story we told after how it affected them and their families in horrible ways over the you know the last 40 years.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was the most validating thing I I could get out of this was their approval over how we presented the story.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's a great takeaway.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna ask you another another takeaway that you have in general for podcasters or content creators, maybe something that you wish you knew, you know, when you got started, whether that was when you first started with, you know, writing um or first kind of jumping in the podcast, and it could be something as simple as, you know, what equipment to use, how to structure a story.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: What's that one piece of information, that one takeaway um that you would share with other people that you wish you knew when you got started?
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I I'm not the person to talk to you about Quibit.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I just typed it and talked into a microphone.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um so um just just be prepared for the the side quests you might have to go on to to the story.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um you you don't know who's gonna be willing to talk and who won't be.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's be prepared for it to take up a huge chunk of your life.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh especially when it's something that's very in-depth.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um but just write write the story write if you're yeah, it's a never narrative podcast, write the story that you would want to listen to.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or writing for a newspaper, write the story you'd want to read.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like when it when it comes to lead, you know, the first you know, paragraph of the story, it's like, okay, what about this story would grab my attention?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what would want to keep me reading?
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that that that's something I've uh lived by for my whole career.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like write right write what is interesting to you.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um because do you yeah, uh, don't don't write for other people.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um except for if you're doing a true crime podcast, write it and make it as if the people who were involved who it affected were listening.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um but still do it write write the story that you would want to read or listen to.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's sound that's sound advice, especially now in a time where stuff is so data-driven and algorithms and like you said, attention spans are getting shorter.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah um you know, to hear, write the story that you want to read or create the podcast that you want to listen to.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like that's that's very rich and useful, especially right now.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm yeah, I'm very glad that this wasn't uh the podcast wasn't dictated by data.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like that when that happens, you you you have to be sensationalistic.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to like, oh look at this, and that's it's not true to what you're if it's not if it's not true to what you made, then it's not honest, and it's not uh that does I I hate that.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: So like when when we were doing the marketing for the podcast, it's like okay, it it was a point for me.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot sensationalize this.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be a fact.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: The marketing has to be like the that has to be like the podcast.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be factual and to the point.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um, especially like we did, we we did we did uh teasers uh for the first episode, the fourth episode, and the last episode.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the the teasers were basically me sitting in a chair, sitting in a chair in a dark room, straight to the camera, saying, Okay, here's what this episode, here's what this podcast is gonna be, or here's what this episode is gonna be.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: With you know, uh audio clips from the podcast, uh pictures that you know from you know 1981, 1982, uh, and and stuff like that.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and like the first the first one we did, our our person who who's in charge of like social media said weeks later, yeah, it's still getting views.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's still it's still getting it's still getting getting it.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it uh that I was really happy about that because it wasn't an in your face.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, you guys want to see this interesting, hear this interesting true crime story?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was like here's this is one of your here's a story about Mary Lee Rossini and things that happened because of her.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um so it yeah, keep keep being consistent from your pre your your story that you've put, the mark how you market it, just make make sure it's consistent.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: It don't don't do one thing with your right hand and a different thing with your left.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I hope that answered your question.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, that that did.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: It really did.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I got I got one more question.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: Outside of your work, who do you look at that's doing storytelling or podcasting um that you think is excellent?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: The one thing that comes to mind is um I I'm a I'm a huge movie buff, and over the last two years I've really gotten into classic film, like 1940s, 1950s.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's this one podcast I uh that the I I I haven't listened to to every episode.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: She's had she's had a lot of seasons of this, but it's it's called You Must Remember This.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's a just a podcast dedicated to the the classic film era of basically 194.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, actually, 1930s up to you know the I guess the end of the century.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it it's like she did a whole season.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: I got I can't I I can't think of her name off the top of my head.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she did a whole season dedicated to the Hollywood blacklist from you know the late 40s, early 50s, you know, McCarthyism and uh actors and directors and producers and writers who were you know blacklisted because people assumed for the most part that they had been communists and uh some you know, some were, but you know, 10 years ago for like five minutes.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know she she does she did episodes about people who were blacklisted, people who were part of blacklisting people.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was just one season, but it was really, really good.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um compelling.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: I um but she is like I think it's like 16 seasons, and each season's dedicated to a different topic related to Hollywood.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we I would I would I would check that out if you're into classic movies and stuff like that.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: You must remember this.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: Daniel, this has been a very, very, very, very, very, very impactful conversation.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've enjoyed it.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jeremiah.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um before we get out of here, anything else that um you want to plug, anything that you're working on, anything that you want to just add, you you can get the final word.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, just I mean, please tell your friends to check out the Orsini tapes.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's you know, there are bonus episodes, but six episodes.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I mean like it's the most important thing I've ever worked on.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm really proud of it.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I would just uh it you know it it ended you know in April.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's you know it's been over for a few months now.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um yeah, I I I want people to keep finding it.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know it takes place in the early 80s, but it's a timeless uh story.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh yeah, listen to it.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: Tell your friends, and maybe it'll get enough attention that someday someone will make a move, make a TV show out of it.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm counting on it.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: Counting on it.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Man, Daniel, thank you for your time, man.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I really appreciate it.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: Looking forward to doing it again, my man.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jeremiah.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.