onfocus

Let's talk podcasts! Here are some of my favorites:

• A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs (music history) - About once a month or so, Andrew Hickey tells a documentary style story of a famous rock song. He includes a bunch of music clips and tries to give the cultural and musical context of why the song happened, not just the stories of the people involved. 
• If Books Could Kill (books) - Peter and Michael discuss best selling self-help books. For some reason these guys crack me up, they have a lot of fun taking down this genre of book.
• 5-4 Pod (law and politics) -  Peter (from If Books Could Kill) joins Michael and Rhiannon to discuss past terrible Supreme Court decisions. As the tagline says it's about how much the Supreme Court sucks, but it's also a way to learn more about how the law works (or doesn't).
• Serious Trouble (law and politics) - Ken White is a defense lawyer who became famous on the old Twitter as Popehat. He has a good way of explaining legal concepts and he and Josh Barro discuss current high profile legal cases and explain the laws at play.
• Josh Marshall Podcast (politics) - If you don't know Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, it's a blog that started in 2000 that grew into a mini media empire. I think of Marshall's view as a sort of mainstream progressive view of politics. It's an important niche in a world where all mainstream media has gone conservative. In the podcast Josh has a conversation with TPM reporter Kate Riga about the week's news.
• The Daily Blast (politics) - As titled, this is 20 minutes of Greg Sargent interviewing a progressive reporter about a story they've done. Pretty outrage-y, but also short. 
• 404 Media (internet, tech culture) - 404 Media is a fantastic independent news organization started by four journalists who covered the internet for other publications. They get some amazing scoops from the tech world, and share some stories from their reporting on this podcast. It's a very unique take on the tech industry.
• Panic World (internet) - Ryan Broderick writes a newsletter called Garbage Day about internet culture. His podcast is usually an internet-adjacent topic that he discusses with a guest. He recently went to Minneapolis to do some live reporting and it was some of the best reporting I'd seen.
• Galaxy Brain (internet) - This is a podcast named after a long-running column about internet culture in The Atlantic by Charlie Warzel. He's new at podcasting (maybe fifteen episodes so far) but he tackles some big topics in his interviews and I've been enjoying these.
• Diabolical Lies (feminism) - I realize this podcast isn't for me, but I find the hosts very funny and they always give me new ways to look at things or new things to think about. Their episode about the popular culture reaction to the Wicked movies was great.
• Reign of Error (religion, politics) - This is a brand new podcast that tackles the topic of religion in politics, what could go wrong? This is a new podcast by Sarah Posner who has written books on this topic and covered this beat for a long time. 
• Election Profit Makers (misc) - This is a favorite that I've been listening to since it began around 2016. It was originally about election prediction markets but now it's just two guys talking in the classic podcast format. I always enjoy hearing them talk about the news or city skylines or field recordings from listeners or whatever.

Those are some of my favorites, and I'm sure I've missed a few. Right now I feel like podcasts are filling the space weblogs used to fill before everyone moved to social media.

Oh I do have an honorable mention. If you have any interest in the satanic panic of the 80s, check out the limited run podcast The Devil You Know by Sarah Marshall. It explores why people had a moral panic in the 80s and 90s seeing devil worshipers everywhere without any real proof of devil worshipers anywhere.