5 Podcasts for Summer 2024 You May Have Missed

This summer was full of poignant, timely podcasts that kept listeners engaged during the warmer months. From an experiment with generative AI to a deep dive into why no one was held accountable for the Haditha massacre, here are five podcasts from this summer worth revisiting for fall — or even during fall!

Shell Game (independent)

The birth of a new class of generative artificial intelligence software has thrust the technology into the spotlight, with pundits torn between praising its praise and warning that it will end the world as we know it. In his new podcast “Shell Game,” journalist Evan Ratliff tests the limits of publicly available AI tools by creating a voice clone of himself and pairing it with an AI chatbot. If there’s one thing to “take away from this six-episode blast of a podcast,” it’s that “all this AI stuff can actually spark (or in some cases re-ignite) curiosity, competence, and individual economic mobility,” he said. Podcast DeliveryListen further Substack.

The Canadian CBC is working with The Embedded NPR podcast for this limited series, which explores the 100-year history of the controversial practice of “sex testing” in elite sports. Host Rose Eveleth is “no stranger to making great sports audio documentaries,” Vulture said. The show follows the story of two women who get caught up in new rules from World Athletics officials that said the pair couldn’t compete in the women’s category unless they lowered their bodies’ natural testosterone levels. The series “comes at a particularly resonant time” due to this summer’s Olympics and a “larger political backdrop of LGBTQ+ rights under attack globally,” Vulture said. Listen on Apple, Spotify or NPR.

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Stories about mass hysteria are becoming a popular subgenre of narrative podcasts, and Wondery’s “riveting” seven-part series about a “mass psychogenic illness” that struck girls at a high school in upstate New York in 2011 is no exception, according to The guard. It started with one girl who developed “conversion disorder,” which typically involves physical symptoms like a limp or tic with no apparent cause. Suddenly, there were more and more teenage girls who were “ticking and screaming, making noises and shaking,” almost as if they had Tourette’s syndrome. Host Dan Taberski is a veteran podcaster and a charming host who makes this complex story “clear, intriguing and fun,” according to the outlet. “The best writers are able to pinpoint something you’ve been feeling for ages but haven’t been able to put into words. This show is like that, every minute.” Listen to more Apple or Spotify.

Season three of the acclaimed investigative podcast is landing a new home at The New Yorker. The first project under the magazine features host Madeleine Baran and her team investigating the Haditha massacre in Iraq, for which four U.S. Marines were charged with murder. Only one was found guilty of the lesser charge of negligent dereliction of duty and served no prison time. Baran and her team began investigating the incident four years ago, interviewing more than a hundred sources and “repeatedly suing the military for the release of thousands of documents to find out why a well-documented mass murder had gone virtually unpunished.” The New Yorker said. The result of that in-depth investigation is “excellent, disturbing, and another much-needed opportunity to critically examine the state of U.S. military engagement,” according to Vulture. Listen further Apple, Spotifyor The New Yorker.

Writer and comedian Jamie Loftus looks at the most important internet characters of the past and delves into “how their stories relate to our media habits and cultural shortcomings,” according to Squire. Her episode about the viral video “Hide Your Kids, Hide Your Wife” “takes a hard look at the exploitation of minorities for entertainment, as well as the cover-up of sexual abuse for humor.” She revisits these moments for more than just nostalgia. “It would be so easy to just make this a superficial, ‘Hey, remember that clip from eBaum’s World?’ podcast, but it’s not,” Esquire said. Listen on Apple or Spotify.

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5 Podcasts for Summer 2024 You May Have Missed

Shell Game (independent)

Embedded: Tested (NPR and CBC)

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