true crime podcasts that are not true crime podcasts?
December 9, 2022 9:41 AM Subscribe
I am looking for educational science-culture-history podcasts that use crimes and other community-disrupting events as narrative framing to tell the story of something more meaningful.
I don't care for true crime podcasts. They sound like reality TV to me with all the interpersonal relationship drama and cliffhangers and overall prurience about them.
But I just listened to the Stuff You Should Know episode on the Phantom of Heilbronn and I'd like to hear more in that vein: hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant use a thoughtful narrative about a series of crimes to tell the story of how forensic DNA for prosecution/exoneration came into prominence, how national/international DNA databases came together, how blind faith in a technology can contribute to its failure, why Germany's history required a separate set of rules for that country, etc.
I'd enjoy more podcasts like that, whether individual episodes or podcasts that do this regularly. Other community-disrupting events like riots or marches or natural disasters would work too if they reveal things about the society, make use of a new technology, precipitate important process or policy changes, etc.
Bonus points for hosts that don't insert themselves into their podcasts or ooh and aah at each other's parts of the script. The amount of personal chatter between Josh and Chuck on SYSK is about my maximum (as opposed to something like You're Wrong About, which I like very much and recommend, but the host/s are more integral to the stories and their interactions play a larger role than I'm looking for here), and their tone is low-key and authentic. Hosts that are more professorial than friendly are welcome too.
I don't care for true crime podcasts. They sound like reality TV to me with all the interpersonal relationship drama and cliffhangers and overall prurience about them.
But I just listened to the Stuff You Should Know episode on the Phantom of Heilbronn and I'd like to hear more in that vein: hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant use a thoughtful narrative about a series of crimes to tell the story of how forensic DNA for prosecution/exoneration came into prominence, how national/international DNA databases came together, how blind faith in a technology can contribute to its failure, why Germany's history required a separate set of rules for that country, etc.
I'd enjoy more podcasts like that, whether individual episodes or podcasts that do this regularly. Other community-disrupting events like riots or marches or natural disasters would work too if they reveal things about the society, make use of a new technology, precipitate important process or policy changes, etc.
Bonus points for hosts that don't insert themselves into their podcasts or ooh and aah at each other's parts of the script. The amount of personal chatter between Josh and Chuck on SYSK is about my maximum (as opposed to something like You're Wrong About, which I like very much and recommend, but the host/s are more integral to the stories and their interactions play a larger role than I'm looking for here), and their tone is low-key and authentic. Hosts that are more professorial than friendly are welcome too.
These are more sociocultural and less about procedural reality than you might be after but:
Floodlines about Katrina.
White Lies about the murder of James Reeb in Selma Alabama in 1965
posted by vunder at 10:06 AM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Floodlines about Katrina.
White Lies about the murder of James Reeb in Selma Alabama in 1965
posted by vunder at 10:06 AM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Outlaw Ocean is 7 episodes, each about a different way that activity on oceans can be lawless or where governments leave laws unenforced: enslavement, ecological harms in overfishing and cruise-ship sewage, and also reproductive justice on the high seas.
posted by xueexueg at 10:14 AM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by xueexueg at 10:14 AM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Have you looked at Serial Season 3? I'm not sure if it gets at what you want, but it dives deep on the dysfunction of the justice system in one town through the lens of various cases.
posted by DebetEsse at 10:16 AM on December 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by DebetEsse at 10:16 AM on December 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
You're Wrong About often talks about the broader social structures that influenced the reporting and/or situations discussed.
posted by platypus of the universe at 10:22 AM on December 9, 2022
posted by platypus of the universe at 10:22 AM on December 9, 2022
Re: You’re wrong About I think you would like the McDonald’s coffee case episode which goes j to how regulatory agencies are strictes in the US vs mostly Western Europe
posted by raccoon409 at 10:27 AM on December 9, 2022
posted by raccoon409 at 10:27 AM on December 9, 2022
Response by poster: Popping in to highlight this part of my question:
posted by headnsouth at 10:55 AM on December 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
...as opposed to something like You're Wrong About, which I like very much and recommend, but the host/s are more integral to the stories and their interactions play a larger role than I'm looking for here)...Thanks for the answers so far, please keep them coming!
posted by headnsouth at 10:55 AM on December 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
The second season of Mogul used the 2 Live Crew obscenity trial to explore the history of the group and the north of southern hip hop.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:08 AM on December 9, 2022
posted by kevinbelt at 11:08 AM on December 9, 2022
Drunk Women Solving Crime is only very loosely attached to the crime part in a lot of episodes, but it's more humourous conversation than anything meaningful...
posted by gregjones at 11:09 AM on December 9, 2022
posted by gregjones at 11:09 AM on December 9, 2022
Best answer: The Dig History podcast is by four academic historians and is brilliant and funny and thoughtful - they have a great Crime series that digs into abortion, changeling beliefs, the role of women, slavery, child abuse in Georgian London... all through the lens of specific crimes. There's also an episode on the death of Lady Dudley, one on the Auburn system of prisons, crime and veterans of the US civil war, and a history of forensic pathology among their episodes
posted by MarianHalcombe at 11:22 AM on December 9, 2022
posted by MarianHalcombe at 11:22 AM on December 9, 2022
Best answer: I think you would like the CBC Uncover Podcast—it has a new focus every season, done by a different investigative journalist each time. They cover crimes from a socio-cultural point of view, often looking at the institutional and structural causes and effects of crimes. Some examples of what they’ve covered:
Another CBC podcast, Finding Cleo, examines Canada’s notorious Sixties Scoop, a government program that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families and adopted them out to white families in Canada and the United States. The series focuses on the disappearance and death of a little girl, Cleo Semaganis Nicotine, who is thought to have been killed trying to find her way back home to her family in Saskatchewan after having been adopted across the border to an American family.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:51 AM on December 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
- Season 3: The Village—about how systemic homophobia/transphobia played into the police’s failure to investigate serial killings in Toronto’s Gay Village.
- Season 7: Dead Wrong—about the institutional injustices and systemic failures that led to Glen Assoun being wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years for the death of his wife.
- Carrie Low VS.—Carrie Low, a rape survivor, is fighting for change in the way rape cases are investigated after her own rape case investigation is botched.
Another CBC podcast, Finding Cleo, examines Canada’s notorious Sixties Scoop, a government program that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families and adopted them out to white families in Canada and the United States. The series focuses on the disappearance and death of a little girl, Cleo Semaganis Nicotine, who is thought to have been killed trying to find her way back home to her family in Saskatchewan after having been adopted across the border to an American family.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:51 AM on December 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
You'll definitely like Crime Show. Crimes are the organizing feature for each story, but not the main point. The tag line is "Stories about people. And sometimes crime."
posted by kitcat at 11:57 AM on December 9, 2022
posted by kitcat at 11:57 AM on December 9, 2022
Cautionary Tales!
posted by iamkimiam at 3:34 PM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by iamkimiam at 3:34 PM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Similar to the Outlaw Ocean, Lost at Sea is a BBC podcast about the world of fisheries observers/crime on the high seas.
posted by attentionplease at 4:35 PM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by attentionplease at 4:35 PM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Cautionary Tales hangs its scripts on fuckups, rather than crimes per se, but it’s really well done except when the host very occasionally has Malcolm Gladwell on.
posted by janell at 8:03 PM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by janell at 8:03 PM on December 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Another vote for Cautionary Tales
posted by ChristineSings at 8:32 PM on December 9, 2022
posted by ChristineSings at 8:32 PM on December 9, 2022
The Constant might fit the bill. There is only one host, who is very present and has a theatrical bent, but there's no interaction and barely any chatter. In principle, it's about people in the past not understanding things, but it takes that as a starting point to go much broader and deeper.
For example, there's a three-part deep-dive into the (non)sense and origin of forensic science. There's a story starting with a specific shipwreck, but ends up being about the cynical backstory of ship insurance and how it caused a huge number of shipwrecks in the 18th and 19th century. Another one is about the discovery of the importance of hygiene in medicine and about how that was ignored for a long time because of social factors (doctors were elite rich men who couldn't be 'dirty', and washing hands was dismissed as a Jewish ritual).
Just pick a random episode that sounds interesting to start, although later seasons are a bit more high quality.
posted by snusmumrik at 3:32 AM on December 10, 2022
For example, there's a three-part deep-dive into the (non)sense and origin of forensic science. There's a story starting with a specific shipwreck, but ends up being about the cynical backstory of ship insurance and how it caused a huge number of shipwrecks in the 18th and 19th century. Another one is about the discovery of the importance of hygiene in medicine and about how that was ignored for a long time because of social factors (doctors were elite rich men who couldn't be 'dirty', and washing hands was dismissed as a Jewish ritual).
Just pick a random episode that sounds interesting to start, although later seasons are a bit more high quality.
posted by snusmumrik at 3:32 AM on December 10, 2022
If you like Finding Cleo, mentioned above, you might also like the producer Connie Walker's series for Gimlet, Stolen. The second season doesn't really use the true crime format, but the first season definitely does. It's about the disappearance of a young Indigenous woman named Jermain Charlo in Missoula, Montana, and Walker uses it as a jumping-off point to talk about domestic and other violence against Indigenous women.
Through the Cracks uses one infamous crime, the disappearance (and presumed murder) of a little girl named Relisha Rudd from a D.C. homeless shelter, to look at the many ways society fails homeless families.
I adored the first season of Death in the West, but that may be because it's definitely right in my historical wheelhouse. It's about a fairly notorious episode in American labor history: the still-unsolved murder of radical labor organizer Frank Little in Butte, Montana in 1917. They don't solve the crime, but they do paint a vivid picture of how batshit just about every aspect of political, social, and economic life was in the industrial American West a hundred years ago.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:31 PM on December 10, 2022
Through the Cracks uses one infamous crime, the disappearance (and presumed murder) of a little girl named Relisha Rudd from a D.C. homeless shelter, to look at the many ways society fails homeless families.
I adored the first season of Death in the West, but that may be because it's definitely right in my historical wheelhouse. It's about a fairly notorious episode in American labor history: the still-unsolved murder of radical labor organizer Frank Little in Butte, Montana in 1917. They don't solve the crime, but they do paint a vivid picture of how batshit just about every aspect of political, social, and economic life was in the industrial American West a hundred years ago.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:31 PM on December 10, 2022
Bone Valley is like 60 percent true crime and 40 percent broader context, especially about the justice system. I get the sense that you're looking for more like 20:80 so it might not be a good fit, but it's less "true crime"-y than most.
posted by slidell at 12:28 PM on December 11, 2022
posted by slidell at 12:28 PM on December 11, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 9:51 AM on December 9, 2022 [11 favorites]