'The Big Steal'
This documentary tells in an exciting way the story of the greatest robbery in Russia perpetrated by a group of men associated with the Kremlin. The two protagonists of this story are two men whose names will ring a bell: a rising business star and head of Yukos, a major oil company: Mikhail Khodorkovsky . The other: a former KGB officer who rose in rank to become President of Russia: Vladimir Putin. His ideals are completely opposite and the train crash occurs when Putin imprisons Khodorkovsky for ten years, stays with his business, and became one of the richest men in the world. This nine-part series features some of the most reputable experts in Russia in the figure of Putin. Thanks to them, one of the most indecipherable enigmas in our world is reconstructed: who is Vladimir Putin? Reporter Gavin Esler builds this fascinating documentary that sounds like an addictive political thriller and contains memorable moments, like the one starring Bill Browder, an American investor in Russia who had to deal with various corrupt officials. During the podcastEsler asks how all those oligarchs did so as not to end up like Khodorkovsky in prison. Browder says Putin orders them to hand over 50% of the money they earn. In The Big Steal an exciting transition, the Russian kleptocracy democracy is counted, while Putin's regime tries to erode democracy worldwide. And like all good journalistic investigative podcasts , he asks himself many questions: How does Putin hold the country together? What is the role of the oligarchs whose money has been channeled out of Russia to do business in cities like London and New York? What is the relationship between Putin and those oligarchs?
Motivate
We already spoke on this blog a few weeks ago about this wonderful podcast promoted by WBEZ, the Chicago public radio, and Carmen Ibáñez, a freelance Spanish journalist . This podcast begins with a birthday. The one of Lauren Bajorek, a young American who blew 21 candles in Seville, the city where she studied during the summer of 2015. That night she went out to celebrate her birthday with her friends, but never returned. It would soon be known that he had fallen off the balcony of a Spanish tour guide's apartment. Candace Mittel Kahn and Alexandra Salomon began investigating when a middle name hit the newspapers in 2018: a woman named Gabrielle Vega also posted a message on Facebook warning of the danger of a tour guide named Manuel Blanco Vela. Gabrielle also said that if anyone had had experiences similar to yours, write to her. Then numerous emails from American girls began to arrive , telling about all kinds of crimes. Mittel Kahn and Salomon tied the dots and soon learned that Vega and Bajorek was just the tip of the iceberg: a whole criminal plot against American students had taken place in Seville and the Andalusian coast. The work of Carmen Ibáñez, a freelance reporter from Seville who sent all kinds of reports to the investigators, was fundamental in this investigation : “We felt that it was very important to work with someone from Seville, who understood the local justice system and who could help us to find the correct sources ”, Mittel Kahn and Salomon commented to this newspaper. The podcast consists of eight episodes that are now available for full listening. The penultimate of them connects the particular history of these students with something that we have lived in our country with special attention and whose expression was a turning point: the verdict in a case of group rape in 2016 known as La Manada that triggered massive protests Throughout Spain, he started the #MeToo movement in the country and called for a change in Spanish laws against sexual assault.
'El Chapo: the Chief and his Judgment'
The podcast of Vice News and Spotify was one of the biggest releases of 2018. Somehow, Spotify began to show interest in the podcasting not only in terms of economic benefits but also by the editorial taste of good storytelling audio. Vice was chosen as a partner and the result was a truly fascinating bilingual podcast . Culiacán is the sound stage for this podcast that features experts such as Miguel Ángel Vega, a journalist for the intrepid local newspaper RíoDoce, which specializes in covering organized crime and corruption. Miquel Ángel also works as a fixer , that is, he guides foreign journalists who come to cover drug trafficking. In the following episodes, places such as El Triángulo Dorado, the epicenter of Mexican drug trafficking, will be visited to learn about El Chapo's homeland and interview his relatives, but we will also learn about his evolution from minor trafficker to leader of the Sinaloa cartel, with such names. recognizable as Pablo Escobar or Ronald Reagan. And, of course, we will come to the prison break episode in a vivid, rigorous, and frantic reconstruction.
'In the Dark'
This American Public Media produced podcast is presented and narrated by Madeleine Baran . APM Reports, the documentation and investigative reporting unit of APM, explores complex stories in its two seasons that attempt to explain and unravel from a journalistic point of view. The first season consisting of 10 episodes investigates the kidnapping and murder of Jacob Wetterling. Season 2 looks at the case surrounding Curtis Flowers, who has been tried six times for a quadruple homicide in 1996. Heir to titles like Serial or Making a Murderer, In The Dark touches on one of the most complex genres: true- crime , understood as a colossal pile of summaries and papers that journalists read, analyze, extract and translate for the general public. It is also an extraordinary challenge for them: how to turn all that legal literature into an exciting story that contains twists and surprises for the listener? The great difference between this podcast and the titles we have mentioned was pointed out by Baran in an interview with Vulture in 2016, on the occasion of the premiere of the podcast : “What is different about our podcast is that we are not seeing what happens if the Police convict the wrong person. We are seeing what happens if law enforcement does not condemn anyone. I hope one of the things that our podcast generates is that conversation. ” The second season deals with a much more complex case and has needed 21 episodes to be fully developed. Certain facts are revealed, such as those related to the "alternative suspect", Willie James Hemphill; the key prosecutor witness Odell Hallmon or the constitution of a white jury to try Flowers, black.
'Igor The Russian'
On the night of December 14, 2017, three people were shot dead in a town in Teruel. Their names were José Luis Iranzo, Víctor Jesús Caballero and Víctor Romero . Only nine hours later Igor the Russian was detained in a ditch a few kilometers away . The information about what happened came to Patricia Peiró , a journalist from EL PAÍS, because her family was from a nearby town. Something obsessed the protagonist and she decided to investigate the figure of Norbert Feher, an ex-military man of Serbian origin who had escaped from an Italian prison. Through five episodes, Peiró travels "soundly" through Spain, Italy and Serbia and talks with experts such as José Manuel Martín Calvente (Feher's lawyer), Mariano Tafalla (lawyer for one of the victims), Marco Forte (Bologna prosecutor who instructed the case in Italy), Fabio Tonacci (journalist from La Repubblica ), Jovana Aleksic (Serbian journalist) and José Carlos Fuertes (forensic psychiatrist), among others. There will be a sixth episode that will take place when the trial is scheduled for this spring for the triple murder. In early February of this year, Feher was already sentenced to 21 years in prison for attempted murder. This series supposes a deep immersion in the mind of one of the most cruel assassins of recent times. The four doctors who interviewed him after the murders concluded that they were before a psychopath of "asocial and narcissistic" character who was fully responsible for what he did and "very dangerous".
'Dr. Death'
Producer Wondery - one of the most acclaimed in the narrative nonfiction genre - produced in 2018 from Christopher Duntsch's true story one of her most successful podcasts . Last year it was translated into several languages, including Spanish, German or Korean. The reason this story works well anywhere in the world is its universal character. Imagine: a Texas surgeon who was convicted of gross negligence after thirty-one of his patients were seriously injured after surgery, and two patients died during his operation. The podcast is presented and investigated by Laura Beil, it consists of 6 episodes and gathers testimonies from some of the victims and family members. Finally, the series asks a scary question: What happens when the doctor, the authority figure in whom we trust all our will in the middle of an operation, is a psychopath? Is there corporatism in the medical sector? Why was it impossible for Duntsch to stop operating? The original story is fascinating, and yet, in its adaptation to Spanish, some of the truth contained in the voice is lost, since it seems that it is a dubber without intention or emotion that tells the most unimaginable atrocities. If the language allows it, I recommend that you listen to its original version: Dr. Death .
'The disappearance of Father Gallego'
This series is made by Juan Serrano , co-founder of La No Ficción, a Colombian narrative podcast producer . The story that the disappearance of Father Gallego tells investigates what happened to this priest in Panama and why nobody remembers him in Colombia, his native country. Serrano told this blog that to improve his English he began listening to American podcasts . Almost self-taught, Serrano ventured into the format without having much idea of how to structure a script or how to modulate the voice for radio. Serrano read a book by Jake Bernstein on the financial scandal of the Panama papers and there he spoke of Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm from which the leaking of documents stemmed. He read that one of its founders, Ramón Fonseca Mora, had a close friendship with a Colombian priest named Héctor Gallego, who had disappeared in Panama during the military dictatorship. From there begins the spectacular research work of Juan Serranos, who traces this character obsessively. The result is a sober and moving podcast that explains what happens to a death if nobody remembers it, if nobody claims it.
'1619'
This series from The New York Times follows in the wake of the narrative work they've already done on another memorable podcast : Caliphate . 1619 is an audio series about how slavery has transformed the United States, connecting the past and the present. The series is presented by Nikole Hannah-Jones and begins in 1776, when the nation was founded on the ideal of democracy. However, it was in 1619, when enslaved Africans first arrived in what would become the United States. Just then blacks began the fight to realize that ideal. The cotton plantation was America's first big business, and the institution of slavery made the poor and fledgling nation a financial power, forming the foundation of American capitalism. In a way, therefore, capitalism and violence were linked. The podcast takes a tour of black music and the history of the Provost, who trace their origin back to their enslaved working ancestors on Louisiana's sugar cane plantations, who know this story well. This is a series that will appeal to all those who understand History as a great tool to tell stories.
A criminal novel
The convoluted Cassez-Vallarta case, one of the most mediatic in recent Mexican history, was the inspiration for the writer Jorge Volpi to write A Criminal Novel, a title that won the 2018 Alfaguara Award. With more than five hundred pages, some Two hundred characters and a complex judicial plot that begins with a police montage and ends with the acquittal of the French Florence Cassez, and includes a diplomatic crisis between France and Mexico, this story seemed unsuitable. However, the work of the screenwriters Mona León and Daniel Marín was essential. The devilish rhythm of the case mixed with fictional recreations give the podcast a narrative look that complements the reading of the book very well. The podcast has more than 45 actors and Jorge Volpi stands as a great storyteller. The writer himself confessed that when he learned that his book would be adapted to a podcast, he began to listen to some of great success such as Homecoming , the psychological thriller from Gimlet Media. Another of the podcast's great achievements is incorporating real audios such as the famous montage made by the Televisa network of the arrest of the two protagonists, accused of forming part of a criminal gang. The four nearly one-hour episodes in this series are one of the best examples of genre hybridization and multi-perspective audio games.
'The Clearing'
The Clearing is a 2019 podcast about April Balascio, daughter of American serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards. It premiered on July 18, 2019 and is a Pineapple Street Media and Gimlet Media production. In 2009, April began to suspect that her father was the killer of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew in 1980. After submitting her report to the police, Edwards was arrested and confessed to other murders. He later became the subject of conspiracy theories accusing him of engaging in famous unsolved crimes. With interviews from April and lots of private recordings made by Edwards while he was alive, this podcast is a fascinating tale in which a daughter tries to discover who her father is. The last episode is especially moving because we can hear Edwards' own voice as a reformed man who is able to dialogue with his criminal past and explains the meaning of the word "love". Undoubtedly, the two great achievements of the podcast are the deep connection in the form of a narration by Balascio and the films that come to light for the first time and whose content is horrifying.