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Podcast fans from all around - come and nerd out about podcasts and discover new shows along the way!
On Podcast Book Club - a different group of podcast industry pros sit down each week to pour over an episode of a show they admire.
We're a group of podcasting professionals who spend every day scripting, producing, engineering, and promoting podcasts. And in our free time? We’re podcast fans just like you. We love to listen to even more podcasts and figure out what makes the best podcasts so good.
So tune in and join the club - listen to podcast reviews of some of our favorite gems. We’ll give feedback on podcast content but also sound design, production, scripting, storytelling, and more.
Want even more? Catch Podcast Book Club on Twitter: twitter.com/podbookclub
Podcast Book Club is produced by Alex Bennett, Head of Post Production at Lower Street. Alex is a domesticated audio nerd, who has spent the past five years learning about human social conventions via the medium of podcasting. From Edinburgh, Scotland he is an audio engineer that helps produce audio dramas in his spare time. Alex specialises in soundscapes and creative mixing. He has a deep and abiding love for sandwiches, and is the 2nd worst bowler at Lower Street.
Lower Street provides next-level podcast production services for ambitious companies: everything from podcast strategy and creation to growth. We’ve worked with companies like BCG to develop multiple podcasts like Climate Vision 2050, BCG Compliance, BCG Fintech Files, and BCG In Her Element. We’ve also helped produce: Cadence Bank’s In Good Companies; HPE’s Technology Now, Zuhlke’s Data Today, Northern Trust’s The Road to Why, Zoobean’s The Reading Culture; ICR’s Welcome to the Arena and ZeroNorth’s Navigating Zero.
Find out more at https://lowerstreet.co/ and sign up for our newsletter to keep in touch https://lowerstreet.co/newsletter-sign-up
00:00 Zoe
Welcome to Podcast Book Club from Lower Street Media, where we take a look at what makes great podcasts so, well, great. Our day job is making podcasts, but we're also fans of the medium, and I think it can be really useful to dig into what makes the shows we love so good. Today, we're talking about the Slow Newscast, an investigative journalism podcast created by Tortoise Media, a slow newsroom based in the UK. Each week, the podcast focuses on telling one story that has significance in the UK and or around the world. This could be anything from investigating scandals in the British Virgin Islands, all the way up to tracking the progress of the male contraceptive pill. In their words, Tortoise are devoted to creating narrative investigations. This is done through the use of voiceover, sound design, field recording and archival footage. Episodes vary in length, but they usually cap off at around 45 minutes. Hosts also vary, but the reappearing voice throughout the series is that of editor Basher Cummings, who introduces and concludes every episode. This week, myself and my Lower Street pals have listened to The Darwin Job, The Vanishing and Reappearing Notebooks. This episode takes you on the trail of the priceless notebooks that turned up in a hot pink gift bag after they'd been missing for over 20 years. So do we actually want to know who done it? Let's find out. And I just want to let you know there's going to be spoilers ahead. My name is Zoe and I'm a producer here at Lower Street. I spend most of my time pulling the strings to bring podcast episodes together. But as I mentioned, it's not just me here today. Andrew, would you like to introduce yourself to the audience?
01:47 Andrew
I would. My name is Andrew. I'm a producer at Lower Street, which means I do everything that Zoe does. I just do it slightly worse than Zoe, but I have a good time doing it.
01:59 Zoe
Elise, you want to introduce yourself today?
02:01 Elise
I would love to introduce myself. Hey, everybody. My name is Elise and I'm a producer here at Lower Street. Awesome. Thank you both.
02:09 Zoe
So interesting episode in a really like varied series. I'd love to just know your broad thoughts on the episode, what you thought, if you liked it, all that kind of stuff. Do you want to kick us off, Andrew?
02:21 Andrew
Yeah, I would. I loved it. I mean, I thought it was excellent. It was really engaging and really, I thought, effective storytelling. And we're going to talk a lot about the sound design and the music and these field recording. And I just thought all of that was really masterfully done. And yeah, I can't wait to dive into why it was all effective and what you guys thought of it.
02:48 Zoe
Awesome. Thank you. Elise?
02:49 Elise
I thought it was an incredibly effective episode. And it did a really, really good job of delivering what the promise of the entire sort of media landscape is for this news house. You know, like we live in this climate where everything is pretty sensationalised. And even true crime documentaries have this aspect of like, let's make it as intense as possible, I think, with a lot of the things that we listen to. And this was so lovely because not only did we get to learn a lot about something that you would never otherwise do, but you get this news story that was very, very measured. And you wanted to know more without feeling like the anxiety didn't rise up in me as I listened to the news for the first time in a very long time. And that felt great.
03:29 Clips
If after 20 years of looking, you've not found it, then what hadn't you thought about? What have you closed down? Why have we not substantially explored theft or missing in other ways? Jessica went to the police. Interpol were informed and the university went public with its secret.
03:49 Zoe
Yeah, so it's really interesting because this series tends to be because it's about the news and obviously the news is the news. It tends to be like really, really heavy subjects. It tends to be quite triggering and all this kind of stuff. And I find that kind of thing really interesting. But I didn't want to bring it to a space where necessarily it would like be like kind of if you didn't want to listen to it, you didn't want to listen to it kind of thing. So I thought this episode was a good introduction to kind of the way they make things rather than like piling on some really heavy subject matter because that's you know, the news is like that and that's the kind of landscape we're in. So that's really interesting.
04:29 Andrew
I've never listened to the show before and I'd like to listen to more. But Zoe, is it kind of indicative of their style? It seems like it might be a little outlier in terms of content, but.
04:38 Zoe
It's definitely indicative of their style. So like every episode has all of this kind of rich sound design, music, all of these kind of elements. And one of the things I really like about them, so an interesting thing to note is that they're like an audio first newsroom. So first and foremost, everything they do is audio. So they have loads of podcasts, not just this one. They have like a daily news one, which is like eight minutes, you know, get it really early in the morning kind of thing. And then like longer ones, which are just separate series. So they do tons and tons of content. But for this particular show, it's pretty indicative of the style, but potentially a lot lighter, let's say. And it's an interesting one as well, because I haven't listened to every single episode because not every single episode necessarily interests me. Or, you know, maybe you want to skip out on certain things because it can be quite triggering, which is I know something a lot of people do with true crime podcasts as well, where it's like, yeah, I don't really want to get into this or that. So yeah, it's super interesting. I'll get to the first discussion topic, which you brushed on, Andrew. So the show has lots of elements that it uses to create a story. So sound design, field recording, everything to kind of bring this investigation to life. Do you think it's done effectively? You've kind of mentioned that you think it was, and if so, how was it done effectively?
06:02 Andrew
Yeah, I think one thing to note about this episode, it sounds like the show in general, is just that it was so full of music.
06:14 Clips
It started out as an ordinary morning in March. Jessica Gardner, Cambridge's top librarian, was sitting in her office, as usual. I was more interested in the questions the library wasn't answering. And the more I dug into the mystery of the returned Darwin notebooks, the more questions I had.
06:36 Andrew
It was a 48 minute episode, and my estimation would be there were probably 43 minutes of background sound, whether it was music or some sort of field recording or a sound design element stuck in there. Mostly music, I think. And I don't know the degree to which that was sound designed or just kind of plug and play. But yeah, and I took notes on like all the different tracks that they used. And I counted 20 music tracks featured. Some of them were repeats, and I think there's something interesting in that. But that's what struck me the most is just from jump, it had this really rich background tracking. And yeah, I thought for a 48 minute show that I might get sick of that or distracted by that or annoyed by that. But I really didn't. And I think it's in part down to their really good music choices. It's very engaging stuff. I liked it all. It's really carefully thought through tone wise, tonally, so that it really fits with the part that they're talking about. But yeah, I'd be intrigued to hear your guys' thoughts on the music as well.I feel like I've been talking for 40 straight minutes.
07:59 Elise
So the way that I listened to this podcast is I had it over a speaker, sort of the way that you might listen to news as you're doing your dishes or doing other work, which is what I was doing. And I heard the music from time to time. And when I did, I was like, oh, this makes sense in this place. But I do remember thinking in a couple of different occasions, I was like, is this is this music necessary? And I think the only reason that I felt that way wasn't because they did a poor job of music selection or anything like that. It's that the actual levelling of the music underneath the voice itself just didn't translate to a less audio rich way of listening. And so I think if I were to listen to this podcast again, I would go back and do it with in-ear or over-ear headphones. And I think there's something to be said about that and the way that we deliver podcasts and what the intended output is or sort of covering for all of that. But I think in general, their use of soundscape and element was really, really effective, in particular, the off the cuff voice note that she has when she's walking down the street.
08:57 Clips
So I'm just on my way home from the office and I've thought of something else that strikes me as strange. The bag that the notebooks were left in, it said on the front, librarian, happy Easter. But it was left outside her office on the ninth of March, which is a solid six weeks before Easter.
09:23 Elise
She's talking in this way and you just feel like you're a part of this investigation with her, which really allows you to get deep into the story as opposed to having someone just tell you about it. You're like, oh, yeah, well, what does that mean? And then you want to start helping her solve it halfway through. So if they added more elements to that in a show like this or future shows, I would think it would do a great service to journalism like this.
09:53 Andrew
Yeah. Just tagging onto that, the field recordings and the voice notes that were added, I thought, gave the story a sense of being in the present tense and some urgency. It's not just relating something that's already happened. It's currently happening. She's investigating and that's part of the tension of the story. And so having these moments where she has a revelation about, you know, this could be a student who has stolen these notebooks because of the timing of Easter and the semester. Or when she's reaching out, she's going to go send a letter to a suspect and try to get them on tape. And you really get the feeling of her in the story and her running into a dead end or a wall. And that's part of the kind of shape of the narrative.
10:50 Clips
We're at Jesus College, Cambridge. It's where William Jakes came to university in autumn of 1987 to study economics. It's got this very grand entrance with a wrought iron gate with some gold decoration.
11:06 Andrew
And I don't necessarily think you would get that if it was just her telling that. I think it's brought much more to the forefront with those field recordings.
11:14 Zoe
Yeah, I totally agree. And it's the element of using the voice recordings that they use really powerfully kind of throughout the series. So they're sort of featured in all of their podcast episodes. I think, as you say, probably the reasoning is it feels like you feel the immediacy of the investigation. It kind of feels like you're in the middle of it and it's still rolling on and there's like somebody walking down the street with their phone like, oh, my God, this is happening. And I want to make a note of it now. And they certainly use that really powerfully. But yeah, going back to the sound design elements, I totally agree. I think it's really interesting. And kind of going to the music piece, at least like you, I tend to listen to this particular podcast, which I know is like kind of being a heathen, because you tend to listen to podcasts in headphones. But I'll usually have it like blaring out of my computer or on my phone and I'll just be wandering around doing stuff. It's kind of how it's almost like treating it like you would listen to the radio, right? It's kind of how I treat this specific show in a way that I don't treat others, which is really interesting. And maybe it's kind of that quality, but being a new show and it kind of feeling like you can possibly do that, I don't know. The music in this episode, it never feels to me completely overwhelming, even though there's tons of it. I do completely get that, that there's a load of it. And I have actually noticed in other episodes, this one isn't particularly serious. But if you do have episodes that are serious, there are moments where there's just no music and you really notice it because the rest of it is so full. And I do wonder with this one because it's kind of more light and upbeat if they just kind of threw it all in because it kind of adds to that mood. I don't know. It's an interesting point for sure.
12:59 Andrew
As someone who's only listened to this episode of the show, even though it was tonally pretty light, I felt like when the music went out, I knew it really emphasised those moments when it was just the host narrating and there wasn't any backing. And yeah, it's like having silence or something where all of a sudden you focus in.
13:28 Clips
For the library, this was a moment for celebration. The notebooks have come home and that's what it feels like. I think it was an absolutely joyous and healing moment.
13:39 Zoe
Yeah, completely. They do pick their silence well, I think, and they do that as well with their other episodes. So the next point I wanted to talk about is like interest and keeping suspense and keeping pace. So I'd love to know, did it make you want to stay till the end? Did you want to find out who done it? Do you know all this kind of stuff without maybe giving too much away about the plot and what elements of it made you want to stay until the end?
14:06 Elise
I can say it was a bit of a slow burn for me. It started off as like, why do I care about this item, the secret item? And I think it's really interesting that the weight and the body of the entire true Kai, and I guess sure, this is how a lot of them happen, but like the weight and the meat of this entire story really happened in the, I would say, the back third. And so if you stuck around, you got this big payoff. But in the beginning, I was like, I see why this could be interesting, but I want like, I want to just a little bit more, a little bit earlier and like to tease me a little bit more to like draw me along. That's how I felt about that.
14:45 Andrew
Yeah, I totally see that. I was engaged throughout and I think that's, I love a heist, a whodunit, a mystery. I think that's a really effective way of structuring a story and immediately makes it, it builds in a narrative arc that pulls me along as a listener. That's just something that I, that's a personal preference that I think contributed to that.
15:15 Clip
Good evening, Inspector. I think there's something you should know before you go in to see the play.
15:23 Andrew
What I will say is that I'm going to spoil it. I might spoil it. I'm so sorry. Spoilers ahead. Yeah, watch out. It's ultimately a kind of an unsatisfying story in a lot of ways. And I think this is an interesting way to approach that because I think a lot of true crime can end up that way. I mean, I think the best versions of the genre have investigative reporting that uncovers a definitive answer. And that's very satisfying. Something like the Jinx, that documentary. But this one, they have no idea who did it. They're very, they're quite open about that. At the end, they don't suggest someone who might have done it. They don't have, you know, really a working theory or a suspect necessarily. And I think that usually would feel pretty hollow to me. But I think the way that they structured it and the way that they built the episode made me come away feeling like this wasn't a failure, even though I didn't get a solid answer. And yeah, I wonder why that is. I think part of it has to do with the themes that they brought in. It did feel strongly reported. You know, they talked to several different people. You know, it wasn't slapped together, so it didn't feel like it was just kind of a rush job. They had like a full narrative of the previous thief, William Jakes, and that kind of had a beginning middle end inside the narrative. So maybe that contributed to it as well. And yeah, and there were some like broader themes about how we keep the documents that are culturally valuable to us, what that means. You know, there's some intrigue in these kind of like high academic circles that I think is intriguing. But yeah, I was just I was surprised. And I'm not I don't totally have a great reason why I didn't feel unsatisfied by the lack of a definitive answer.
17:30 Clips
We can't know for sure why somebody took the Darwin notebooks or why they returned them with such a flourish. We can't even know that they were taken by a single person. But we do know that whoever brought back the notebooks is still at large.
17:41 Elise
Yeah, I would agree with that. Like, I don't feel like it was unsatisfactory necessarily. Like, did we answer the question that we started out with? No. But was I left asking further questions that I want more information about, like the balance of access and protection when you're looking at historical documents? And then also this larger conversation about what we deem to be national treasures or why we put value into certain objects above others. And then also, and like we're spoiling here, this is what's going to happen, because I was so intrigued about this idea of like the tea being spilled about like the secret book selling society, basically, like this underground above board book selling. And I was like, what is this? What is this book mafia? And how do I be a part of it?
18:35 Clips
Once I'm inside, the musty smell of old books hits me. I try to deal in books which don't exist. They tend to be not in public libraries or collections. And there are very few copies.
18:39 Elise
And I think those were just some really interesting sidebar pieces that helped move the episode along as well. And so in that regard, it was very thought provoking. And it left me with more to think about. And so I guess kind of to this point of like, is it true crime or is it a documentary? How sensational does something need to be in order for it to be one or the other?
19:06 Zoe
Yeah, I mean, such interesting points. And I think like one of the reasons I actually picked this episode is because it doesn't have a payoff. But regardless of that, you're still sort of brought into the narrative and the sort of the pace of it. And I think that's like super interesting. It's kind of hard to put your finger on why exactly as you said, Andrew. But I think for me, it's because potentially the place where the payoff would be is in the middle, where they go up to that front door. And they're expecting William Jakes to be there, who's the quote unquote alleged book thief. And it's like, oh, he doesn't live here. And it's like, oh, and that happens right in the middle. And then after that, it's kind of like you've got into a sort of documentary piece about the history of people stealing books, people stealing books now. So it's almost like the first half of it is kind of true crime. And the second half of it is almost, well, what are the wider issues here that we're talking about, as you mentioned, Elise? So I think possibly like because it structures itself in that way, you don't feel like you've been led down this long, long garden path. And you're like, oh, actually, we don't know who stole them any more than we did in the first instance. But you're still like satisfied with what you've heard. And the nature of investigative journalism is that there's not always an answer. Like, because it's about life. Things don't resolve themselves in neat and tidy ways, which on one hand is like difficult to handle from a narrative perspective. Because I would say, you know, most people expect a beginning, middle and end to something for it to be a complete closed loop and satisfying. But that's just not how that's not how life works. So it's not always possible to engineer that. But in terms of how they've structured it, I think they've done a good job in still keeping you interested. I'd be interested to know if you have observed this kind of I don't know if you listen to true crime, but if you've observed this kind of structure and other true crime. Because I would for me, the narrative that tends to play out in true crime is a complete loop, right? It will be a crime that's solved or it will be famous enough that people will still be interested in it. And obviously, you know, in podcasting, true crime is like, you know, gold standard, one of the most beloved genres.
21:30 Andrew
True crime is not one of my preferred genres, although I think it's fascinating. It's crazy that it's far and away one of the most popular genres. And I, you know, there are all sorts of discussions to be had about that, you know, with regards to gender and who consumes true crime. And is it especially like the very murdery ones if it's responsible or not? I think all of those questions are super interesting. I generally don't gravitate towards it because, like Elise was saying, I find it a little too gruesome most of the time. I think what you said, Zoe, is really interesting that this perhaps kind of masquerades as a crime story and actually exists more as a documentary in terms of structure. I think that could definitely be what felt more satisfying. Like the gold standard of true crime is to have that answer, is for the reporter to like kind of unearth that answer as part of the story. Oftentimes, they can't because they don't have the resources or it's just not possible. Or it's just people reporting, like telling the story of something that is unsolved and that is the unsolvedness is part of the draw.
22:46 Elise
I used to listen to a lot more true crime than I do now, and it just got across the board too devastating to listen to. So I stopped. But what I do really appreciate about this podcast is that I think it does blend the true crime aspect and the documentary aspect. And I think it's very similar to a lot of structures that I've heard in the podcast, This American Life, where they take some very like core documentary kind of information and then wrap a mystery around it to get you intrigued, even if it was kind of falsified to get you there. And I'm not saying that they're doing this here, but I think it's a really effective way to tell a story in the long run. And I just wonder if we'll see more of this sort of cross genre sort of reporting or storytelling as podcasting in general continues to grow. And we get to play a little bit more with audio and people are more familiar with the different kinds of stories. And then we get to have these actual kinds of conversations about like, what makes the mystery a mystery? What makes a true crime a true crime? What makes this part like and why is this podcast different than like a 1950s old timey radio show? So like, I think there are a lot of there's a lot of gray area that's really fun for us to be able to suss out right now. And now I'm now I'm just rambling. So I'm there you go.
24:22 Andrew
Well, thank you for rambling, because it jogs something in my memory, which is have you guys listened to the show S-Town?
24:29 Clips
Something's happened. Something has absolutely happened in this town. There's just too much little crap for something not to have happened.
24:48 Elise
Yes, I've listened to S-Town. Give me your hot take and then I got one for you.
24:52 Andrew
OK, it just makes me think that that the parallels here are really strong just because that show starts out as a mystery show. Both. You know, it's a guy reaches out to a journalist and says, you know, I have some buried treasure, I think. But is this really eccentric guy? And I might be absolutely butchering it. But then he he dies and there's a question of, you know, what happened there. And so it really presents in the first several episodes as, you know, that type of story, that that formula that we're kind of familiar with. And then really departs from that becomes much more of a meditation on this guy's life, on the culture of the South, where he lived, the American South and the community he was in and kind of how eccentric he was and how they dealt with that as a as a community. Yeah, I'd love to hear your your your takes, Elise. It's a very well-loved show. And it was weird for me because, like, yeah, it doesn't fall easily into any of those categories.
25:54 Elise
It doesn't. And I would say that that is the first time I was ever catfished by a podcast show because I was like every every week whenever it came out, I would lay down on my bed. Like, I would cancel plans because like S-Town is coming. Like, I'm going to have a glass of wine and do this. And then halfway through, I was like, wait, wait, wait a minute. This is not the promise that I signed up for. And I was like, what the hell? So that's that's how I that was my take on that podcast. So it is interesting to think of, like, hooking you with that true crime and then keeping you keeping you coming with maybe maybe you'll figure out who did it or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll just learn a lot about an eccentric clockmaker. You don't know.
26:42 Zoe
I think that's super interesting. That's basically summarising this whole episode is keeps you hooked, but doesn't actually give you any payoff. So that'll do then. If you've listened, what do you think? Did the Darwin job keep you captivated or not? You can let us know on Twitter at the lowest street. Hit follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and we'll see you in the next episode of Podcast Book Club with a new show and a new host. Bye.