Best The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX Podcasts (2024)

1
How Police Guns End Up in the Hands of Criminals 50:49

11h ago50:49

50:49

When the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department in California wanted to purchase new firearms, it sold its used ones to help cover the cost. The old guns went to a distributor, which then turned around and sold them to the public. One of those guns—a Glock pistol—found its way to Indianapolis. That Glock was involved in the killing of Maria Leslie’…

1
In Bondage to the Law 50:51

7d ago50:51

50:51

On a summer night in 1995, a sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed in a hotel parking lot in Birmingham, Alabama. When investigators arrived at the scene, they found no eyewitnesses and almost no evidence pointing to the shooter. Detectives ultimately zeroed in on a man named Toforest Johnson, who on that same night was with friends at a nightclub m…

1
40 Acres and a Lie Part 3 50:40

15d ago50:40

50:40

The loss of land for Black Americans started with the government’s betrayal of its 40 acres and a mule promise – and it has continued for decades. Today, researchers are unearthing the details of Black land loss long after emancipation, and local governments across the country are finally asking: Can we repair a wealth gap for Black Americans that …

1
40 Acres and a Lie Part 2 50:29

22d ago50:29

50:29

Skidaway Island, Georgia, is home today to a luxurious community that the mostly White residents consider paradise: waterfront views, live oaks and marsh grass alongside golf courses, swimming pools and other amenities. In 1865, the island was a thriving Black community, started by freedmen who were given land by the government under the 40 acres p…

1
40 Acres and a Lie Part 1 50:19

29d ago50:19

50:19

Our historical investigation found 1,250 formerly enslaved Black Americans who were given land – only to see it returned to their enslavers. Patricia Bailey’s four-bedroom home sits high among the trees in lush Edisto Island, South Carolina. It’s a peaceful place where her body healed from multiple sclerosis. It’s also the source of her generationa…

1
A Battle Over Preserving the Lakota Language 40:20

1M ago40:20

40:20

Many Lakota people agree it's imperative to revitalize their language, which has declined to fewer than 1,500 fluent speakers, according to some estimates. But how to do that is a matter of broader debate and a contentious legal battle. Should Lakota be codified and standardized to make learning it easier? Or should the language stay as it always h…

1
The Great Arizona Water Grab 49:38

1M ago49:38

49:38

For years, a Saudi-owned hay farm has been using massive amounts of water in the middle of the Arizona desert and exporting the hay back to Saudi Arabia. The farm’s water use has attracted national attention and criticism since Reveal’s Nate Halverson and Ike Sriskandarajah first broke this story more than eight years ago. Since then, the water cri…

1
40 Acres and a Lie Trailer 2:29

1M ago2:29

2:29

Our new three-part series launches June 15th, exploring the legacy of America’s broken promise to formerly enslaved Black people. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram…

1
Sunblocked: Resistance to Solar in Farm Country 50:35

1M ago50:35

50:35

Bill and Nancy Rasweiler thought they were making a smart decision when they decided to lease their land to Shepherd’s Run, a large-scale solar project that promised a steady income and offered them a way to contribute to renewable energy efforts. But when they presented their plan to the town of Copake, New York, they were met with widespread back…

1
Not All Votes Are Created Equal 47:30

2M ago47:30

47:30

As any schoolkid might tell you, U.S. elections are based on a bedrock principle: one person, one vote. Simple as that. Each vote carries the same weight. Yet for much of the country’s history, that hasn't been the case. At various points, whole classes of people were shut out of voting: enslaved Black Americans, Native Americans and poor White peo…

1
Lessons From a Mass Shooter’s Mother 50:35

2M ago50:35

50:35

In 2014, in the college town of Isla Vista, California, a 22-year-old man murdered six people and injured 14 others before killing himself. The killer didn’t suddenly “snap” one day out of the blue; he planned the attack and spiraled into crisis in the years leading up to it. The horrific incident left violence prevention experts wondering: What we…

1
The Racist Hoax That Changed Boston 50:05

2M ago50:05

50:05

Note: This episode contains descriptions of violence and suicide and may not be appropriate for all listeners. In 1989, Chuck Stuart called 911 on his car phone to report a shooting. He said he and his wife were leaving a birthing class at a Boston hospital when a man forced him to drive into the mixed-race Mission Hill neighborhood and shot them b…

1
We Regret to Inform You 50:16

2M ago50:16

50:16

Bruce Praet is a well-known name in law enforcement, especially across California. He co-founded a company called Lexipol that contracts with more than 95% of police departments in the state and offers its clients trainings and ready-made policies. In one of Praet’s training webinars, posted online, he offers a piece of advice that policing experts…

1
The Spy Inside Your Smartphone 49:34

3M ago49:34

49:34

Around the globe, journalists, human rights activists, scholars and others are facing digital attacks from Pegasus, military-grade spyware originally developed to go after criminals. Some of the people targeted have been killed or are in prison. In this episode, Reveal partners with the Shoot the Messenger podcast to investigate one of the biggest …

1
After the Crash 50:15

3M ago50:15

50:15

In November 2020, Blossom Old Bull was raising three teenagers on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. Her youngest son, Braven Glenn, was 17, a good student, dedicated to his basketball team. But he’d become impatient with pandemic restrictions, and his grandmother had just passed away from COVID-19. One night, Glenn and his mother got in a fig…

1
In Gaza, Every Pregnancy is Complicated 50:36

3M ago50:36

50:36

After six months of war in Gaza, the Palestinian medical infrastructure has collapsed, leaving tens of thousands of pregnant women without a safe place to deliver. Reporters Gabrielle Berbey and Salman Ahad Khan follow one mother over the final months of her pregnancy after she’s forced to leave behind her home, work and doctor in Gaza City. We beg…

1
Escaping Putin’s War Machine 50:23

3M ago50:23

50:23

As the war in Ukraine grinds into a third year, more Russian soldiers are attempting to escape frontline deployment, supported by an underground network of fellow Russians. Associated Press investigative reporter Erika Kinetz follows the dramatic journey of one Russian military officer who deserted the army and fled Russia, guided by an anti-war gr…

1
Cashing in on Troubled Teens 50:37

4M ago50:37

50:37

The first time Trina Edwards was locked in a psychiatric hospital for children, she was 12 years old. She was sure a foster parent would pick her up the next day. But instead, Trina would end up spending years cycling in and out of North Star Behavioral Health in Anchorage, Alaska. At times, she was ready to be discharged, but Alaska’s Office of Ch…

1
A Whistleblower in New Folsom Prison 50:35

4M ago50:35

50:35

When Valentino Rodriguez started his job at the high-security prison in Sacramento, California, informally known as New Folsom, he thought he was entering into a brotherhood of correctional officers. What he found was the opposite. Five years later, Rodriguez’s sudden death would raise questions from the FBI and his family. KQED reporters Sukey Lew…

1
America Goes Psychedelic, Again 50:58

4M ago50:58

50:58

Psychedelic drugs have been illegal for 50 years, but they’re trickling back into the mainstream because they show promise in helping treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health challenges. We begin the hour with reporter Jonathan A. Davis visiting Psychedelic Science 2023, the largest-ever conference on psychedelic drugs. It’s put…

1
Blue State Barriers and the Messy Map of Abortion Access 50:36

4M ago50:36

50:36

As blue states try to shore up access to abortion and reproductive care, some are facing a threat they didn’t see coming: Catholic health care mergers. In the first segment, Reveal’s Nina Martin takes us to New Mexico, a blue state that’s been working hard since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade to strengthen its already sweeping prote…

1
The Suspect Detective 50:56

4M ago50:56

50:56

In 2010, Milique Wagner was arrested for a murder he says he had nothing to do with. The night of the shooting, Wagner was picked up for questioning and spent three days in the Philadelphia Police Department’s homicide unit, mostly being questioned by a detective named Philip Nordo. Nordo was a star in the department, known for putting in long hour…

1
Listening in on Russia’s War in Ukraine 50:48

5M ago50:48

50:48

In this week’s episode, produced in collaboration with the Associated Press, reporters on the front lines take us inside Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and share never-before-heard recordings of Russian soldiers. The day President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, Feb. 24, 2022, Russia unleashed a brutal assault on the strategic port city of Mariu…

1
The Plague in the Shadows 50:47

5M ago50:47

50:47

HIV/AIDS changed the United States and the world. It has killed some 40 million people and continues to kill today. This week, reporters Kai Wright and Lizzy Ratner from the podcast Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows take us back to the early years of the HIV epidemic in New York City and show how the virus tore through some of our most vulnerabl…

1
Alphabet Boys Revealed 50:40

5M ago50:40

50:40

The summer of 2020 was a hinge point in American history. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police inspired racial justice demonstrations nationwide. At the time, the FBI was convinced that extreme Black political activists could cross the line into domestic terrorism – a theory federal agents had first termed “Black identity extremism.” Th…

1
The 13th Step 50:38

5M ago50:38

50:38

Lauren Chooljian from New Hampshire Public Radio reports on a widespread culture of sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry. Across the country, women seeking treatment are being harassed and assaulted by men in positions of power. The problem is so pervasive that it has a name among those in the industry: the 13th Step. We begin with…

1
The Battle for Clean Energy in Coal Country 50:31

6M ago50:31

50:31

Montana has a long history of making money by extracting and exporting its natural resources, namely coal. State politicians and Montana’s largest electricity utility company seem set on keeping it that way. Reveal’s Jonathan Jones travels to the town of Colstrip in the southeastern part of the state. It is home to one of the largest coal seams in …

1
Black in the Sunshine State 50:02

6M ago50:02

50:02

Last summer, Reveal host Al Letson returned home to Jacksonville, Florida, to find a changed state. The Republican Legislature had passed a slate of laws targeting minority groups. Educators could now face criminal penalties over the material they teach regarding gender and sexuality, and schools across the state were banning books about queer fami…

1
The Double Life of a Civil Rights Icon 50:09

6M ago50:09

50:09

Some of the most enduring photos of the civil rights movement were taken by Ernest Withers. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Withers earned the trust of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders. But as it turns out, he was secretly taking photos for the federal government as well. This week, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Wesley Lowery…

1
Sunblocked: Resistance to Solar in Farm Country 50:34

6M ago50:34

50:34

For the U.S. to meet its clean energy goals by 2050, the Department of Energy projects that the country needs more than 10 million acres of solar development. Most of that is expected to be built in rural areas. Surveys show that the vast majority of Americans support renewable energy development, but projects planned in rural areas are meeting maj…

1
Fancy Galleries, Fake Art 50:36

7M ago50:36

50:36

In the mid-’90s, two high-end New York art galleries began selling one fake painting after another – works in the style of Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and others. It was the largest art fraud in modern U.S. history, totaling more than $80 million. Our first story looks at how it happened and why almost no one ever was punished by auth…

1
It's Not Easy Going Green 49:59

7M ago49:59

49:59

When they were invented in the ’90s, renewable energy certificates were meant to stimulate the green energy market. Back then, building wind and solar farms was way more expensive than it is today. The idea was that renewable energy producers could sell certificates that represented the “greenness” of the energy they made. Anyone buying those certi…

1
Gaza: A War of Weapons and Words 50:12

7M ago50:12

50:12

This episode focuses on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict and its ripples throughout the world. First, Reveal host Al Letson has a conversation with members of the Parents Circle, Israeli and Palestinian parents who have lost children to the long-standing conflict and continue to work together for peace. We look at the human toll of the decades-…

1
Hidden Confessions of the Mormon Church 49:27

7M ago49:27

49:27

In this week’s episode, produced in collaboration with The Associated Press, secret audio recordings expose a legal playbook used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that keeps evidence of sex abuse out of reach of authorities. AP reporters Michael Rezendes and Jason Dearen investigate the case of a former Mormon bishop, John Goodric…

1
Havana Syndrome 50:20

8M ago50:20

50:20

A sharp sound. Followed by body numbness. Difficulty speaking. Extreme head pain. Since 2016, U.S. officials across the world – in Cuba, China and Russia – have reported experiencing the sudden onset of an array of eerie symptoms. Reporters Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson try to make sense of this confusing illness that has come to be called Havan…

1
Locked Up: The Prison Labor That Built Business Empires 49:58

8M ago49:58

49:58

After the Civil War, a new form of slavery took hold in the U.S. and lasted more than 60 years. Associated Press reporters Margie Mason and Robin McDowell investigate the chilling history of how Southern states imprisoned mainly Black men, often for minor crimes, and then leased them out to private companies – for years, even decades, at a time. Th…

1
In Bondage to the Law 50:39

8M ago50:39

50:39

On a summer night in 1995, a sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed in a hotel parking lot in Birmingham, Alabama. When investigators arrived at the scene, they found no eyewitnesses and almost no evidence pointing to the shooter. Detectives ultimately zeroed in on a man named Toforest Johnson, who on that same night was with friends at a nightclub m…

1
We Regret to Inform You 49:53

8M ago49:53

49:53

Bruce Praet is a well-known name in law enforcement, especially across California. He co-founded a company called Lexipol that contracts with more than 95% of police departments in the state and offers its clients trainings and ready-made policies. In one of Praet’s training webinars, posted online, he offers a piece of advice that policing experts…

1
The Welfare-to-Work Industrial Complex 50:51

8M ago50:51

50:51

“Get a job!” That sums up our current cash welfare system in a nutshell. Ever since so-called welfare reform in the 1990s, the system has been based on the idea that welfare recipients must be doing some kind of work or job-readiness activity to receive government assistance. It’s a system that plays on what Americans have long wanted to believe – …

1
America Goes Psychedelic, Again 50:50

9M ago50:50

50:50

Psychedelic drugs have been illegal for 50 years, but they’re trickling back into the mainstream because they show promise in helping treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health challenges. We begin the hour with reporter Jonathan A. Davis visiting Psychedelic Science 2023, the largest-ever conference on psychedelic drugs. It’s put…

1
Cashing in on Troubled Teens 50:25

9M ago50:25

50:25

The first time Trina Edwards was locked in a psychiatric hospital for children, she was 12 years old. She was sure a foster parent would pick her up the next day. But instead, Trina would end up spending years cycling in and out of North Star Behavioral Health in Anchorage, Alaska. At times, she was ready to be discharged, but Alaska’s Office of Ch…

1
From Victim to Suspect 50:49

9M ago50:49

50:49

Nicole Chase was a young mom with a daughter to support when she took a job at a local restaurant in Canton, Connecticut. She liked the work and was good at her job. But the place turned out to be more like a frat house than a quaint roadside sandwich spot. And the crude behavior kept escalating – until one day she says her boss went too far and sh…

1
How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong 50:24

9M ago50:24

50:24

Corinne Adams’ son Charlie came home from school with notes from his teacher saying he was doing great in reading. But during the pandemic, Adams had to give him a reading test at home, and she realized her son couldn’t read. He’d been memorizing books that were read to him, but he didn’t know how to read new words he’d never seen before. It’s a su…

1
Alphabet Boys Revealed 50:14

10M ago50:14

50:14

The summer of 2020 was a hinge point in American history. The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police inspired racial justice demonstrations nationwide. At the time, the FBI was convinced that extreme Black political activists could cross the line into domestic terrorism – a theory federal agents had first termed “Black identity extremism.” Th…

1
The Spy Inside Your Smartphone 50:47

10M ago50:47

50:47

Around the globe, journalists, human rights activists, scholars and others are facing digital attacks from Pegasus, military-grade spyware originally developed to go after criminals. Some of the people targeted have been killed or are in prison. In this episode, Reveal partners with the Shoot the Messenger podcast to investigate one of the biggest …

1
Mississippi Goddam Chapter 7: Reasonable Doubt 53:42

10M ago53:42

53:42

The final episode of Mississippi Goddam shares new revelations that cast doubt on the official story that Billey Joe Johnson Jr. accidentally killed himself. Our reporting brought up questions that the original investigation never looked into. Host Al Letson and reporter Jonathan Jones go back to Mississippi to interview the key people in the inves…

1
Mississippi Goddam Chapter 6: Mississippi Justice 50:25

10M ago50:25

50:25

Black communities around Mississippi have long raised concerns about suspicious deaths of young Black men, especially when law enforcement is involved. Curley Clark, vice president of the Mississippi NAACP at the time of Reveal’s reporting, called Billey Joe Johnson Jr.’s case an example of “Mississippi justice.” “It means that they still feel like…

1
Mississippi Goddam Chapter 5: Star Crossed 50:25

11M ago50:25

50:25

Billey Joe Johnson Jr. and Hannah Hollinghead met in their freshman year of high school. Hollinghead says Johnson was her first love, and in many ways, it was a typical teen romance. Friends say they would argue, break up, then get back together again. Some people were far from accepting of their interracial relationship. On Dec. 8, 2008, they were…

1
Mississippi Goddam Chapter 4: The Investigator 50:25

11M ago50:25

50:25

Special Agent Joel Wallace of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation was called in to investigate the death of Billey Joe Johnson Jr. He worked alongside two investigators from the George County district attorney’s office. Wallace said that arrangement didn’t happen very often. And he now questions why they were assigned. “If you've got me investi…

1
Mississippi Goddam Chapter 3: The Autopsy 50:45

11M ago50:45

50:45

After Billey Joe Johnson Jr. died in 2008, the state of Mississippi outsourced his autopsy. Al Letson and Jonathan Jones travel to Nashville, Tennessee, to interview the doctor who conducted it. Her findings helped lead a grand jury to determine Johnson’s death was an accidental shooting. However, Letson and Jones share another report that raises d…

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