Four podcasts to prepare for 2020 elections
Though we’re still over a year away from the 2020 presidential election, it seems like every prominent Democrat is already throwing their hat into the ring to become the party’s presidential nominee. And with the election taking over news media, keeping up and making sense of politics can be difficult, especially when broadcast news tends to ignore policy platforms and candidates’ qualifications to lead the country in favor of covering populism and sensationalism.
Instead of tuning into CNN or Fox News to keep up with the political news cycle, check out these insightful podcasts providing deeper political analysis into the upcoming elections.
Keep it!
From the Crooked Media family that brought “Pod Save America” and “Lovett or Leave It,” “Keep It!” is at the intersection between politics and pop culture — one that appears to be increasingly prevalent each day. After all, more movies and television shows today are laden with political messages, and celebrities like Oprah Winfrey have as much 2020 presidential buzz as the high-profile senators who have declared their candidacies.
With Ira Madison, Louis Virtel and Kara Brown as hosts with strong viewpoints, a thorough understanding of both politics and entertainment and just the right amount of humor for a politics podcast, “Keep It” guides listeners through understanding the ins and outs of this intersection well.
Each week, Madison, Virtel and Brown discuss their perspectives on political news from the entertainment world (or entertainment news from the political world) and bring on a guest, usually an artist or director. Recently, they’ve featured Dan Levy, an actor from the popular television show “Schitt’s Creek,” and Barry Jenkins, who directed “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk.”
They also end every episode with the “Keep It!” segment, where each host chooses one person from pop culture news and proceeds to roast that person for whatever objectionable action they committed.
FiveThirtyEight Politics
FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver is widely known for applying his knowledge of data journalism to his coverage of politics and sports and the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is much the same journalism with a merging of perspectives from political analysts. Producer Galen Druke, hosts the show, and is typically joined by senior political writer Clare Malone, managing editor Micah Cohen and Silver.
Unlike most politically centered shows, where often only one perspective is represented as “right,” FiveThirtyEight encourages respectful debate. Despite having a variety of perspectives on most political issues, the group is made up of genuine friends — they disagree often, but no one ever has to be right. By presenting their various perspectives, the group informs listeners on sensible viewpoints and allows them to make their own stances about these issues.
Aside from its weekly discussion show, the podcast is also home to more narrative-driven short series about political data journalism. For example, “The Gerrymandering Project” is a multimedia series exploring the process of redistricting and how it affects election outcomes. It has brought in-depth reporting on the history of and current litigation around the practice of gerrymandering. Paired with data models and interactive online graphics, “The Gerrymandering Project” paints a full picture of what redistricting looks like.
It’s been a minute
NPR’s Sam Sanders has a lot of character, and he brings all of it to his podcast “It’s Been A Minute.” It’s not strictly a politics podcast — it generally discusses news, and its twice-a-week frequency allows it to have one news discussion episode a week and one longform interview with a cultural figure.
But the dominance of politics in the news, whether it’s during the election cycle or not, makes it a frequent topic on Sanders’ show. Each week, he brings on two other journalists (whether they’re his NPR peers or other L.A.-based reporters) to discuss the news.
The show is filled with fun segments, like the lead segment that asks each guest to sum up the week’s news in three words, and “Who Said That?” — a mini-quiz where guests hear a quote from the news and try to figure out who said it.
It also includes interactive listener segments: Sanders often calls a listener local to a city where major news is happening, bringing a necessary perspective on news stories that often lose the emotion that comes with large changes to one’s city.
For Sanders, it isn’t about what a major politician or local official says about an issue, but what normal American citizens have to say about it.
The Weeds
With episodes every Tuesday and Friday, this Vox podcast isn’t concerned with always covering the latest or talking about the election horse race. Instead, it aims to put the news of today in context, to contextualize today’s biggest headlines and engage in deep discussions about complex policies.
For example, some of its most recent episodes are discussions on “Medicare for All” and universal childcare plans. While the two have become well-known features of some Democratic candidates’ campaign promises, most news coverage only mentions it as an idea; few of them actually dig deeper into the issue to explore feasibility, specific policy ideas or cost. On “The Weeds,” Vox’s hosts do just that — avoid surface-level conversations about politics and campaigning in favor of specific, policy-based discussion.
While this focus might make the podcast dry to some listeners, the show’s personalities keep it from becoming boring. Vox senior correspondents Matt Yglesias, Dara Lind and Sara Kliff, senior political reporter Jane Coaston and editor-in-chief Ezra Klein all host the show in various rotations and bring a lighter mood to otherwise uninteresting topics.
They also have “Weeds in the Wild” episodes, where they conduct person-on-street interviews with Americans who would be most affected by certain policies or decisions.