Phonograph

Lovingly deconstructing our favorite examples of audio storytelling, both classic and under-heard. Hosted by former public radio producers Rob McGinley Myers (The Writer's Almanac, Anxious Machine) and Britta Greene (Minnesota Public Radio, The New Yorker Radio Hour).

What Covid Did to Them - Nancy Updike's "We Were Three" 07/03/2025

What Covid Did to Them - Nancy Updike's "We Were Three" Episode Description: Rob and Britta discuss Nancy Updike’s podcast “We Were Three,” which tells the story of one family devastated by Covid and what that devastation revealed. Also discussed: Nancy Updike’s status as as one of the all time great audio producers. To support Phonograph, , which features experiments in audio storytelling. This month’s story comes from Rob: a collage of recordings he made in the spring of 2020 around the theme of anxiety and grocery shopping. Show Notes: talking about the state of nurses near the end of 2020 Serial Productions podcast about private contractors in Iraq with Nancy Updike and Jenelle Pifer Music - /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/37273875

Where People Put the Radio Tower - Signal Hill 05/29/2025

Where People Put the Radio Tower - Signal Hill Rob and Britta discuss the new podcast Signal Hill, which takes its inspiration from the world of print magazines. Rob talks to Liza Yeager and Jackson Roach about the project, and then we dive into a handful of the stories from Signal Hill’s first “issue.” Show Notes: by Jackson Roach by Neena Pathak by Hannah Sassoon by Hannah Kingsley-Ma Music by /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/36772570

I Don't Know If It's God - Alix Spiegel's "Pray" 04/29/2025

I Don't Know If It's God - Alix Spiegel's "Pray" Rob and Britta discuss the classic Alix Spiegel story “Pray” from This American Life, including Spiegel’s origin story as a producer and what happened to her when members of the megachurch she was reporting on urged her to become a Christian. This is the second of three episodes Rob and Britta recorded in 2019 and never released until now. The first of those was Show Notes: Music: Other Music - /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/36357425

The Story Becomes the Medicine - The Retrievals (with guest Sophie Nikitas) 04/03/2025

The Story Becomes the Medicine - The Retrievals (with guest Sophie Nikitas) Rob is joined by the audio producer Sophie Nikitas to discuss 's Peabody award winning podcast from 2023: . Show Notes: Sophie's online dating podcast miniseries Sophie's horror anthology podcast Susan Burton's story "" Susan Burton's story "" Music from /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/35992720

I Wanted to Be a Stranger - Cement City (with guest Samantha Hodder) 03/06/2025

I Wanted to Be a Stranger - Cement City (with guest Samantha Hodder) Rob is joined by the podcast critic Samantha Hodder, who writes the newsletter Bingeworthy, to discuss the podcast Cement City: a sound-rich, character-rich, immersive exploration of the struggling rust belt town Donora, Pennsylvania. Show Notes: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/35546880

What the Evidence Shows - The Problem We All Live With 01/16/2025

What the Evidence Shows - The Problem We All Live With Rob and Britta discuss a ten year old story from This American Life called "The Problem We All Live With" produced by Chana Joffe-Walt and reported by Nikole Hannah-Jones. It's an example of the kind of documentary journalism we need more than ever, in a world where such journalism is increasingly under threat. Show Notes: Music - /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/34882590

What's Fun About Being in the Dark - Love and Radio 12/05/2024

What's Fun About Being in the Dark - Love and Radio Rob and Britta dig into two classic episodes of the podcast Love and Radio, "The Wisdom of Jay Thunderbolt" and "Choir Boy," sparking a discussion about the appeal of abrasive art. Show Notes: Music: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/34300590

Do We Ever Go Back to That? - TAL: Notes on Camp 10/22/2024

Do We Ever Go Back to That? - TAL: Notes on Camp Rob and Britta share a discussion they had in 2019 (but never released) about the classic This American Life episode "Notes on Camp." Topics include their own camp experiences, the power of scary stories, Rob's favorite thing ever recorded by any radio show ever, and the wild back story of the beloved camp counselor David Himmel, aka Mr. Popluar. Show Notes: - This American LIfe Music: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/33575107

Suitcase Full of Cash - Startup Part 2 09/25/2024

Suitcase Full of Cash - Startup Part 2 On the second of a two-part series about the podast Startup, Rob and Britta talk about how the mini-seasons of the podcast Startup about the growth of Gimlet revealed all kinds of details about the troubles at the company, the ill-fated sale to Spotify, and what all this means for the state of narrative audio. Show Notes: Skye Pillsbury's newsletter Galen Beebe's Music: Nine Count by Within the Garden Walls by Audio Excerpts: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/33205752

Alarmingly Long Pause - Startup Part 1 09/05/2024

Alarmingly Long Pause - Startup Part 1 On the first episode of the new season Rob and Britta talk about what made them want to restart a show about narrative audio. And they discuss the complicated legacy of a podcast that's having its tenth anniversary this year. Show Notes: Music: "Arabic Tallow" and "At Our Best Alone" from Audio Excerpts: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/32936037

Season 2 Teaser 09/03/2024

Season 2 Teaser After more than five years of silence, new episodes of this podcast finally are on their way. Season 2 starts September 5, 2024. /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/32876158

S1 E5: One Long Poetic HIPAA Violation - The Job That Takes Over Your Life 01/24/2019

S1 E5: One Long Poetic HIPAA Violation - The Job That Takes Over Your Life Rob and Britta discuss This American Life Episode 37 - The Job that Takes Over Your Life, as well as Britta’s former job fixing scandals for big companies, and Rob’s former job working for Garrison Keillor. Other topics include the great radio reporter Scott Carrier and his masterpiece of a story The Test, and Rob interviews Peter Clowney, one of the original producers of This American Life, about what it was like to work on the show in the early days. Links and Show Notes: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/8375699

S1 E4: The Cruelty of Children - Tarantula in a Bowl 01/10/2019

S1 E4: The Cruelty of Children - Tarantula in a Bowl Rob and Britta discuss whether this episode is TAL’s first real masterpiece, the role of David Sedaris in the show’s early years, why “The Man in the Well” is the rare example of great audio fiction, the bone-chilling music of the Bulgarian State Television Female Choir, and why an effort to keep children from excluding each other makes Rob weirdly emotional. And we talk to the amazing Marlo Mack, from the podcast How to Be a Girl, about her own unique perspective on the cruelty of children. Links and Show Notes: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/8185517

S1 E3: Accidental Documentaries - Non-humanoid Member of the Family 12/05/2018

S1 E3: Accidental Documentaries - Non-humanoid Member of the Family Rob and Britta discuss This American Life Episode 14: Accidental Documentaries, including their own experience creating accidental documentaries. The main focus of the discussion is the centerpiece of this episode, a documentary edited out of reel to reel tapes that a family sent back and forth to each other back in 1967. And Rob talks to Joe Silovsky, the man who originally found those tapes and gave them to Ira Glass, and whose work as a performance artist echos the experience he had with those tapes back when he was an art student. And since this is the final episode of the show that originally aired under the name “Your Radio Playhouse,” Rob and Britta talk about some of the worst moments from those early episodes, and their awfulness is inspiring. Links and Show Notes: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/7810775

S1 E2: Double Lives - The Birth of This American Life 11/21/2018

S1 E2: Double Lives - The Birth of This American Life A discussion of This American Life Episode 10: Double Lives. Topics include Rob and Britta's own experiences leading double lives, Rob's childhood habit of breaking into schools at night, why this episode feels like the birth of This American Life, why parents so often hide secrets from their children, what Britta’s parents have been hiding from her, and how it feels to hear Ira Glass talk about sex. This episode also includes an interview with Peter Bresnan, a podcast producer for Gimlet, about what it's like to listen to this old episode of TAL on the topic of closeted gay men. Links and Show Notes: - a documentary about Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White - a podcast by Peter Alexander Bresnan /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/7648496

S1 E1: New Beginnings - F*** You, Django Reinhardt! 11/08/2018

S1 E1: New Beginnings - F*** You, Django Reinhardt! Rob and Britta discuss the very first episode of This American Life, as well as why the show is worth discussing, how they and others became fans of the show, and why they love Ira Glass’s mother. Clips from following were used in this episode: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/7483880

S1 E0: American Whatever 10/10/2018

S1 E0: American Whatever Episode 0 Show Notes Clips from following were used in this episode: /episode/index/show/beforeithadatheme/id/7151808

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