Bundyville
From: Oregon Public Broadcasting and Longreads
Host: Leah Sottile
Seasons: Two
Episodes: 15
We originally thought this National Magazine Award–nominated podcast was a retelling of the Ted Bundy serial killer saga. Little did we realize there was another notorious Bundy roaming the West: Cliven, a Nevada rancher who, along with his band of anti-government radicals, was involved in standoffs with federal agents near his home in 2014 and in Oregon in 2016. In Sottile’s first season, she pulls off the best kind of retrospective reporting, creating empathy for Bundy by tracing his personal history of distrust for the federal government to the nuclear bomb tests of the 1950s, which poisoned many of Bundy’s neighbors. By the end of the season, listeners just might find themselves siding with the bandit—or at least gaining a better understanding of how right-wing conspiracy theorists come by their paranoias. —Spencer Campbell
City Cast Denver
From: City Cast
Hosts: Bree Davies and Paul Karolyi
Frequency: Daily
Daily or weekly podcasts are often built on personalities, and part of why works so well is the chemistry between Davies and Karolyi, who are by turns serious, probing, honest, and funny—and always smart. They’ll opine on the latest news in the city, interview newsmakers and sources with subject expertise, and have on special guests once a week for longer episodes dissecting what’s going on in the Mile High City. (Disclosure: Lindsey King and I were guests on an episode last summer, and the team records episodes office once a week.) Whether the duo is talking about the re-opening of Casa Bonita, intractable transportation issues, Colorado green chile, or city politics, they bring intelligence and levity to the topics on the minds—or the topics that be on the minds—of Denverites.
