Independent Media and Format

(originally posted 10/28/2017 on my student blog caitlinrwoods.oucreate.com)

Lately I've been listening to a lot of journalistic-type podcasts, from the game journalism show Giant Bombcast to Radiotopia's The Polybius Conspiracy (which I really want to talk about in another post), to You Must Remember This. That last one is what I want to focus on, because I just started listening to it and it's really cool. You Must Remember This focuses on taking an in-depth look at Hollywood's first century through its many stories. The show, unlike many podcasts which are more free-form as far as planned content goes, has "seasons" in which the host, Karina Longworth, takes a month or so to follow a particular story from old Hollywood. The season that just started a couple weeks ago is about Universal's monster movie giants Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, which is right up my ally.

The interesting thing about You Must Remember This is its structure. For the most part, podcasts tend to have a more relaxed and conversational feel to them. In terms of style they range from something resembling a radio talk show to independent news, with the former being much more free-form in nature. You Must Remember This does not fall into either of these categories, however. It's much more like a class, and the host like a professor. There is a clear "lesson plan" laid out in the first episode of each of the show's seasons, where Longworth tells listeners what she will be covering over the next few weeks. Everything is tied together in a way that makes it easy to follow, and you come away feeling like you've learned something. The format is very unique, and something that I think deserves recognition.