![]() ![]() But he’s always been able to do it in a way that genuinely avoids just repeating the same things everybody else is doing. Whether he’s writing about sports or politics, Joel has often approached stories that other people were already chasing and that were already on the forefront of people’s minds. When we started talking to Joel, it was at a point where we were becoming increasingly interested about a Biggie and Tupac story, and so when we began discussing it with him, it was very clear that we had found a really good match of host and story. We had talked to several different people about hosting the third season, and we were internally going over a bunch of different stories we could pursue. That’s as true of culture stories as much as it’s true of big political stories.įor this upcoming season, which came first: the story or the reporter, Joel D. One of Slow Burn’s main ideas is the premise that there are stories everybody knows the basic outlines of - say, the story that Nixon did some dirty tricks but was forced to resign - but that most people would still be surprised if you took them through the story in a way that captures what it felt like to live through that moment in time. ![]() Culture and entertainment, in particular, was one area we thought we could do something in. But we always thought that it could be interesting to look at worlds outside of politics. Some of those ideas were still very much in the political vein. As the Clinton-Lewinsky season ended, we talked about several possible stories that we could pursue, and we had discussed some ideas with Leon before he left to launch Fiasco. We knew we wanted to keep making the show. What was the decision-making process after the second season ended? But even when we chose that second topic, I don’t think we had intended to restrict the series to only cover presidential scandals. It started as “Hey, let’s make a podcast about Watergate,” and when we wanted to follow it up, the Clinton-Lewinsky story felt like the obvious next choice. So, Slow Burn is our narrative series about the biggest events in recent American history - “recent” being, let’s say, from the second half of the 20th century to the present. This third season, which focuses on Biggie and Tupac, feels like a big shift for Slow Burn, which I had thought to be a political documentary show up until this point. Vulture spoke to Gabriel Roth, Slate’s editorial director of audio, on Wednesday about Slow Burn’s evolving definition, the choice to cover Biggie-Tupac, and what the show suggests about collective cultural memory. ( Digiday recently reported that Slow Burn brought in 15 million downloads last year - a stunning number for a seven-part season.) His first project, the Slow Burn–like political documentary series Fiasco, is set to drop on Luminary later this year.īy orienting the upcoming season around a new host and a completely new subject area, Slow Burn is laying the foundation for an expanded definition of what the production can be. Neyfakh left Slate in November to form his own production company not long after the podcast wrapped up its highly successful second season about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and went on to garner critical acclaim, as well as millions of downloads. The upcoming season will also feature a brand-new host at the heart of the production: former ESPN senior writer Joel Anderson, who replaces Leon Neyfakh. Slow Burn, Slate’s excellent documentary podcast series, is radically switching gears for its third season, leaving behind the world of presidential scandals to focus on one of hip-hop’s biggest tragedies: the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. The host, Josh Levin, who grew up in Louisiana during the Duke era, illuminates, through archival recordings and investigative reporting, how Duke got traction-via dirty tricks, telegenic looks, carefully reframed messaging, and positioning himself as “the ultimate outsider.Photo: Film Four/Lafayette/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Senate and the Presidency-after having been a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. In its new season, which began last week, it returns to its origins with a series about the political rise of David Duke, who, in the late eighties and early nineties, served as a representative in the Louisiana State House, won the Republican nomination for the Louisiana governor’s race, and mounted campaigns for the U.S. ![]() After Neyfakh left (to start “Fiasco,” on Luminary), “Slow Burn” shifted focus, examining the Biggie-Tupac saga. In the first two seasons of the beloved series “Slow Burn,” from Slate, its co-creator Leon Neyfakh explored what it was like to live through a widely known but little-understood political period-first Watergate, then the Clinton impeachment. ![]()
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