Culture

A New MLB Show, YouTube Monks, and 3 More Must-Hear Podcasts

This week's best podcasts also include true crime, access to the Internet, and female professional baseball players reviewing 'Pitch'.
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Tommy Garcia

Looking for some stories to get you through the next week of commuting? Listen to a digital consultant for monks, two female professional baseball players reviewing Pitch, and a woman who found the person who stole her identity in a place very close to home. This week's best podcasts also feature a true crime investigation from the Cincinnati Enquirer and discussions of whether Internet should be a public utility. Turn on and tune in!

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    NPR

    The Specialist, "Digital Missioner"

    Kyle Oliver has a strange profession: He’s a digital consultant to monks. On this episode of *The Specialist*, Oliver explains how he helps an order of monks engage with people through YouTube, and why their comment section is one you should actually read. [Listen here.](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-specialist/id1022242019)
  • In 1978, 23-year-old Elizabeth Andes was murdered in Oxford, Ohio. The case has remained open for years—although the Oxford police are convinced that they know who did it. The *Cincinnati Enquirer* investigates the crime, wading through the recanted testimony, recalcitrant retired officers, and *Mork & Mindy* references surrounding her death.
  • To create *Pitch*, the new Fox series about a female MLB pitcher, showrunner Kevin Falls turned to the experts for help. Listen to how he sought out professional baseball players as actors and why the screwball became the protagonist’s signature move. Then hear from Stacy Piagno and Kelsie Whitmore, two female professional baseball players, about how accurately the show captures their own experiences growing up as the only woman on the field.
  • When Axton Betz-Hamilton was 11, someone stole her parents’ identities. When she got to college, she realized that they had stolen her identity, too—and then she set out to determine who that person was. What she found hit closer to home than she ever would have thought.
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    Slate

    Placemakers, “Internet for All”

    Chattanooga, Tennessee is trying to brand itself as a city friendly to startups—but in some neighborhoods, only one in five households have Internet access, despite a citywide publicly-run broadcast network built on top of utility providers. *Placeholders* takes a look at public Internet programs, and whether Internet access should be a basic utility. [Listen here.](http://www.slate.com/podcasts/placemakers/can_chattanooga_tennessee_bridge_its_digital_divide.html)

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Charley Locke writes about growing up and growing old for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and WIRED. ... Read More
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