In The Room With Peter Bergen Podcast Returns With DNC Coverage
Also... Assembly Required with Stacy Abrams debuts & Up and Vanished returns with an Alaskan disappearance.
In The Room With Peter Bergen Podcast Returns With DNC Coverage
Don't get turned off because Peter Bergen is from CNN. This guy is good. Very good. Look at his photo below. He could be the protagonist or villain in any John LeCarre or Robert Ludlum spy novel. I think Bergen even knows Jason Bourne.
The conceit of the podcast is that Listeners go “in the room” with Peter Bergen as he presses his contacts for accurate, on-the-ground information to help his listeners contextualize and understand the impact of these stories on their lives through a quality, trustworthy, and engaging lens.
Here's the pitch for In the Room with Peter Bergen. "Overwhelmed by conflicting narratives and sensationalism in the news? Wondering where you can get an objective analysis and direct-from-the-source reporting?"
"Look no further than In the Room with Peter Bergen. In his weekly nonpartisan news podcast, longtime national security journalist and bestselling author Peter Bergen goes beyond the headlines to explore the world’s most important and captivating stories."
While there's some hyperbole there, it's also true that Bergen is a traditional journalist, searching for the truth and not worrying about ideological camps.
Peter Bergen has an impressive resume. Unlike the hosts of several conservative news channels, Bergen is a real journalist. He is the author or editor of ten books that have been translated into 24 languages, three of which were New York Times bestsellers; the producer of multiple Emmy-nominated documentaries and Vice President for Global Studies and Fellows at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University and CNN’s national security analyst.
He has held teaching positions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Several news items relate to Bergen's podcast. First, In the Room returned on August 13 to cover the DNC in Chicago.
Second, Audible and Fresh Produce Media, an audio-first entertainment company, are collaborating with SiriusXM for 20 new episodes of In the Room with Peter Bergen.
Third, you don't need to buy a subscription to either service to listen to this podcast. Also, as part of the Audible SiriusXM cross-content promotional collaboration, a special two-month extended free trial of Audible Premium Plus is also available to SiriusXM customers, and a special four-month extended free trial of the SiriusXM All Access (App Only) is available to Audible members.
Since its launch in 2023, guests on In the Room have included the Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Christine Abizaid; Roger D. Carstens, Biden’s top hostage negotiator at the State Department; Jen Easterly, who leads the Biden administration’s cyber defense efforts; Sean M. Kirkpatrick who headed the Pentagon’s UFO office; Joshua Geltzer, a top advisor in the Biden White House; Admiral William McRaven; and General David Petraeus; former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton; Independent presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; author of the State Department section of Project 2025, Kiron Skinner, and more.
Peter Bergen said, “Beginning this audio reporting journey in 2023 has been one of the absolute highlights of my journalism career. Using this widely accessible and easily digestible medium has allowed for greater audiences to stay informed on the news that matters, and we’re incredibly excited to extend that reach with the help of SiriusXM.”
Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist and Executive Producer Alison Craiglow of Fresh Produce Media gushed: “Peter’s unmatched access to the most influential decision-makers has made In the Room a must-listen, and I couldn’t think of a better host to bring these stories forward. Listeners tell us our show is a refreshing exception in a sea of shouting and sameness, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to continue helping listeners weigh the importance of the news and understand how it affects our lives and our security.”
Check out In the Room with Peter Bergen. You can actually witness what a real journalist does. Or is he a spy?
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Assembly Required Podcast With Stacey Abrams Debuts
Many right-wingers hate Stacey Abrams. Apparently, this is a reflexive response to anyone who disagrees with their Project 2025.
Abrams has an impressive resume. She served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017 as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, when Joe Biden narrowly won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–21 regularly scheduled and special U.S. Senate elections, which gave Democrats control of the Senate.
Abrams supports abortion rights, advocates for expanded gun control, and opposes proposals for stricter voter ID laws. She has argued that some implementations of voter ID laws disenfranchise minorities and the poor but does not oppose voter ID laws in principle and supports voters having to verify their identities. Abrams opposes private school vouchers, instead advocating improvements to the public education system. She supports smaller class sizes, more school counselors, protected pensions, better pay for teachers, and expanded early childhood education.
Her background and accomplishments make her ear-worthy. Now, she has a podcast.
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is a new weekly podcast from Crooked Media and Stacey Abrams, focused on connecting the people and pieces in order to make our union a little more perfect.
Here's the Crooked Media Spin: "Let's face it, sometimes the world feels broken. We can see what needs to be fixed, yet more and more, it feels like the problems are too big, and the bad guys are winning. But the truth is, they’re not. They’re just hoping that we stop fighting."
"Stacey knows better than anyone that societal shifts happen when a group of ordinary people decide that a problem is solvable and are willing to pitch in and work towards the solution."
Each week, Abrams will break down the biggest issues we face into digestible, actionable items, introduce listeners to the warriors for good already working towards solutions, and then strategize and share tangible ways to get involved.
"We can't fix everything, everywhere, all at once, but we can each do something, somewhere, soon," says Abrams.
At a time when it’s increasingly easy to feel cynical or hopeless, former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor started Crooked with Pod Save America in 2017.
Since then, they’ve continued to add new shows, voices, and opportunities for activism through our Vote Save America platform. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams premiered on August 15th. New episodes will then be available every Thursday.
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"Up and Vanished” Podcast Returns with a New Case
Payne Lindsey is one of those figures in podcasting who has delivered quality content for years. His shows are singularly unique and nicely crafted, without the whiff of audience pandering that too often afflicts the larger podcast networks, who are desperate for more downloads and ad revenue any way they can achieve those twin goals.
The intriguing crime investigative podcast series Up and Vanished returns with part two of Up and Vanished: In the Midnight Sun, in which Payne Lindsey revisits Nome, Alaska, to investigate Joseph Balderas's cryptic missing persons case.
In part two of the latest season, produced by Tenderfoot TV in partnership with Audacy, Lindsey continues his journey in Nome, Alaska, to investigate the disappearance of 36-year-old Joseph Balderas, who went missing on June 25, 2016, in the rugged Alaskan community. The community in Nome has been home to mysterious disappearances, and part one first introduced listeners to Alaskan Native Florence Okpealuk, whose unique disappearances in a town have hindered law enforcement and angered residents.
The Up and Vanished franchise is credited with breaking new information, some leading to arrests, for multiple missing persons cases.
Lindsey is an Atlanta-based director, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and co-creator and host of chart-topping podcasts and franchises such as Up and Vanished, High Strange, Radio Rental, and Atlanta Monster.
In 2016, following the success of Up and Vanished, Lindsey launched the Atlanta-based content creation company Tenderfoot TV with his friend and business partner, Donald Albright. Since its founding, they have released several award-winning podcast franchises, amassing over 800 million total downloads to date.
Beyond hosting shows, Lindsey also serves as executive producer on all other Tenderfoot TV podcasts, including Radio Rental, the horror podcast that transports listeners into a mysterious world with real-life scary stories, featuring the voice of Rainn Wilson as a quirky video store clerk. He has also combined his documentary skillset with podcasting, bringing Up and Vanished to the TV screen as a docu-series for Oxygen Network in 2020.
Check out Up and Vanished: In the Midnight Sun, where Payne Lindsey revisits Nome, Alaska to investigate the cryptic missing person's case of Joseph Balderas. The show is definitely a notch above the all-too-familiar true-crime podcast show.