Jul 19, 2025
Millions of kids can't read well. Scientists have known for decades how children learn to read, but many schools don’t know about the resear
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Millions of kids can't read well. Scientists have known for decades how children learn to read, but many schools don’t know about the resear
In the Dark: Season 2
Network: American Public Media
Genre: true crime, criminal justice
Length: 40-60min
Status: complete-ish (intermittent update episodes)
Recommend? Yes!!!
Madeline Baran and her excellent team are at it again, with a very different story to season one. This is the story of Curtis Flowers who has been tried and appealed and retried 6 times by the same prosecutor for a murder he didn't commit in a small town in Mississippi. The thing I appreciate the most is the high quality of the reporting done here - they interview everyone they can, dig in basements for old records, compile statistics that are so good they're eventually used in the case before the supreme court, debunked bad science. It reminds me a bit of Serial (season 1). It is clear that this is a huge miscarriage of justice and it reveals how messed up the legal system is because even after successful appeals, the same set-in-his-ways racist prosecutor can decide to try Curtis again. and again. and again. It's a really compelling listen, I highly recommend it.
By the early 1990s, the idea that kids didn't need phonics had taken hold in many schools and teacher preparation programs, and was even a guiding principle behind reading instruction across the entire state of California. But the phonics folks kept pushing back. The battle between whole language and phonics got so heated that the U.S. Congress eventually got involved, convening a National Reading Panel to review all the research on reading. In 2000, the panel released a report. The sum of the research showed that explicitly teaching children the relationship between sounds and letters improved reading achievement. The panel concluded that phonics lessons help kids become better readers. There is no evidence to say the same about whole language.
“Hard Words“ from APM Reports
In The Dark: Season 1
Network: American Public Media
Genre: Investigative journalism, true crime
Length: 40-60 min
Status: complete, 10 eps
Recommend: Yes, possibly my favorite of all time
Investigative reporter Madeline Baran and her team tell the story about the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling and I really appreciate the way this story is told. This particular crime was chosen because it has had nationwide impact - it changed laws and the way people raised their children. The podcast not only tells the story of the crime, but examines the impact and takes a critical and unflinching look at the investigation and it's failings. This is not a typical true crime pod in my opinion for those reasons. The pod is fair, asks hard questions and is revealing. The investigation is thorough, the production is well done and includes interviews, archival audio and narration. This pod is a story that includes the kidnapping, murder and sexual assault of a child. It doesn't linger too long on these aspects (I don't feel that it's tragedy porn), but its certainly there so if that's a concern for you be advised that it's there and is talked about (first 10 min of ep 2, and some of ep 3).
Very good news for “In the Dark” fans from The Newyorker/APM reports.
APM Reports will be returning with a new season on July 30th (via Spotify).
Thrilled to see this podcast come back. “In The Dark” is one of the most well researched and throughout examples of investigative journalism in our modern day. Their goal is to investigate cases mishandled by law enforcement to properly prosecute the actual criminal while freeing those who are wrongfully convicted.
Does Johnson's Withdrawal from the 1968 Election Have Anything to Teach Us About Biden's Impending Withdrawal from Election 2024
NBC News headlines on Saturday 20 July: Biden’s fixing to drop out of the race. I don’t know about you, but waking up to these headlines, leaves me feeling just a wee bit depressed. It looks like it is just a matter of time before Biden is out of the race. It defies all reasoning and logic to push Biden out of the race unless there is a VERY GOOD REASON. For the life of me, I can’t find one…
Spotlight On: In the Dark Podcast Season Two and the Case of Curtis Flowers
Spotlight On: In the Dark Podcast Season Two and the Case of Curtis Flowers
The timing here is uncanny. In the Dark was always going to be my Spotlight post for this month, but a few days ago, major news came out about the case, which I’ll link to at the end.
In the Dark is a podcast put out by APM Reports. The first season of the podcast focused on the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling in Minnesota, one of the first missing children cases to get national attention. While…
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