Podcast Playlist

The best new podcasts for June: Oprah, true crime and more

Five podcasts we can't wait to listen to this summer.
(Pic Monkey (Kate Evans), Images courtesy of podcasts.)

Oprah Winfrey is a force in the world of pop culture. When there's something worth talking about, she is usually there to spearhead the conversation.  

Between hosting The Oprah Winfrey Show for 25 seasons, being the first African-American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show, and branching off to create O Magazine and the OWN Network - Oprah has always kept busy.

As of today Oprah holds a net worth of $2.6 billion. But how did she become the cultural icon that we know her as today? 

This week on the show: You get a podcast! You get a podcast! You get a podcast!

So...you get it. We have a lineup of great new shows for you. Including of course, a show that digs into the queen of daytime herself: Oprah Winfrey. We'll hear from two historians about how the famous daytime talk show host has shaped the culture.

We also have an interview with journalist Francis Plourde, the host of the new season of The Village: The Montreal Murders. Former host Justin Ling passed the torch to Francis to tell this new seven-part series. 

This season tells the story of how a community came together to fight injustice. As more and more gay men were found murdered in 1990s Montreal, the city reckoned with both the AIDS crisis and a possible serial killer. Faced with police indifference, despite mounting evidence, a group of activists took matters into their own hands.

In a unique first, podcast production teams from CBC and Radio-Canada joined forces to tell the same story in English and French.

Then we meet a mother and daughter whose relationship was tested by extremism and how they found each other again. Verified: The Next Threat is a new podcast that uncovers the ways that racist extremists are globally connected, and how they're becoming more threatening.

In the podcast Ukraine Stories we meet a 17-year-old named Sasha. When the war began, she and her brothers were staying with their father in Kakhovka. But, It was only meant to be a short visit. He eventually kicked them out because it was becoming too expensive to host them. We'll hear about her journey through a war zone to safety.

Plus, the podcast Best Laid Plans is a new audio storytelling series where creatives discuss moments in their careers where things didn't go as planned. We'll meet a former film critic named April Wolfe, who worked job after job trying to get to where she wanted to be. Now, she works her dream job as a screenwriter. She'll tell us how she got there.

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(Images courtesy of podcasts.)

The Village: The Montreal Murders: "In the early 1990s, as AIDS tightens its grip on major cities around the world, the relative safety of Montreal's nightlife becomes a magnet for gay men. But when they start turning up dead in hotel rooms, beaten lifeless in city parks, and violently murdered in their own homes, the queer community has more to fear than the disease. While the city's police force dithers over the presence of a serial killer, a group of queer activists starts making connections, and rises up to start a movement that would end up changing thousands of lives."

Plus, host Leah-Simone Bowen interviews journalist and host Francis Plourde about the new season.

Verified: The Next Threat: - A conversation between a mother and daughter about when the daughter fell into white supremacist circles following her father's death. They talk about why people often seek out these kinds of groups and how parents can talk to their children about it.

Ukraine Stories: "Sasha was in Donetsk, visiting her father, when the war started. But then her father kicked her out. Now she just wants to get back home."

Oprahdemics"Look under your seat… it's a new podcast! Two historians (and friends) break down Oprah's most iconic episodes, and what the Queen of Talk has meant for our culture. Hosted by Kellie Carter Jackson and Leah Wright Rigueur."

Best Laid Plans: "April Wolfe talks about her experience working job after job trying to get to where she wanted to be: working as a screenwriter. In this clip she describes what it was like to land and then leave a dream job at LA Weekly as a film critic, and eventually end up doing what she always hoped for."


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