Are You Listening?

In the 4,000-person town of Austin, Ind., addiction to an opioid painkiller led to the largest HIV outbreak in the state’s history. The drug, called Opana, was linked to more than 200 cases of HIV in the southern Indiana town.

“Why are people doing this particular drug?” Kelly McEvers ’97 MS asks in the first episode of Embedded, a podcast that dives deep into issues in the news. “Why are they sharing needles? What is this drug?”

During the half-hour episode, McEvers introduces Clyde, whose son is in a drug rehab facility; Jeff, a veteran who became addicted to Opana after returning home from Iraq; Joy, a nurse whose addiction began after a back injury; and Devin and Samantha, an HIV-positive couple with a plan to move into recovery.

Listeners learn what these individuals’ lives were like before Opana. They hear about the social, financial and emotional impact of addiction, and what withdrawal feels like. 

By the end of the story, McEvers realizes that people who are addicted to opioids can’t just quit on their own. She wants listeners to have that takeaway too.

“You want people to have empathy,” McEvers says. “My goal was for listeners to understand that opioid addiction is hard, that it messes with your brain, that it shouldn’t be criminalized, that we need to help people medically for a medical condition. That’s what I learned in the reporting, and that’s what I wanted everyone else to learn.”

As a former foreign correspondent and daily news radio host for NPR, and now founding host of Embedded, McEvers wants you to feel like you’re sitting on her shoulder.

“I am a stand-in for the listener. So how do I make them feel like they’re in the middle of this?” she asks. “And if I can make them feel like they’re standing right where I am, then they will give a shit about what’s going on, right?”

McEvers’ ability to bring listeners into a story made her a natural fit for a transition from radio to narrative nonfiction podcasting.

These highly produced podcasts incorporate interviews, narration and sound editing into immersive, intimate audio stories. Unlike interview-based podcasts like Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend or political commentary podcasts like Pod Save America, narrative nonfiction podcasts are similar to documentary films, story-driven and dramatic. But without the visual element, McEvers says, audio leaves something to the imagination.

“Audio holds back enough that your mind has to work to fill in the blanks,” she says. “You’re only hearing words and sounds, and so your brain has to fill in the image. I love that so much — that the person who’s listening completes the story themselves.”

McEvers is among the Northwestern alumni who are applying their journalism training to narrative nonfiction podcasting. Whether they’re transporting us to faraway places, helping us understand all sides of a complex situation or digging into a single story to shed light on broader social issues, these alumni are delivering diverse, compelling experiences straight to your earbuds.

Spurred by a desire to show the full complexity of Black American life, James Edwards, like McEvers, also came to narrative podcasting by way of radio.

“[When it comes to] telling stories from a Black perspective about a Black community, an important thing for me is going beyond the sensational or just focusing on the negative, and then trying to tell a broad spectrum of stories and perspectives,” he says. “For Black Americans, our lives are complex and multifaceted and not just one thing.” 

As host of FRONTLINE’s Un(re)solved podcast, a five-episode series exploring the U.S. government’s effort to investigate unsolved civil rights–era killings, Edwards ’08 MS pored over legal documents and interviewed government officials, civil rights activists and grieving families. Rather than focus solely on the trauma, Edwards sought to find out more about the people involved — their lives before and after the killings.

“Early on I told myself, ‘Don’t be set to a particular story or agenda, because you don’t know where it’s going to take you,’” Edwards says. “And I just kept telling myself that — to be as open and flexible as possible.”

Un(re)solved debuted as a Narrative Nonfiction Official Selection at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. The podcast was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. To complement the series, FRONTLINE also released an interactive website, a documentary, a touring augmented-reality installation and a high school curriculum guide. 

Antonia Cereijido ’14 always knew she wanted to work in audio storytelling. A lifelong This American Life listener, Cereijido got her start as a producer at Latino USA, the longest-running national radio program for Latino news and culture. 

“I never lacked for ideas, [and I wasn’t afraid to be pushy] about them,” she says of her time at Latino USA. “Everywhere around me, I was constantly trying to probe things to see whether they would hold up to an episode or a segment.

Cereijido was most drawn to multifaceted stories — stories that were ostensibly about one topic but then could be probed deeper to illuminate all the intersectional issues.

“I love a true-crime podcast. But so often they don’t go the extra step to think about issues like wrongful incrimination, overpolicing or the politics of the moment,” she says. “I think all of those things really add to the story. I think you miss out on a lot of important context if you’re not thinking from those perspectives.”

Anything for Selena was Cereijido’s chance to bring multiple perspectives to podcasting. Named one of the best podcasts of 2021 by Apple Podcasts, Anything for Selena blends personal narrative with an exploration of the life and legacy of American performer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the “queen of Tejano music” who was murdered in 1995. Hosted by Selena superfan and journalist Maria Garcia, the show’s nine episodes examine issues of race, body politics, language and the history of Tejano music, among other topics. 

“One of the things I loved about Anything for Selena is that it took the concept of pop stardom seriously,” says Cereijido, who co-produced the series and wrote two of the episodes. “What are pop stars if not a reflection of us? They don’t make themselves; we make them.”

Cereijido moved into hosting in 2021 with Norco ’80, a true-crime podcast based on a book by Peter Houlahan. Over eight episodes, the podcast tells the action-packed story — and aftermath — of an attempted bank robbery in Southern California in the 1980s. Billed as “part caper, part human drama, part cautionary tale,” the series explores hot-button issues around law enforcement, guns, survivalism and economic uncertainty.

In the second episode, Cereijido interviews Deputy Sheriff Andrew Delgado-Monti, who discusses the racism he faced within his own department. He recalls one incident when one of his fellow deputies called him derogatory names while their colleagues looked on.

“That squabble might have seemed unimportant in another person’s telling of that story,” Cereijido says. “But to me it was very indicative of the dynamics inside the department. When you’re able to tell a story about one thing but then show all the [other] dynamics — that, to me, is thrilling.”