The Art and Craft of the Podcast: Pig Iron by Basia Cummings

“The art and craft of reportage – journalism marked by vivid description, a novelist’s eye to form, and eyewitness reporting that reveals hidden truths about people and events that have shaped the world we know.”^[1]

Introduction

The title of this paper, “The Art and Craft of the Podcast”, is a direct reference to the definition of literary journalism, also known as “creative nonfiction”, “narrative journalism”, “long-form journalism”, or “literary reportage”. The International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, founded in 2006, maintains that there is no single definition of the genre. To establish a common ground for the critical study of literary journalism, the Association gives several explanations of the term in its journal, including that cited above, from Granta Magazine. The purpose of this short study is, therefore, to demonstrate the extent to which the narrative podcast – despite belonging to the aural and not written realm (at least in its final version) – shares the same qualities as literary journalism (essentially “immersion reporting, personal voice, elaborate structures, symbolism and accuracy”, etc.).^[2] Moreover, it aims to show why podcast hosts should be included among literary journalists, “master researchers and story tellers”.^[3] 

In fact, adapting the literary journalism theory framework for podcasting is nothing new. Similar studies were conducted by Mia Lindgren in 2021^[4] and by Siobhán McHugh at the end of the same year.^[5] What sets this study apart, however, is that both prominent Australian scholars focused on mainstream podcasts. In the case of McHugh, this was the famous American production S-Town from 2017, while Lindgren focused on Australian and British award-winning podcasts from between 2017 and 2019, produced by such media giants as ABC, BBC, The Guardian, and The Economist. This analysis, conversely, focuses on an independent British production, Pig Iron, which is more closely related to the revolution of Web 3.0, and was published as recently as October 2022.

In addition, Pig Iron is not only an investigative podcast, but also an essentially self-referential story that revolves around the themes of journalism, new digital media, objectivity, freelancing versus agency reporting, and the question of impartiality and (not) getting too close to the investigated subject, which makes it a highly interesting piece to analyse through the prism of narrative journalism.

1. Defining the podcast

The term “podcast” was coined by Ben Hammersley^[6], a technologist and writer specialising in the effect of the internet on modern society, who, in his 2004 article for The Guardian, combined the words “iPod” and “broadcasting”. According to its dictionary definition, a podcast is a digital audio file made available on the internet that can be downloaded to a computer or mobile device. It is typically available as a series in which subscribers can receive new instalments automatically.^[7] Notably, the term itself emphasises the use of technology and the way the content is distributed in the digital age. It also underlines its connection to radio, which remains a reference point for both podcasting and sound studies.^[8]

On the one hand, the podcast leverages radio’s capacity to engage the listener’s imagination, presenting itself as a “visually powerful form of sonic experience”,^[9] owing to which it is sometimes referred to as cinema, or a memoir, for the ears. On the other hand, it distinguishes itself from traditional radio by eliminating the tyranny of the broadcasting clock: “[f]reedom from scheduling and length constraints has given podcasting an informal, conversational tone, revitalising the format of the long-form interview”.^[10]

In terms of production methods, podcasting differs significantly from traditional radio. It appeals to rather niche interests, intertwines with social media, requires no approval from a commissioning editor or gatekeeper to be produced, and follows a distribution model known as “freemium”.^[11] Consequently, podcasting can be seen as a direct product of the Web 3.0 revolution, which is characterised “as an attempt to take the Internet back from the media giants via decentralization, privatization, blockchain technologies and token-based economy”.^[12] When it comes to its consumption, the podcast’s principal characteristic is its portability, as it moves along with the user, offering her or him more control and demanding active engagement and selection,^[13] much more than traditional radio or even its internet variant. However, above all, it offers an intimate mode of listening through earbuds or headphones. This sense of intimacy arises not only from using earphones, “but also from the simple act of hearing the voice of another human being, a voice that conveys emotion and gives one the illusion of proximity”.^[14] This is akin to a telephone or face-to-face conversation with a friend where the interlocutor is whispering something in our ear. In this way, the podcast establishes a close connection between the host and its listeners, fostering an unusual level of empathy.^[15]         

2. The anglophone tradition

In a nutshell, we could say that the development of anglophone podcasting, also known as the podcasting revolution, had three watershed moments. The first, according to researchers, was This American Life,^[16] an American weekly hour-long radio programme released in 1995 and produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media. This American Life revolutionised radio by introducing a new more personal kind of long-form journalism, by means of “first-person narration and a strong focus on individual stories, which entails a greater degree of proximity between reporter, interviewee, and listener”.^[17]

The second was in 2014, when the producers of This American Life launched “the first “mainstream” podcast”,^[18] Serial. This extremely popular piece of investigative journalism became “the fastest-ever podcast to reach 5 million downloads (within its first month); 40 million downloads in its first two months; holding the #1 rating on iTunes’ download chart for three months; the first podcast to win a Peabody Award”.^[19] Serial is, in fact, the true crime story of a 1999 murder case, “a week-by-week re-evaluation of the evidence that saw 18-year-old Adnan Syed imprisoned for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee”.^[20] Its innovation lies in the use of “storytelling techniques typically found in detective stories, such as plot twists resulting from the introduction of new possible motives”.^[21] This, in part, could explain the podcast’s popularity, particularly as it coincided with the airing of True Detective, an HBO television series. However, what is clear is that Serial changed the way podcasts were produced, as it “established a narrative style which was informed by, and exploratory of, podcast media identity, and its properties of mobility, fragmentation, and integrated multiplatforming”.^[22]

The third defining moment was S-Town from 2017, another production connected to This American Life that also won a Peabody Award. This podcast explored the life and death of an eccentric genius from a small Alabama community – “the shit-town” he was living in and truly hated. S-Town elevated the narrative podcast to the next level, transforming it into “a story that was consciously conceived as an aural novel, with its episodes even described on the S-Town website as ‘chapters’”.^[23] Critics have noted that it seems less like a true crime story and more like «a kaleidoscopic nonfiction novel in the shape of a true crime-tinged podcast”.^[24] Some even argue that “[l]isteners embark, with Reed as companion-guide, on a story as tortuous as McLemore’s maze. In its evocation of place and attention to detail, the podcast is not unlike that first, famous “nonfiction novel,” Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood”.^[25]

3. Serial, S-town, and Pig Iron

Both of these iconic productions belong to investigative journalism and, like Pig Iron, are examples of narrative podcasts defined as “an episodic, nonfiction, audio storytelling format that interweaves voice, music, and ambient sound recordings to create a layered audio experience with a narrative arc”.^[26]

However, unlike the American series, Pig Iron is not a mainstream production. It was produced by a British media platform, Tortoise Media, a digital startup co-founded by former BBC News director and The Times editor, James Harding. The platform went live in 2019 with the slogan “Slow Down – Wise Up” and specialises in slow news. According to their webpage, they “take the time to see the fuller picture, to make sense of the forces shaping our future, to investigate what’s unseen”.^[27] Tortoise aims to be an “audio first” medium, has no advertising, claims to be independent of any political party or commercial agenda, and represents a membership business built for and with its members.^[28]

Another distinction is that, unlike Sarah Koenig, the host of Serial, or Brian Reed, the host of S-Town, Basia Cummings, who hosted Pig Iron, had no experience of radio or podcasting prior to joining Tortoise. Cummings studied anthropology, then went on to work at film festivals. Simultaneously, she began writing blogs and it was through her writing that she managed to get a job at The Guardian. Around 2013, The Guardian was involved in a project called the World Networks, establishing partnerships with local media organisations across Africa and the former Soviet Union. Cummings worked on this initiative for a few years and also on the foreign desk at The Guardian. She then went on to work at the UN and later at the American news website HuffPost. In 2019, she started commissioning podcasts and investigations at Tortoise.^[29] Since 2020, Cummings has headed up Tortoise Studios, the audio wing of Tortoise Media behind several award-winning narrative podcasts, such as Sweet Bobby, Hoaxed, Londongrad and Pig Iron, alongside its weekly investigative show, the Slow Newscast, and its daily Sensemaker.

Nevertheless, Pig Iron shares some DNA with its two American counterparts, particularly when it comes to the seriality, journalistic investigation shown in the production, and character study. Basia Cummings shares Koenig’s interest in solving the mystery, although her show is to a lesser extent about “whodunnit” and more about why the young American journalist got killed in South Sudan and who he really was. However, she also shares Reed’s interest in the protagonist. Similar to how This American Life and Reed were contacted by McLemore, Cummings was approached by Chris Allen via email, but, unlike Reed, back then she did not embark on a journey.

4. Pig Iron: a story with a history

Five years after the death of a young reporter, Chris Allen, in South Sudan, Basia Cummings, a journalist from Tortoise Media, was approached by the cousin of the deceased young “parachute journalist” and decided to investigate his story. As she recalls in the podcast:

“Basia, narrating: Before this, when Jeremy made contact in November 2021, I had been vaguely aware of Chris’s story. I’d been interested in South Sudan when I worked at The Guardian and so I’d seen the news of Chris’s killing. I didn’t remember that he’d pitched to me, but I thought it was probably likely our paths had crossed at some point. I’d even considered doing the story, a few months before I heard from Jeremy. But part of me thought: why this guy? The only white journalist killed in a country where scores of local reporters have been killed. I didn’t really get it. So, when Jeremy appeared, saying very clearly, there’s more to this, I was willing to listen.”^[30]

Therefore, from the start, Cummings follows one of the core characteristics of both investigative and literary journalism and decides to go into the field and try to get the bottom of the story. However, from the start, she is also interested in the background story, as she explained in the interview:

“Part of the journey that I went on with this cousin Jeremy was to try and unpack that and what draws young men, in particular, to war. And how was he treated within the news industry? A big part of the project was to understand how journalism works and the reality is, you lift the bonnet, there are dark sides to it, where young people are being commissioned without much thought for their safety. It felt like it would touch on lots of parts of being a journalist and the myths we tell ourselves. That’s what I thought would be very interesting.”^[31]

The fruit of Cummings’ research is a piece of investigative reporting of seven episodes, each 35-45 minutes long. In short, Pig Iron tells the story of a young freelancer who died in South Sudan in 2017. Five years after his death, when she was contacted by Jeremy Bliss, the truth about what happened to Allen was still a mystery. Nobody seemed to know whether he was a reckless freelancer, a mercenary that joined the rebels, or a young and ambitious reporter caught in the crossfire. So, the first question Pig Iron tackles is: why was he killed? But the story does not end there. Allen’s life and death are used to build a narrative about what draws young men to war and how journalism – war journalism more specifically – operates nowadays. So, what starts as an investigation into why Chris Allen was killed becomes a story about his life; about why he and other war reporters like him choose the frontline. Those two questions (why and how) are exactly what brings Pig Iron much closer to literary journalism, in which “storytelling techniques are used to answer the how and why questions rather than the what question”.^[32]

To investigate Chris’s life and death, Cummings and Bliss embark on a journey. They travel to the east coast of the US to meet Allen’s parents, and to Nairobi to meet with people who can shed some light on the mysterious death of the young man. The story contains conversations with mercenaries, and also with Allen’s former girlfriend, newspaper editors, and acclaimed British war correspondents. On top of that, to bring his subject into the limelight, Cummings decides to use archives, such as Chris Allen’s journals, notes, and recordings. As such, she gives him a voice. Moreover, Cummings includes illustrative moments from his diary that show what he thought about his role and his job at the time.

The title of the podcast is symbolic in itself, and symbolism is one of the key elements of literary journalism. When being interviewed, James Brabazon, British documentary filmmaker, journalist and writer known for his book-memoir My Friend the Mercenary, says, “War is like pig iron to a moral compass, and it takes an extraordinary act of will to stay true.”^[33] Thus, the title is doubly symbolic, as it refers directly to the story of Chris Allen and the doubts that arose over his involvement in the war (did he remain a journalist or did he reach for the gun after all?), and secondly, more broadly, to conflict journalism and its objectivity in general.

5. Narrator

In podcasts, as, frequently, in literary journalism, we have a first-person narrator. In podcasting, subjectivity seems almost essential. We can directly hear the author’s voice and the podcast’s host can come across as a friend, as she is speaking directly into the listener’s ears, which increases the sense of intimacy. At the same time, the host is also a character in the story, and the fact that she herself shares with listeners her doubts and feelings and admits to being confused or unsure – her whole transparency – far from undermining her as a journalist, increases her credibility. This is the case, for example, when she visits Allen’s parents for the first time and wonders:

“As a journalist, working closely with a family is always fraught. They’ve invited you in because they want help, or they want their story heard. There is almost always a reason, and it’s very rarely a happy one, that someone brings you into their lives. […] But for both sides, there is always a risk: what if the story you end up discovering, the one you end up telling, isn’t the one they want?”^[34]

Similarly, she increases her credibility when she openly admits:

“When I started this investigation, Chris’s story felt a part of my world. I’d probably wanted to be like him, once, when I was young and imagining what an exciting life could be. In fact, Chris and I are nearly the same age, only my path ended up being very different. A month after Chris rocked up in Ukraine for the first time, I got my first job in journalism, on the foreign desk of The Guardian Newspaper in London. Chris even emailed me, once. Over time, I became one of the editors working with foreign correspondents. And with this window onto the world, I’d seen the myth and the mystique of the war reporter in action […]. And maybe it’s because I have always been in the safety of the newsroom that I always believed that there was a cardinal rule about war reporting – one that everyone followed – that you don’t join the story, you don’t get involved, you don’t cross the line.”

What is also interesting to observe is that Cummings is both the narrator and the main protagonist of the story. In the transcript of the podcast, this distinction is marked by using “Basia” for the character and “Basia, narrating” for the parts added in post-production, i.e. recorded subsequently and belonging to the storyteller, who guides us through her investigation. In the interview, Cummings explained that from the moment she discovered she had featured in Allen’s emails (he had been trying to pitch her a story), and was one of the editors he felt really frustrated by, she decided she had to appear in the story and be open and honest about her own process as well.^[35] However, “Basia” and “Basia, narrating” rarely come across as the same person. “Basia”, for example, jokes “on air” with her producer: “Just let it be known that you forced Anthony Loyd, war correspondent, to chase a chicken to the back of his house.”^[36] Mid-interview, she goes into a closet in a guest room in Allen’s parents’ house to record her first reaction without being heard.^[37] In turn, “Basia, narrating” guides us through the story, her voice calm but distant as she tries to maintain her objectivity. This is truly fascinating to observe, as it is “Basia” the character that brings us closer to the story, that “humanises” the investigation, and with whom we empathise.  

6. Vivid descriptions

When it comes to vivid descriptions, Basia Cummings, like any reporter, needs to describe in words what she sees or where she is, as this helps the listener to imagine the particular scene or person. This works on exactly the same principle that written descriptions help literary journalists to immerse the reader in their writing. One perfect example in Pig Iron is the detailed description of a photograph Cummings gives already in the first episode, and this is also the first piece of information we receive about the main protagonist:

“[…] There’s a photograph of him from around this time. He’s standing with two guys, both of them wearing bulletproof vests labelled “press”. They’re both standing boldly looking at the camera. But Chris looks different. In just a t-shirt and backpack, he looks so young. This lean 23-year-old with short, thick brown hair, and intense, dark eyes. He’s totally winging it. But he’s getting exactly what he wanted: a front row seat to the biggest story in Europe. In amongst all of this drama, he’s a complete unknown. A student. A tourist. Smoking Ukrainian cigarettes and tweeting into a void. But it doesn’t matter. Because Chris is hooked.”^[38] 

But of course, there is also an evocative power that comes from people’s own voices, rich with information and emotions. Unlike in written literary journalism, people speak for themselves; there is no need to take quotes, to build a world through words. You can hear moments of conflict or emotion directly, for example when Chris’s mother bursts into tears when remembering the last conversation she had with her son. In the podcast we can hear her voice breaking:

“Joyce: So, I said, Chris, go home. You’ve got this incredible story. You’ve been with these men for three weeks. You know them, you know their motivation. They’ve trusted you with their stories. You have their portraits. I said, leave. He said: why don’t you support me? And I said: you’ve always had our support. And he said: why don’t you understand that I’ve been with these guys for three weeks now and I have to, I have to go the distance with them? And I said: it’s because I love you. I mean, I don’t want you to put yourself at risk. It was intense. And here’s this, this, this boy, this man that we had supported in every way possible. And now he’s saying, he’s questioning that support because I’m telling him to turn around and he….”.^[39]

This quote is also a perfect example to show that voice and tone can not only depict but also communicate emotions; emotions that in written literary journalism have to be put on paper in words in order to be described.

7. Novelist’s eye to form

The novelist’s eye to form mainly has to do with structure and plot. We know the typical storytelling three-act structure – with a beginning (the set-up), a middle (the confrontation), and an end (the resolution) – that builds an arc of tension, conflict, climax, and resolution. If we look at this story, we can clearly see its narrative arc. Basia Cummings and Jeremy Bliss set off to research Chris Allen’s death, after first visiting Chris’s parents in Maine and receiving their blessing. The narrative then seems to follow the journalist-as-detective plot, whereby the story evolves chronologically, as the journalist and Chris’s cousin uncover more information about Chris and his death, find new informants and enrich the narrative by adding new layers to it, for instance when Cummings interviews war correspondents about their craft. In the last episode, Basia and Jeremy return to Chris’s parents to tell them what they have discovered.      

Another interesting feature that has come to the fore with the serial publication of narrative fiction is the cliffhanger: a dramatic and exciting ending to an episode which leaves the audience in suspense. Cliffhangers, which were pioneered by Charles Dickens and gained popularity with the serial publication of narrative fiction, also feature heavily in podcasts. “Cliffhangers do certain things very well across media, genres, and platform: they focus readerly attention, highlight narrative tensions and instabilities, and manoeuvre the reader’s affective responses within narrative progressions”^[40]. When it comes to Pig Iron, every episode ends with a cliffhanger; there is the promise we will soon get to the bottom of the story and find out whether Chris died a journalist or crossed the line, joined the mercenaries and became a rebel. A perfect example is the ending of the fifth episode, where suddenly we hear:

“Basia, narrating: But there’s something I haven’t told you. Before we left for Nairobi, I’d gotten a message. One that I had been waiting for, for days and days, compulsively checking my phone. It’s from Craig Lang. The foreign fighter in Ukraine, the mercenary, who had been in South Sudan just a few weeks before Chris. It says: “Sorry for the late response. I can speak with you sometime if you still need me.” And I do still need Craig Lang. Okay, should I go for it?”^[41]

The story is structured in such a way that the tension rises and you want to hit the play button to know what happens next. Music and sound clearly help to build the tension and amplify the narrative, reinforcing the storyline. Through recorded ambient footsteps and voices heard from a distance, listeners can imagine the setting and being on location with the journalist. Even more than that, they can feel intimately and emotionally connected to the story and its characters. When asked about sound and music, Basia Cummings replied:

“We don't tend to do manufactured sound design. You hear a door opening or closing on the tape, as it were. We record in the moment while we’re setting up or while we’re walking somewhere. We don't create a fictional soundscape. But we do think a lot about music, because music can editorialise. For example, if you were to add very ominous music when somebody starts talking, you are encouraging a listener to form a particular opinion about what they are saying, which can have significant editorial implications. And so, to create that cinematic feel for journalism without undermining or amping up elements of the story, it is a very skilful art.”^[42]

In addition to cliffhangers and editorialising music, there is also the pace of the story as it resolves in front of our ears. And that is what differentiates Pig Iron from Serial and S-town, because Cummings does not rush. She leaves in long interviews and as a narrator she talks much more slowly than radio journalists such as Koenig or Reed. In their stories, there are no moments of silence, while in hers she makes use of the radio rule “let it breathe”, leaving extra “space” around an interview or somebody’s statement, allowing listeners to absorb what they have heard. In Pig Iron, from time to time we also encounter moments of total silence, for example when we move from one place to another or from one subject to another, which resemble “cut to black” in cinema.

Nonetheless, while the journalist needs to think about the structure of his or her story, the narrative must stay factual and truthful, as Cummings underlined in the interview:

“I am a journalist, and the journalism is the motor of the story. The script and the narrative is a way of making sense and making accessible and compelling that process. So, you know, I think when you're being led by a story over the journalism, that can be quite dangerous because it means that you're sort of trying to fit it into a shape that perhaps doesn’t exist.”^[43]

8. Symbolic dimension

One of the main characteristics of literary journalism is that it always looks for the bigger picture, the particular story of the person or event that can serve as a metaphor, and that can have wider reach, telling us more about the world around us. And here, again, Pig Iron, seems to fulfil that promise. Not only are we immersed in the investigation, getting to know who Chris Allen was and what might have happened to him, but the podcast also sheds light on war journalism in general and on the media industry, giving the story essential breadth.

It shows the lack of responsibility among media giants, which do not care about the freelancers they collaborate with, because responsibility costs money. And it is about drawing dividing lines:

“Not for the first time, I felt like a referee in the wrong game, rattling off, mostly to myself, the rules that I thought Chris was breaking: don’t pick up a weapon, don’t wear combatant clothing, always identify as press. But Anthony [Loyd], and Roland [Oliphant] too, were telling me: yes, those rules exist, in principle. But when you’re out there on the frontline, it doesn’t always work like that.”^[44]

What allows Pig Iron’s reporter to seek wider reach for her story is the meta-narration. This is because the reporter herself is also struggling with limitations: she wants to stay objective, even though she gets to know the family, even though she’s being helped during the investigation by Chris’s cousin, and even though she has strong feelings about what a journalist can and cannot do. Those boundaries, those lines, overcoming and maintaining them, is a compelling component of this podcast. Ultimately, this is a story about limits, about searching for truth and working out whether it exists.

9. Conclusions

As has been argued above, the podcast Pig Iron can be seen as an example of literary journalism, and a realisation of its core values and principles. While “[c]rafted audio storytelling has its own narrative principles, which apply the grammar and aesthetics of the audio medium to storytelling technique, paying particular attention to tone, texture, and temporality”,^[45] the podcast uses first person narration, vivid descriptions, character building, the novelist’s eye to form – with tension, cliffhangers, and well thought-out narrative pace – and synecdoche, all of which are widely used by both writers and literary journalists.

In the 1960s, prominent literary journalist Tom Wolfe said: “literary journalism is journalism that would read like a novel… or short story”.^[46] In 2024, we can say it is also journalism that may be listened to like a story.