Top Documentary Podcasts

Named one of the Best podcasts of 2023 by the New York Times, Vogue, and Vulture Weight For It is a three time Podcast Academy Award winning narrative podcast that explores the ways we think about our bodies.  Through personal storytelling and deep dive interviews, host Ronald Young Jr. unpacks the navigation of the world around him that just doesn't seem to fit. 

In The Trenches tells the stories of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.): an organization dedicated to rescuing victims of human trafficking and exploitation worldwide. O.U.R. works with national and international governments to provide cutting-edge forensic tools and training, develop intel, go undercover, carry out rescue efforts, and conduct aftercare for the survivors of human trafficking.

O.U.R. Founder and CEO, and In The Trenches host Tim Ballard will explore these operations with special guests who are taking bold action in the fight to end human trafficking and exploitation. From undercover operators and aftercare specialists to survivors and advocates, these fighters will share behind-the-scenes accounts from around the world.

O.U.R. exists to shine a light worldwide on the global issue of human trafficking and exploitation. From O.U.R.’s inception in 2013 to now, O.U.R. has assisted in the arrest of thousands of predators, and in the rescue of thousands of brave survivors who are now on the path to healing. We will not stop until zero humans are sold or exploited.

The stories told in In The Trenches are a strong weapon in this war against modern-day slavery and human trafficking.To help support O.U.R. and rescue and care for more children, please head to https://www.ourrescue.org/give-now and thanks for listening.

Bob Crawford of The Avett Brothers explores the post-presidential legacy of America’s sixth president: John Quincy Adams. Though often only seen as a failed one-term president and the son of a Founding Father, Adams spent his final decades in Congress fighting the slavocracy and forming a bridge between the founding of America and the era of Lincoln. Founding Son features Patrick Warburton as the voice of John Quincy Adams, Nick Offerman as the voice of Andrew Jackson, and Grey DeLisle as the voice of Louisa Adams.

MySpace was the first major social media company. And it was the first major social media company to collapse. But what happened on MySpace would have broad implications for all the platforms to follow. What was this internet sensation in aughts? Log on with Joanne McNeil and revisit MySpace through the people who lived it.

For many Latinx kids in the ‘00s, the party crew scene was a safe space to express themselves as they came of age in the grit and glitter of Los Angeles. A space to make friends, forget about your problems and dance the night away. But the scene wasn’t always physically safe. There were shootings and police raids. Many adults saw the scene as gang-adjacent and the media fueled negative stereotypes of kids who were out of control. One of the teens who got caught in that easy narrative was Emmery Muñoz, after she was murdered in 2006.

Host Janice Llamoca goes on a Y2K-filled journey back in time to her own party crew days to find out what this scene meant for teens like her and Emmery, and why – to this day – Emmery’s case remains unsolved. From iHeart, VICE, and LAist Studios in partnership with My Cultura Podcast Network

In one of LA’s fanciest neighborhoods, homeless military veterans built a big tent city and refused to leave. That’s when things got crazy.

Lance Bass, NSYNC Superstar and Russian trained astronaut, takes you on a wild ride into space. He tells the story of the last Soviet cosmonaut who is trapped on the world’s only space station, as the country he knows and loves collapses beneath him. On this journey through Earth’s atmosphere in the form of a podcast, Lance introduces you to the woman who won a reality show cosmonaut contest, a ham radio operator in Australia who became a lifeline for the Soviet Space Station, a hustler from Chicago who tried to sell coca-cola to the Russians and the editor of Playboy who took part in a revolution.

It’s one man’s dream to go to space, his dedication to the country he thought he knew and 313 days spent orbiting the Earth. 313 days that changed our world. 

Plus, Lance’s own dream to go to space and the lengths he went to make it a reality. 

Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware come to light in a special partnership between Exile Content Studios��and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Hosts Rose Reid and Nando Vila examine the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and his inner circle that had the world's most sophisticated military-grade spyware confirmed on their phones. It's called Pegasus. How did this spyware come to be, how does it work, and how vulnerable are you?

Every other week Shoot The Messenger investigates Pegasus, the Israeli technology company that makes it, the NSO Group, and the cyber war industry that is booming around it. You have heard the headlines — this is the deep dive.

A personal journey into the heart of a global megachurch.

Noemi Uribe was looking for a church where everyone is welcome and she thought she’d found it in Hillsong. But that was ‘the most expensive mistake I ever made’. Noemi’s story turned into one of rejection, despair, and a fight for justice. Hillsong used to be home, now for Noemi ‘it’s a dumpster fire’

False Profits dives into the Hillsong experience - from Christian rock music, to celebrity pastors and famous fans - tracing its journey from humble beginnings to incredible global status and wealth, and some shocking scandals.

Through personal testimony and evidence that Hillsong never made public, we peel back the layers of a culture of submission, exploitation and discrimination.

The church says it’s changed, but will it face its past and the people who say they’ve been harmed by Hillsong? Noemi Uribe is on a journey seeking justice, and accountability.

In 1967, Joseph Stalin’s daughter braved her way over the Iron Curtain, secret memoir in tow, and landed in America as the Cold War’s most famous defector. At 40 years old, Svetlana had left everything behind for a new life in the West and the chance to finally share her story. What she found instead — a controversial commune in the Arizona desert built by Frank Lloyd Wright, a whirlwind marriage dictated by destiny, and a Montenegrin matriarch with dreams of immortality — was far more complicated. In Svetlana! Svetlana! neurotic playwright Dan Kitrosser unravels the weird and wild life of his greatest muse.

A true story of family, fraud, land and power in the American West. Ghost Herd is a joint production of KUOW and Northwest Public Broadcasting, both members of the NPR Network.