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Globally daily news podcasts have exponentially grown in popularity. To build on the increased interest in this podcast format, this study examines three distinct programmes in this genre. The focus of our research specifically highlights the significant news events during the summer of 2020: the killing of George Floyd, and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a set of genre conventions adapted and expanded from previous podcast and radio news scholarship, this research analyses the impact podcasting has on daily audio news production. Our findings indicate the podcast host's empathy and intimacy, coalesced into powerful, immersive deep dive discussions. Those kinds of conversations have strongly influenced and transformed daily news production, while still maintaining journalistic ethics and aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural shifts behind the rise of podcasting have led to programming aimed at sustaining audience attention, a development coinciding with the sharp increase in engaged time with digital longform content among mobile users. This study industrially and culturally situates 3 case studies: True Murder (a pioneering precursor to This American Life producers' Serial), S-Town (Serial's successor that far exceeded its listenership), and Ear Hustle (Radiotopia's experiment in subject-produced content made by two inmates at San Quentin State Prison). Each case illustrates how distinct sectors of the podcasting industry approach the production of absorbing nonfiction through transparent journalism featuring self-reflexive metanarrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]