The Audio Long Read - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I learn so much about the world from this podcast. Faultless journalism. I read some grumbling about the narration. Our current public discourse, on my side of the pond, is full of bloviating and shouting and hyperbole. Even many of the more reasonable broadcast journalists seem to feel the need to vocally push. I now seek out, almost exclusively, calm and quiet narration paired with excellent writing, as is presented here. Thank you so much for providing that. A much needed and refreshing respite. Thank you!

I listen to a lot of podcasts, always looking for measured, well-researched pieces that meet high journalistic standards. I should explore more beyond legacy media -- we know the NYT's chasing clicks and favors -- but the Guardian's longreads are thoughtful, historically-informed and draw unexpected connections. Great content, always learn something new

The writing is consistently strong. But it’s let down by the narration, which generally sounds robotic and utterly devoid of personality. It feels like narrators were chosen to sound as flat as possible.

Superb! Bravo!
Thank you to The Guardian and Ben Yagoda for this excellent podcast! I really appreciate content like this, which dives into fascinating topics—like linguistics for laymen—that are important but not always essential. Admittedly, I’m feeling the tension leading up to the U.S. elections, an absolutely critical subject. Listening to Yagoda’s podcast was not only a pleasure but also a welcome break from the intense campaign news everywhere else.

The Guardian has started using AI-generated voices for these long-read audio stories. AI voices were trained on the voices of actual human narrators who are now no longer getting paid for their work. There was a lot of theft of training data on the part of all of the AI developers. Now companies like The Guardian are rewarding those developers by paying for their services rather than supporting the human voice-actors who need and deserve that money. It’s criminal.

Apart from that, human voices are much more interesting to listen to, and can provide much more variety and nuance in their narration.