I read the intro to TIME’s 100 Best Podcasts of All Time, and I felt the overwhelming cringe of confronting a dying empire’s last gasp. We’ve been living through a podcast revolution in the last few years and there is only one reason for that and his name is Joe Rogan. But when you see who compiled this list you can understand why he was left off.
In the “How We Chose” section, Dockterman writes:
You’re folding laundry or going for a run or prepping your kids’ lunchboxes, and you need something in your earbuds. Maybe you want to catch up on the latest news or hear the hottest take on last night’s game. Maybe you’re eager to hear a film critic tell you what’s worth streaming this weekend or listen to a celebrity interview that’ll make you laugh—or inspire a cathartic cry. Maybe you want to play detective in a true-crime mystery. If you’ve ever stared blankly at Spotify or YouTube wondering what to press play on, there is something for you in this list of the 100 best podcasts ever made.
Dockterman writes 61 out of the 100, with the rest split between Rachel Brodsky (10), Shannon Carlin (10), Jake Kring-Schreifels (13) and Rachel Sonis (2), Rebecca Schneid (2), Sean Gregory (2)
Okay, so this list isn’t anything official or well-thought-out. It’s a list for people who listen to Kara Swisher and The Daily. It’s the target demo for NPR’s Serial and Dax Shepard, but what it isn’t is a list that, in any way, reflects the greatest podcasts of all time. Nowhere near.
She also left off the podcasts that were truly influential, like the Free Press series the Witch Trials of JK Rowling:
If it’s a personal list, fine. But some authority comes with TIME Magazine naming the best 100 shows and getting it so very very wrong. There is a reason things have changed, a reason Trump won a second time, and much of that has to do with the alternative media birthed by podcasts — and none of that is evident in this antiquated list of a world gone by.
Here are the top 50 podcasts from last quarter of 2024:
The whole story of recent American cultural history can be told on this list, but if you ignore it and you pretend nothing has changed, well, you date your magazine by not reflecting history or even reality.
I was there when podcasts first launched, and I remember the old days. This site on Reddit reminds us of how different everything is now:
I listened to almost all of those shows back in 2013. I don’t listen to a single one of the top podcasts in 2024, but I would never make a list of the 100 Greatest Podcasts of all time and exclude those that are the most influential. I would look like a fool if I did that; anyone would.
The Golden Globes will unveil their choices for best podcasts, and I predict they will do exactly the same thing — reflect their singular bias and thus expose themselves, just as TIME has done, as part of an insulated, isolated ruling class now in collapse.
My own list of favorite podcasts would be separate from having the arrogance to post the 100 Greatest of All Time. My own list of “all-time” great podcasts would go something like this:
- America This Week (Racket.News)
- The Witch Trials of JK Rowling (Free Press)
- You Must Remember This (before it got agonizingly “woke” – the Charles Manson series is the greatest thing ever put to podcasts)
- Titanic: Ship of Dreams
- Real Dictators
- History Daily
- Criminal
- In the Dark
- The Moth
- The History Chicks
What I listen to regularly is very different. There are some I listen to every time they drop, some I skip if I’m not invested in the topic. I listen to Megyn Kelly probably every day for her fearless commentary. Her podcast on Siriux XM is huge, and it’s built out to a YouTube show with almost 4 million subs. She was included in the TIME 100, and has just launched MK Media, with several hit podcasts, including Next Up with Mark Halperin, Afterparty with Emily Jashinsky, The Nerve with Maureen Callahan, and Spot On with Link Lauren. She has also just launched a true crime podcast. However, none of this is reflected on this sad, insular list of 100.
There are dozens of stories of podcasters who are truly influential, like the All In Podcast, for instance. They make news. They clean up the mess the mainstream media has made and they offer free thought — and that is an important story to tell. Unfortunately, TIME Magazine is not interested in telling it. They want to reflect the singular mindset of the Democratic Party base (upper-middle-class white women who still listen to NPR).
The people no longer matter to the cultural Left. If they did, they’d care about ratings, box office, etc. What matters is the right kinds of people, those who exist inside the utopian bubble. It is a cautionary tale, however, because what they built is falling apart.
You can’t tell the story of podcasts without talking about the guy who started it all, Joe Rogan. True, Aliana Dockterman is the kind of person who sees Rogan and others outside the bubble as a major threat, but if that’s the person you have writing this embarrassing piece, I’d go looking for a more ideologically diverse slate of writers.
