City Cast, the national network of daily local news podcasts launched last fall by media giant Graham Holdings, has debuted its first two cities. City Cast Chicago will debut on Wednesday (March 17) followed by City Cast Denver on March 25. Each morning commute-focused podcast will have companion daily newsletters produced by local teams of four staffers.
The project is spearheaded by former Slate Editor-In-Chief David Plotz, who was recruited by Graham Media last October to create a national network of daily local podcasts. “I believe the future is local,” said Plotz. “This feels like the moment to explore what local journalism sounds like in podcast form. It’s also the moment to explore what kind of business model can sustain it,” he said in the announcement.
The daily podcasts will combine local news with interviews with local decision-makers and offer perspective on what is behind the headlines. Each will be published by 6am local time. Each episode will run about 15-minutes. City Cast Chicago will be hosted by Jacoby Cochran and City Cast Denver will be hosted by Bree Davies, a longtime columnist at the Westword newspaper.
City Cast plans to launch in other cities – it has not yet said where, however. City Cast is currently staffing up. Each city will have a team of three to six employees.
Plotz stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of Slate last July, ending a 24-year run at the online magazine, the last six as its head. He continues to host the Slate Political Gabfest podcast with Emily Bazelon of the New York Times, which they launched in 2006. Prior to Slate, Plotz was CEO of the media company Atlas Obscura.
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