Podcasts
Chameleon
We are living in a golden age of deception. It feels like everyone has an angle and that, everywhere you turn, someone’s trying to scam you. Chameleon is a new weekly show from veteran journalist Josh Dean (co-creator and host of The Clearing, Hooked, White Devil, and the original Chameleon season, Hollywood Con Queen) that takes you inside an incredible, stranger-than-fiction story about someone—or some people—pretending to be something they aren’t. Are you obsessed with cons, frauds, and impostors? Then this is the podcast for you. Get your new weekly true crime obsession every Thursday from Campside Media and Audiochuck.
CrimeLess
What’s the best way to rob a bank? How do you fake your own death? Can you deploy a swarm of bees to get rid of the cops? And if so, how (theoretically) would one do that? All of these questions and more are answered on CRIMELESS, a weekly talk show that breaks down crazy crimes and answers the questions that you’re too embarrassed, or too afraid, to ask, lest it land you on an FBI watchlist.
Hooked
When Tony Hathaway was arrested outside a Seattle bank in February 2014, it brought an end to one of the most prolific bank robbery streaks in American history. Hathaway robbed 30 banks in a single year, all within a 30-mile radius of his suburban home. But that’s not the most surprising part of this story. Before Hathaway was a masterful bank robber—a shape-shifting professional who confounded multiple police departments and the FBI—he was a top design engineer at Boeing, one of America’s most important companies. Hathaway traveled the world in business class, working on the 747, while hiding a gigantic secret: an OxyContin addiction that ultimately unraveled his life. Based on three years of conversations between Hathaway and journalist Josh Dean, Hooked is a different kind of crime story that takes listeners on an exceptional and very personal tour of America’s opioid epidemic.
White Devil
Belize is rocked by a shocking death. The daughter-in-law of one of the most powerful people in Belize has been arrested for shooting a prominent policeman. And people expect that this privileged white woman will just walk away.
Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen
Chameleon unspools the story of one of the weirdest and wildest scams in history. Over the past seven years, hundreds of Hollywood gig workers have been fooled into flying to Indonesia for a movie that doesn’t exist. This deeply reported show from two veteran investigative reporters examines the cost of wanting something so badly that you see only what you want to see, contrasted against how information — and disinformation — can be used as a weapon to prey on true believers; the way the imbalance between powerful women and below-the-line men in the film biz plays out in the era of #MeToo; and the nature of Hollywood, a place where everyone is pretending to be someone else.
The Clearing
Three years ago, on the day Prince died, I met a woman named April Balascio in the conference room of an Ohio law office. I was working on a story about her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, that I thought would end up in a magazine. It's taken a lot of turns since then. On July 18, 2019, the culmination of three years of us working together — and, for the last 18 months, with Pineapple Street producer Jonathan Menjivar — landed in podcast apps around the world. The Clearing is an 8-episode investigation of April's life, and also her father's life. It's a true crime show that, we hope, comes at things a little differently. It was #1 on iTunes within two days of launch and has been Apple's #1 show ever since, as well as the highest ranked narrative show on Spotify.
You can read more about it here and here. Or listen to the exec producer of the Elvis Duran show rant about how much he loves it, here.