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1. #WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CO OPTIONAL PODCAST REDDIT SERIAL#
2. #WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CO OPTIONAL PODCAST REDDIT SERIES#

The company was built on a foundation of public-radio talent.

#WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CO OPTIONAL PODCAST REDDIT SERIAL#

He founded the start-up in 2014 - around the time Serial was exploding in popularity, kicking the medium off into the high-flying trajectory it’s on today - and brought the consultant Matt Lieber in as a founding partner. Gimlet was started by Planet Money co-creator Alex Blumberg, who sought to parlay his decorated history and experience as a public-radio producer into a profit-seeking podcast company. Soon, one of the industry’s most-coveted companies would erupt in spectacular controversy. Gimlet, which was purchased by Spotify in February 2019, has been billed as one of podcasting’s biggest success stories, yet its meteoric rise papered over the managerial problems within the company. The story of what happened at Gimlet Media is not unique: In many ways, it’s a classic story about start-up culture. (Spotify, which owns Gimlet and Reply All, declined to comment for this story.) It’s also the latest in a wave of various reckonings within the podcast and radio business specifically, which have rocked organizations like the New York Times, KCRW, and WAMU. The scandal at Reply All is just the latest addition to an increasingly long line of companies within the media industry that have been wrestling with accusations of fostering toxic workplaces. (Neither has left Gimlet altogether both are currently on leave from the company and declined to comment for this story, though they have issued apologies on Twitter.) The miniseries was abandoned and Reply All - arguably Gimlet’s most critically acclaimed show - was placed on hold. By the end of February, both Vogt and Pinnamaneni would depart from the show permanently. And when it came to the union meant to push for greater equity at the organization, he wrote, Pinnamaneni and Vogt behaved as if their power was being threatened.Įddings’ thread went viral, promoted by various former Gimlet staffers and numerous peers in the podcast industry. “The BA staffers’ stories deserve to be told,” he wrote, “but to me it’s damaging to have that reporting and storytelling come from two people who have actively and AGGRESSIVELY worked against multiple efforts to diversify Gimlet’s staff & content.” He followed that up with a list of accusations: that Reply All held a uniquely influential position at the company, but remained insular. In a long thread, he accused the Reply All team - specifically Pinnamaneni and PJ Vogt, one of the show’s co-founders - of contributing to a “near-identical toxic environment at Gimlet” as described in the Bon Appétit miniseries. Shortly after the release of the second episode, he took to Twitter. Eddings was also active in a union-organizing push that largely took place in late 2018 and early 2019, a period leading up to Gimlet’s acquisition by Spotify. “I was like, ‘You have to be kidding me.’”Įddings and Luse were the hosts and creators of The Nod, a Gimlet podcast that came to an end last year. “When I found out they were making this series, I laughed,” said Luse. To Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse, who were Pinnamaneni’s colleagues at the podcast company Gimlet Media from 2015 to 2020, all of this sounded familiar - a little too familiar. Though the miniseries was about one glossy Condé Nast publication, it served as a window into all manner of other workplaces.

The first two episodes seemed to resonate with a wide swath of listeners ( including me). In interviews with Pinnamaneni, a longtime Reply All senior staffer, current and former Bon Appétit employees - all of whom were individuals of color - were asked to be vulnerable, and in some cases, to relive hard experiences they had not yet fully processed: entry-level employees and temps who had been made to feel like second-class citizens more senior staffers of color who felt complicit in supporting a troubling culture.

#WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CO OPTIONAL PODCAST REDDIT SERIES#

That sin, as laid out by series host Sruthi Pinnamaneni, was the concentration of power among the same kinds of people - typically white, of the same class, and of the same tastes - at the expense of everyone else. Reply All’s four-part series “ The Test Kitchen,” on the allegedly toxic and racist workplace culture at Bon Appétit, begins with a simple thesis: that the magazine’s problems were all borne out of one original sin.