Presenting “Sold a Story”

In the Dark presents the first episode of “Sold a Story,” an award-winning investigative podcast that is changing how children are taught to read. In this episode, “The Problem,” a mother watches her son's first-grade lessons during Zoom school and discovers with dismay that he can’t read. Her son isn’t the only one: more than a third of fourth graders in the United States can’t read on even a basic level. In “Sold a Story,” the host, Emily Hanford, exposes how educators came to believe in a method of teaching reading that doesn’t work, and are now reckoning with the consequences.  “Sold a Story” is available wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at soldastory.org. 

Om Podcasten

In the Dark, hosted by Madeleine Baran, is an award-winning investigative-journalism podcast that started in 2016. Its first season looked at the mysterious abduction of Jacob Wetterling in rural Minnesota and the lack of accountability that sheriffs face when they fail to solve cases. Season 2 examined the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. In 2020, In the Dark released a special report on the coronavirus pandemic in the Mississippi Delta. In 2023, In the Dark joined The New Yorker and Condé Nast. “The Runaway Princesses,” a four-part series that asks why the women in Dubai’s royal family keep trying to run away, came out in January.  In the Dark is a two-time Peabody Award winner and, in 2019, became the first podcast to win a George Polk Award, one of the top honors in journalism. The program has also received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.