Popular Reviews of American Scandal

This is a really neat podcast and it's created and told in wonderful, engaging fashion. The idea of picking scandals (well, American ones, although lord knows one could branch out...) and going back and revisiting them is brilliant. Most of us have probably lived through most of these events -- although not all -- and it's really nice to go back and see them again through the eyes of history, once all the fog has cleared up a bit and a lot more clarity on what actually happened has emerged. Honestly, this sort of thing should be part of the nightly news ("a look back at what stories we were obsessed with 10/25/50 years ago..."; I suspect we'd look at current news stories differently if we were reminded how we perceived things in the moment then).Also? This Lindsay Graham has one of the best voices and deliveries in podcasting.One thing that would be neat might be to occasionally do inter-series episodes interviewing experts (probably academics) on commonalities and differences in some of the scandals covered. Because there do seem to be themes that it might be nice to unpack now and then.

There have been some wild stories in modern American history and the team at American Scandal does a great job telling those stories in an informative and interesting way. I'm consistently amazed at the details of events like the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the Hare Krishna murders that i've never heard about anywhere else. Highly recommended.

Smooth transitory voice for storytelling. Fascinating corporate criminal scandals displayed quite vividly. Very educating and comprehensive. A good series to get a friend who is into business (and such) to transition into a true crime fixation.Only con: excessive intermittent commercials...the most out of any true crime podcast I've ever experienced (2459 episodes from 173 series; duration = 74.6 days/1789 hours).

Unfortunately the host is now reading ads for Bill O'Reilly, which undermines any faith I have in his ability to share accurate information.Someone who got by on rage bait and misinformation before being terminated for sexual misconduct shouldn't be able to have their book promoted on Wondery.

Great story telling! The Hare Krishna stories were very interesting. They even made the Exxon Valdez scandal a great listen. Highly recommend if you like historical recreations.

The good part of American scandal, is that the series are interesting. Every series explores a different but serious subject in decent detail. The podcast is fairly well researched, the storylines are quite compelling, and the narration has a nice pace. So far, so good. This podcast has the basics down. And if American scandal had just run with that, it would have been a five star podcast.But a good podcast takes more than just basics, and unfortunately that's where things fail. The most obvious failure is the horrible sound engineering. Time and again, the narrative is drowned out by a drone of supposedly ominous "music" clips (probably some freebie faux-rock). More depressingly, the same "music" is repeated in every episode of every series. So much for fantasy for the sound folks at Wondery.Another annoying part is that all staged scenes are basically told by the same person. So, when a woman is featured in a scene, you'll hear the voice of the same guy who tells the rest of the story. No additional cast, just one guy narrating everything. I guess that reveals something about the budget limitations at Wondery. Lastly, there's the gazillion of ads interrupting each episode. Sure, you can pay up and use the Wondery app, or you could fast-forward, but given my previous gripes, I'm done with this podcast and all other Wondery stuff.

Great set of in depth series.

An excellent recap of many of the major cover-ups and news stories in American, and often world, history. That's not a snappy title, so it's as well they went with 'American Scandal'. America is not the world, but what happens there affects the world; Iran-Contra, Exxon Valdez, Standard Oil... If you want a well-told summary of major news stories from the past century, this is it. Well-told, structured, and researched.

UPDATE #2 [The next day]And we're back to exasperated sighs and forced stammering, which means I'm back to skipping over good chunks of content and probably missing information, but I really can't stand listening to the dialog. I knew it was too good to be true. UPDATE! [2 hours later]As if in answer to a prayer, the very next series I listen to, they have a guest voice actress! A fresh sound, and I love her delivery. Hope they keep this up!I love this podcast, and the subject matter is absolutely fascinating. BUT. I cannot stand the host's dialog bits, the hemming and hawing, the forced stammering...Every character sounds exactly like every other character--voice, obviously, but also tone, word choice, cadence, verbal and nonverbal ticks, breathing, and of course, dear Lord in Heaven, the stammering. "I-ah, [exasperated exhale through the nose] well look...""What's wrong?" "What's- [sigh/dismissive chuckle] you KNOW what's wrong. ""Wha-ech-agh-eh-wha--LIPSTICK? In my Valentino white bag?!"If Mr Graham would stop trying so hard to sound like real people having a real conversation, then he might actually succeed in sounding like real people having a real conversation. I honestly love this 'cast, but I've started skipping past the dialog because it's just too forced and artificial. And that is my only critique. On balance, this is still one of my favorites.