The Global Story was a podcast launched at the end of November 2023 - a collaboration between World Service and BBC Studios, and with enough funds to bring Katya Adler to the microphone each weekday. Moving through 2024, we've have a lot of Jonny Dymond, some Lucy Hockings, and quite a bit of the new BBC Washington team of Catriona Perry and Sumi Somaskanda as presenters.
In March, the supply of Global Stories dried up entirely, and there were ads for two new presenters. The successful applicants were former NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid, 41 (BA Journalism and Politics, Indiana University, M Phil Cambridge) and former Al Jazeera reporter Tristan Redman, 44 (MA History Edinburgh, Postgrad History University of Grenoble Alpes). Tristan's further appeal to his new employers maybe his production of Ghost Story, a murder-suicide true life podcast series that topped the charts last year.
Also joining the team will be executive editor Annie Brown, former senior producer for the New York Times’ podcast “The Daily”, who worked with Redman on Ghost Story. She'll be based in New York.
The BBC is explicit about the skewed nature of this incarnation of The Global Story coming in September: "With one host in DC, one host in London, and the backing of the best international newsroom in the world, this podcast tells the intertwined story of America and the world – how each shapes the other, daily. The Global Story. Where the world meets America"
The current podcast successes of the BBC in the USA are lead by the Global News Podcast, a simple half-hour bulletin, built daily from the miniscule resources of the World Service team at desks in the newsroom of Broadcasting House; and the elderly WS current affairs war horse, Newshour, produced in, er, the same building in London. Will Asma and Tristan bring in the subscribers for this alternative ?