“I remember, I saw, I knew”: Journalists’ use of first-person storytelling in award-winning podcasts

This study focuses on first-person storytelling in six award-winning podcast series. Using a grounded theory approach, this analysis explores the specific language used in first-person journalistic storytelling, how they are used as journalistic narrative devices, and how first-person journalism subverts the objectivity norms of institutional journalism, specifically the norm of detachment. This study’s analysis found that first-person storytelling in journalism uses a multitude of journalistic devices, such as eye-witnessing and retrospective reporting, but uses journalists’ lived experiences to enact these devices. Additionally, first-person journalism lies along a spectrum of subjectivity that is diverse. By investigating podcasting’s narrative techniques and its positioning within the process of collective memory, this research sheds light on podcasting’s role in amplifying marginalized voices, examining complex social justice issues, and shaping journalism culture.