A new season of compelling stories

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 31st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Up next: stories that make you want to take a second look.

In 2022, WORLD’s Les Sillars unveiled a long-form narrative journalism podcast from WORLD called Doubletake.

SILLARS: Today on Doubletake—what are we supposed to do with reported UFO sightings? With the idea of alien life? 

REICHARD: Les Sillars teaches journalism at Patrick Henry College, and is one of our student’s favorite faculty with the WORLD Journalism Institute program. And he’s here to preview the release of our third season of Doubletake…

Good morning Les…

LES SILLARS: Good morning!

REICHARD: Well that Doubletake episode from 2022 has had more than 60,000 downloads…and I think is one of the most memorable programs from your first season…though perhaps not quite as memorable as you getting physically sick after you donning Virtual Reality glasses in season two…

SILLARS: It was fun, but the metaverse is pretty weird. And for me, the episode raised a lot of questions about technology and how it affects us.

REICHARD: It’s been more than a year since the last Doubletake season. So we probably have some people listening today who aren’t familiar with it…so tell us what Doubletake is and what makes these stories unusual?

SILLARS: Doubletake tells stories about people trying to do something significant and really interesting. We use the techniques of literature, and then we tell the stories in a creative and dramatic way. We use music and audio from actual events. Other podcasts do this, but nobody else does it quite the way we do with a Biblical worldview, and I think that really sets us apart.

REICHARD: Oh I agree. Tell us about the reporters behind this series…

SILLARS: I did some, some are from seasoned WORLD staff, and two are by former Patrick Henry College journalism grads.

REICHARD: So tell us what’s ahead in the new season of Doubletake.

SILLARS: We’ve got a terrific piece from WORLD’s Jenny Rough, about the connection between Alzheimers and navigation. And she tells it in the context of her own mom’s passing. It’s really touching.

CLIP: By the end of the week, she had gone seven days without water. Then eight. Nine. The rule of three might fit hikers lost in the wilderness but not moms in hospice. She just kept breathing.

SILLARS: In another we tell the story of D’Lynn Herting. She’s a young woman who decided to have children using IVF, and she ended up getting a lot more than she bargained for. It’s by WORLD reporter Leah Savas.

CLIP: I felt the implantation. And then every single day after that, I just kept taking pregnancy tests at home. D’Lynn says she would take at least five pregnancy tests a day.

REICHARD: So those are reporters WORLD listeners are familiar with. And what about some of the stories you wrote…

SILLARS: I did a three-part series based on my book, Intended for Evil. It’s about a Cambodian Christian who survived the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. The Khmer Rouge ran the most totalitarian system in history, and Radha Manickam has an incredible story of hardship and suffering, but also of faith.

CLIP: When the day lights up, you are scared all the time. And during that first year, the Khmer Rouge still have guns to carry around watching you working.

REICHARD: And how about a story by one of your students? Talk about that.

SILLARS: One of my favorite episodes is called “The Rise and Fall of Purity Culture.” It’s by a PHC and WJI grad named Clara York. It tells the story of this couple who grew up in the era of “purity culture” and how it shaped their marriage and relationship, both for good and for ill.

CLIP: I felt like I'd ruined myself with this guy. Lord, if you are not going to have my back, then I'm not going to hold myself to these ridiculous standards because I'm killing myself trying to hold myself to these standards.

SILLARS: And we have several other stories besides.

REICHARD: Cannot wait to hear these. As we wrap up, tell us a little about the first episode dropping this weekend.

SILLARS: It’s about a couple of sisters, Mallory and Kate Millett. Kate wrote a book in 1970 called Sexual Politics. She became this incredibly influential feminist icon in the era of Second Wave Feminism. And Mallory was there to watch it unfold in front of her eyes. And Second Wave Feminism, if you’re unfamiliar with it, promoted this profoundly twisted view of what it means to be a woman.

CLIP: But you think there was something distinctive that she brought to it that only Kate Miller brought to the whole feminism hatred, the hatred that was never in the women's movement before.

These ideas are still with us today and they’re incredibly influential, which is why we did this episode. But, just a quick caution: We don’t include anything inappropriate, but it’s about gender and sexuality, and it’s really not for kids.

REICHARD: Alright, good to know. Well, WORLD Radio will be releasing the first episode of season three this weekend on both the The WORLD and Everything in It and Doubletake podcast feeds, so we do hope you’ll check it all out.

Les, thanks for your work on this series and for joining us this morning…

SILLARS: We have a great crew working on them. I have so much fun working on these, and I’m thrilled to share it with WORLD’s audience.

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