The Europeans Ask “Who Does It Best?”
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The Europeans released the first two episodes of a miniseries funded entirely by listener donations— the first time the podcast has funded its award-winning narrative journalism this way in its eight-year history. The cross-border team of reporters has been on a months-long hunt for
Europe’s best housing, childcare, and drug policies, seeking out the places where public policies are actually working.
The miniseries is the podcast’s latest departure from its standard weekly format, following on the heels of its other critically acclaimed miniseries, which include The Oatly Chronicles, the award-winning This Is What a Generation Sounds Like, and Bursting the Bubble. The creators of Who Does It Best? say that the series was conceived from the idea that Europe “is a giant laboratory for testing out different policies.” By taking a closer look at the results of those experiments, the show will offer “a constructive, practical way of figuring out how all of our governments can make people’s lives better.” From Paris to Breda, Rome to Reykjavik, this series showcases some of Europe’s most successful policies—and offers a few lessons for others along the way.
“We envisaged this series as, hopefully, a useful contribution in a time of quite grim politics,” Europeans co-creator Katy Lee said in the series announcement. “We have seen in election after election, in country after country, people saying, ‘Nobody is listening to me.’ And as abstract as it sounds, policies can be such a powerful tool for actually bettering people’s lives on a daily basis.”
Who Does It Best? was made possible by donations from The Europeans’ famously loyal fanbase. The weekly programme has been largely funded by listener support and grant funding since its launch in 2017, but the team launched a specific crowd-funding campaign to raise an additional €15,000 to finance the reporting for this in-depth series.
Fans of the podcast raised the funds in just two months.
The Europeans is now supported in part by Euranet Plus, a consortium of 15 leading European radio broadcasters, but continues to rely on Patreon donations to cover its weekly production costs.
The new series is being produced and presented by Europeans co-host Dominic Kraemer and producers Katz Laszlo (NPR, Radiolab, BBC, OVT) and Wojciech Oleksiak. Maja Stepančič and Uršula Zaletelj, hosts of the hit Slovenian parenting podcast Šala za starše (A Joke for Parents), report and present the series’ episode on childcare policy, filling in for Europeans host Katy Lee, who is herself away on maternity leave.
ABOUT THE EUROPEANS
The Europeans is a weekly podcast about European politics and culture, created and co-hosted by Paris-based reporter Katy Lee and Amsterdam-based opera singer Dominic Kraemer. Conceived in 2017 in the wake of Brexit, the show seeks to demystify European institutions and their decision-making processes with a lighthearted, humorous tone. The show has received plaudits from the likes of The Guardian, The New York Times, The Observer, and The Financial Times and has been awarded for its reporting on climate change, migration, and LGBT+ issues.
EPISODES (released on The Europeans’ feed)
“Housing policy: Who does it best?” (Parts 1 & 2)
24 October
Reported and produced by Katz Laszlo
“Childcare policy: Who does it best?”
31 October
Reported and produced by Maja Stepančič and Uršula Zaletelj
“Drugs policy: Who does it best?”
7 November
Reported and produced by Wojciech Oleksiak
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