COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 02/01/2020
Robert Ito
SAM GREENSPAN, a former producer at NPR, released the first episode of his new podcast, Bellwether, in July. The name of the show, Greenspan says, stems from a practice dating to the Middle Ages in which shepherds tie a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (the “wether”), and track their flock by following the sound. “So a bellwether is something that predicts trends, or is itself a trendsetter,” he says.