Podcasts about New Hampshire, United States

Much of the New Hampshire listening on this page happens at close range. In one clip, a speaker from Citizens Count works through what becomes of the comments people file online before a House committee hearing. The answer is that it is close to a coin toss whether the committee agrees with them. In another, Goffstown's girls lacrosse coach says the team has talent, but this year it finally has a team. In a third, Cynthia Musso finds Sharon Johnson's untested fingernail clippings in a courthouse evidence box. Little of it is headline news. The politics comes through as bill hearings, nonprofit programs and a talk-radio argument about executive power.

What New Hampshire is

New Hampshire is a small New England state between Vermont and Maine. It has a short Atlantic seacoast in the southeast and the White Mountains across the north. Concord is the capital and Manchester is the largest city. Nationally it is known for the presidential primary that traditionally leads off the nominating calendar. At home it is known for an unusually large citizen legislature whose members are paid a token salary.

Bills, hearings and what is working

The state's politics shows up here as procedure more than headlines. $100 Plus Mileage is the nearest thing to a statehouse beat. Anna Brown and Mike Dunbar work from bill numbers and hearing testimony, and recent titles keep asking the state questions, such as whether to restrict large data centers or whether NH timber is getting a raw deal over lumber grades. The online-testimony clip lays out several findings:

• Online sign-ins range from a handful to more than a thousand, depending on the hearing.
• Some legislators say they largely ignore them.
• The House turned down a bill from Representative Janet Lucas, a Democrat from Campton, that would have made committees report how public comments shaped their recommendations.

Another clip goes back to Fast Day, the holiday New Hampshire replaced in 1991, and its old mix of prayer, fasting and public humiliation.

Granite Goodness turns the same civic attention to what is improving. Andy DeMeo's interviews sound earnest and curious, and they will follow a side thought before circling back. In one, Tim Smith-Girding calls Blackbird Collective a resource of joy and collaboration for nonprofits. The talk then moves to the Ernest Impact Lab, a time-bound program that offers coaching to nonprofits with fewer resources, some of them in the North Country, in the run-up to NH Gives and Giving Tuesday.

One station, two registers

WKXL supplies both the party-politics argument on this page and its arts conversation. WKXL - New Hampshire Talk Radio puts the station's programming in one feed, from New England Take and Artful Living to NH Unscripted episodes under the names of several hosts. It sounds like live local radio: plain language, restarts, and repetition as a speaker thinks aloud toward a point. On New England Take, AJ Kirstead asks whether Trump supporters would accept AOC using the same executive power to get around Congress, and he argues for dropping the team-sports approach to politics. In the same episode, Robbie Mayrow compares one-week access to a doctor with four-to-six-month waits for specialists and asks where the healthcare money goes.

NH Unscripted with Ray Dudley is a WKXL interview show rooted in Concord and the New Hampshire arts community, and its conversations range well beyond the state. With Daniel Siletti, the talk turns to Superman casting stories. Clint Eastwood was reportedly considered for the role that went to Christopher Reeve. Later, Nicolas Cage got as far as costume fittings for a Superman project that followed Tim Burton's Batman films. An episode billed as Wayback Machine Monday tells how Marty Robbins wrote El Paso in half an hour. Alan Govenar says the Jasper premiere left him with a feeling that "change is possible during these very difficult times."

Cases, lore and a primary novel

The storytelling ranges from investigative reporting to remembered lives to a novel read aloud. Bear Brook is reported and hosted by Jason Moon for New Hampshire Public Radio. Its Season 1 is built around identifying murder victims found in barrels near Bear Brook State Park. The clips that play here follow a different case, Jason Carroll's. The evidence box comes from "The Box", in which New Hampshire prosecutors argue that no possible DNA result could clear Carroll. The reporting also looks at the system itself. More than half of U.S. states require police to record interrogations in full. New Hampshire is not one of them, and a bill to require it was pending in the legislature.

NH Secrets Legends and Lore, hosted by Wayne King, sets out to explore the New Hampshire that lies outside the hard news. Its titles do this through people: Nancy West and InDepthNH.org, poet Elaine Sexton, Mike Dickerman and the White Mountains. In one clip, Holly Beckman remembers J.D. Nelson, who told her, "When I walk out the door of my home, I am black." She recalls him saying he could not take bikes out of a friend's garage because he would be arrested. Other clips cover Fire Chief, a snapping turtle paralyzed in a highway collision and given a custom wheelchair, and Michael Swack explaining how a state tax-credit mechanism became New Hampshire's Community Development Finance Authority.

Primary Tourist is Spike DiMartino reading his novel, which is tied to the New Hampshire Primary, two chapters at a time. Its clips stay close to a narrator in the middle of a stroke. As he waits for EMS, he lists what he still wants to keep: talking, eating, seeing, writing, hearing. In the same chapters he explains why Barack Obama's second inauguration mattered to him: it proved the earlier win was no fluke.

Sidelines and garden beds

The most everyday listening comes from a high school lacrosse show and a university gardening show. Ninth State Sports Show goes through New Hampshire high school lacrosse division by division, alternating boys' previews with girls' division talks. It sounds like a local sports desk being run live: two voices trading short affirmations, with detours into weather, scheduling and sponsors. The clips belong to the teams. The Souhegan conversation looks back at a run to the championship game after an earlier loss to Portsmouth and settles on a plain line: "It's not just Portsmouth is the best." Kiki McIntyre says Nashua South is "definitely not ready" after only five minutes of 7-on-7.

Granite State Gardening, from University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, is co-hosted by Nate Bernitz and horticulturist and extension educator Emma Erler. Its titles follow the year, from fall bulbs and garlic to spring soil temperature, and each one covers several subjects, as in "Growing Fruits Inside, Neem Oil, Passionflower and Broken Limbs". In that episode's clip, Bernitz promises "proven tips and solutions" and brings up an online list of fruit trees that can supposedly bear fruit indoors. Erler warns it may be too good to be true.

Where to start

• Statehouse process: $100 Plus Mileage, for the clip on whether online testimony sways House committees.
• Investigative reporting: Bear Brook, for the Jason Carroll episodes.
• Local radio: WKXL - New Hampshire Talk Radio for political argument, or NH Unscripted with Ray Dudley for arts talk that drifts into film and music history.
• Sidelines and garden beds: Ninth State Sports Show for high school lacrosse, or Granite State Gardening for the yard.

The New Hampshire feed on this page plays clips from these shows.