Podcasts about North Carolina, United States

Hurricane Helene is still being talked through on this page. We Are Mitchell, produced by Mitchell County's government, has County Manager Allen Cook working out a proposed budget in a conversation that calls the storm the biggest in North Carolina history; its other clips cover the county's timber blowdown and how Sibelco responded when the county was devastated in four hours. Housing Matters 2 NC sets Western North Carolina's need at 34,000 homes by 2028 against more than 71,000 homes the storm affected, and even NC F&B Podcast carries an episode titled "Hurricane Helene Impact and Project Skyline's Mission". Around that thread, government and politics take more of the listening than any other beat, and much of it is the state speaking for itself rather than being reported on. History takes more room than sports, and the coast arrives as a fisheries argument.

What North Carolina is

North Carolina is a southeastern US state running from the Outer Banks on the Atlantic to the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains in the west, with the Piedmont cities between: Charlotte, the largest and a banking center; Raleigh, the capital; and the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Around eleven million people live there. Mitchell County, whose government produces We Are Mitchell, is in the mountains.

The state on its own microphone

Public bodies produce an unusual amount of what plays. Inside NC Labor exists, by its own account, to explain what the Department of Labor does; on the feed Dobson, on winning the Commissioner of Labor race, recalls that 2.7 million votes still meant 2.6 million people chose the other name. DPS Safety Scoop, from the Department of Public Safety, has Morgan Raines describing the Tar Heel Challenge Academy as a group effort built on camaraderie rather than competition. Beyond the Bench, from the North Carolina Judicial College at the UNC School of Government, is the most practical: Frayda Bluestein on why body-camera access splits between disclosure and release, Jamie Markham on the line between one missed probation appointment and three months incommunicado, Shea Denning on why a driver may text at a red light but not while moving. The City of Durham North Carolina Feed belongs with these, State of the City addresses and budget presentations in which Elaine O'Neal describes the January point-in-time count of unsheltered people, first-year police pay rises 14.35 percent, and Mayor Leonardo Williams asks for action and results rather than another 30-page study.

Raleigh's press corps, and the housing movement

NC Capitol Wrap, from WRAL News, follows the General Assembly through titles about a stalled budget, gambling bills and veto overrides; on the feed Travis Fain and Paul Spey explain how a $30 billion budget triggered Medicaid expansion that immediately covered 300,000 people. WUNC Politics plays its long look at the state's "Right Turn": Phil Berger and Tom Apodaca on how Republicans took both chambers in 2010, the Moral Monday demonstrations and Reverend William Barber, a court finding that voting restrictions targeted African Americans with "almost surgical precision". News & Views, from NC Newsline, is the measured one, patient interviews with the context laid down before the question lands: pre-K spending down nearly $1,000 per pupil, State Rep. Renee Price saying jails have become holding cells for people with mental illness. Housing Matters 2 NC, in dated Housing Calls, runs from the federal 21st Century Road to Housing Act down to a Forsyth County homeowner facing a 90 percent property-tax jump under a 2.5 percent levy cap, and Mark Shelburne on tax-credit properties "set up by design to have very low cash flow".

Prisons and the way back out

The 98% - Life After Prison, hosted by April Barber Scales and Judy Van Wyk, is dedicated, in their words, to the vast majority of incarcerated North Carolinians who come home with almost no money and little support. A father released after almost 30 years, whose children were between six months and five when he left, explains why he seeks out uncomfortable conversations with his son; another clip follows someone whose bank account the IRS emptied over a drug tax. Its titles on the mentally ill and death row echo Renee Price's jail remark on News & Views.

History that keeps returning to Black North Carolina

Connecting the Docs: True Stories from the Old North State is the State Archives connecting documents to stories: the Regulators of 1771, farmers who wanted secret ballots and progressive taxation and walked forward into loaded cannons; Camp Lejeune on V-J Day recording relief rather than wild celebration; Claude Clegg characterizing Liberia's settlement as a form of settler colonialism. Re/Collecting Chapel Hill, from Chapel Hill Public Library, is the hardest listening on the page: Mike Ogle reconstructing how James Cates died, a Durham ambulance that could not come, police who waited; Edward Cotton recalling Black Chapel Hill youth told they belonged on campus only while working; Elizabeth Cotten tracing a song to being reported for childhood backtalk. Charlotte-Mecklenburg History with Dan Morrill turns to preservation, Little Rock AME Zion Church saved by curving East 7th Street around it, Mount Carmel Baptist with its termites and million-dollar plan, and the Black church as a place of intellectual freedom.

Food, galleries and Lake Norman storefronts

NC F&B Podcast is Max Trujillo's long, loose, sometimes profane conversation with people already inside the state's food and drink trade; in Holly Springs, Gio Montalbani rebuilds concession stands by stocking Mama Mia's Pizza, Raleigh Tamales and Bestow Baked Goods, and admits his first week overshot demand so badly he ate pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner. WRAL Out & About works the Triangle's calendar: comedian Shannon Fiedler, ahead of Goodnights Comedy Club, on the pandemic closing clubs just as she was getting real gigs; Lisa Oakley's blown-glass eggs at Cedar Creek Gallery in Creedmoor raising more than $30,000 for the Food Bank. Queen City Unleashed takes Charlotte through its working people in plain, wandering conversation, muralist Matt Moore calling himself "the luckiest guy on the planet", and The Best of LKN treats Lake Norman as a business map, with Ken Brock moving RODTEES from California and driving apparel sales through Facebook pages with 370,000 followers.

Fisheries, Wolfpack, Hornets

Fisheries Gone Wild, from CCA NC, is David Sneed and Rocky Carter on coastal fisheries management, with a crash course from Dick Brame aimed at misinformation and Mac Currin on the fisheries' history and the Marine Fisheries Commission. Sports is a small slice of the listening on this page. Locked On Wolfpack - Daily Podcast On North Carolina State Athletics is fan talk sharpened into argument, a duo rolling through caveats and jokes before a blunt verdict: Will Wade's Moneyball-style roster failed because none of the transfers had been number-one guys at their old programs. Locked On Hornets - Daily Podcast On The Charlotte Hornets covers Charles Lee's introduction as head coach and his insistence on defensive buy-in. It is one of the Charlotte shows, with Queen City Unleashed and Dan Morrill, that Charlotte's own page carries.

Where to start

• For the legislature: NC Capitol Wrap's "$30B budget, Medicaid expansion will be law after exhausting, secretive process".
• For Helene's aftermath: We Are Mitchell's "2025-2026 Budget - Allen Cook".
• For history: Re/Collecting Chapel Hill's "6: James Cates. Silent Sam part 2" or Connecting the Docs' "From Regulators to Revolution: The War of Regulation".
• For something lighter: NC F&B Podcast's "Sideline Snacks and the Revival of Concession Stands in Holly Springs" or Queen City Unleashed's "Painting the City with Muralist Matt Moore".

The North Carolina feed on this page plays clips from these shows.