The Mitten Channel
135 episodes listed below
Flint history, evidence, and memory on record.
The Mitten Channel moves between cold cases, public systems, local biography, and working-class memory with a plainspoken Flint center. Its best episodes connect forensic evidence, courtroom logic, water infrastructure, airport security, sports, foodways, and industrial legacy without sanding off the local detail.
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The Mitten Channel is a Flint-centered record of crimes, institutions, biographies, and local traditions that rarely fit into one neat category. It has the patience of a public file. Episodes often begin with a specific person, place, or piece of evidence, then widen into the systems around it. A cold case story follows a 1986 Flint murder from a partial fingerprint and stored biological evidence to later AFIS and DNA matches. The forensic detail matters. So does the question of why a case can sit for years before technology and public investment give it another chance. The show uses that same practical frame when it turns to public policy. Its episode on militarized policing argues through the language of rights, war rhetoric, searches, lawyers, bail, and state power. Its Flint water coverage separates bodily harm from infrastructure harm, drawing a clean line between children who may need lifelong support and mechanical systems that need repair. These are not abstract debates. They are told through local consequences. The Mitten Channel also makes room for memory, especially the kind carried by people who grew up in Flint schools, neighborhoods, fields, gyms, and restaurants. Jeffrey Natchez's story moves from Freeman School, McKinley, Southwestern, baseball, football, and basketball into optometry. Christopher Miller's account ties General Motors parents, Flint Public Schools, music, law enforcement, and Bishop Airport into one career arc. Biographical episodes revisit Charles Stuart Mott, William Durant, politics, banking, and philanthropy. Food history gets similar seriousness, with Dave Liske's work on Flint-style coney restaurants leading into recipes, Abbott's, Macedonian people, and Balkan Wars migration. Even the true-crime material stays anchored in Michigan geography, including John Norman Collins, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and the fear around his crimes. The show is sober, local, and evidence-forward. It suits listeners who want more than a headline and less than a polished national gloss.
Made for: For listeners drawn to Michigan history, true crime, public institutions, and Flint's working-class cultural memory. It especially suits people who like interviews and narrative explanations that stay close to names, places, and evidence.
What sets it apart: The Mitten Channel treats local history, legal process, environmental harm, and biography as connected civic records. Its strength is the Flint lens: cold cases, coney recipes, school athletics, airport security, and industrial figures all sit inside the same regional story.
The Mitten Channel is a Michigan podcast and media network created by former Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur Busch.We produce original programs that blend legal expertise, investigative storytelling, and deep Michigan history — including true crime analysis, environmental investigations, employee rights, and rich biographies rooted in Flint’s working-class culture.Our mission is to preserve Michigan stories, examine the systems that shape our communities, and give voice to the people who define our industrial past and future.Mitten Channel Podcast Shows: Radio Free Flint, Flint Justice, The Mitten Works, Mitten Environmental and The Mitten Biography ProjectTo listen to full audio podcast in…
Flint's memory gets a microphone here, and you get the stories that never made the plaque.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Flint athlete looks back on schoolyard games, a wall in right field, and summer baseball after the Tigers.
Jeffrey Natchez gives The Mitten Channel a grounded Flint story: a Dearborn Street kid playing ball from morning to night, then a McKinley Southwestern athlete, then a young player released by the Tigers and back home for City League summers.
Podcast discovery from the Sherpa Chalet.
Witchy banter with glorious detours.
Female crime, told with grave attention.
["Jeffrey Natchez, a Flint-area optometrist and former Tigers draftee, traces his path from Dearborn Street and McKinley Southwestern to UNLV, Ferris, and Nevada.", "He says Flint's school gyms and fields gave him nonstop access to sports, and Coach Williams told him to skip sophomore football because he was too fragile.", "Bill LaJoy spotted him at Southwestern, the Tigers drafted him in the sixth round, and he weighed that against a University of Michigan football offer and Tiger Stadium dreams.", "After a spring 1976 release, Natchez and Tommy Thompson mapped out optometry school, and he eventually returned to Flint to practice part-time in Brighton."]
Arthur Bush discusses the historical shift in U.S.
This episode examines the human and mechanical damage from the Flint water crisis, focusing on lead-poisoned children and infrastructure failures.
Host Arthur Busch interviews author Gregory Frenier about serial killer John Norman Collins, who terrorized Ann Arbor in the late 1960s.
Former Public Safety Chief Christopher Miller discusses his background and a significant 2017 event that rocked the Flint community.
On The Mitten Channel's interview about old documents and photographs, Colleen Marquis gives storage targets of below 30% humidity and about 60 degrees.
Arthur Busch interviews author Edward Renehan about the life of Charles Stuart Mott, focusing on his business ventures, political involvement, and philanthropic foundation in Flint, Michigan.
Author Dave discusses his book on the history and recipes of the Flint Tony sandwich, tracing its origins to Macedonian immigrants.
Arthur Busch interviews veteran broadcaster Michael J.
Host Arthur Busch explores the origin and meaning of the term 'Flintstone' as a symbol of Flint's resilient identity.
An interview with Pastor Robert McCatherin of Joy Tabernacle in Flint, discussing the church's history, urban ministry, and community impact.
The Mitten Channel interviews Grammy-winning gospel composer Jeffrey LaVallee about building a 40-year music career from Flint, Michigan.
Duncan Beagle describes developing transverse myelitis after numbness in both legs led to four months in hospitals and ultimately left him using a wheelchair.
Samaj Brown’s Flint poem turns water, industrial damage, and environmental injustice into a declaration of survival.