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Podcasts Are Getting Newsier. Here Are 8 New Ones Worth a Listen.

Before ‘The Daily,’ five-day-a-week podcasts on current events were a rarity. Now ABC News, Vox, The Washington Post and other news organizations have gotten in on the game.

Mary Wilson, Jayson De Leon and Mary Harris at the recording studio at Slate in Brooklyn last month.Credit...Sasha Maslov for The New York Times

They were called audioblogs when they started out. They were casual and rambling, the aural equivalent of the diarylike entries posted on WordPress or LiveJournal in the 1990s.

Last decade podcasts became more polished and professional, not to mention profitable — but they stayed away from daily news for the most part.

That changed last year with the rise of “The Daily,” the five-day-a-week, 20-minute dive into a news story from The New York Times. The show, hosted by Michael Barbaro, now gets an average of 1.75 million downloads each weekday.

Since “The Daily” became a staple of the news junkie’s morning routine, the number of daily podcasts has more than tripled. And news organizations have increasingly turned to the medium as a way to connect with consumers.

“Not all of them will succeed, but I think some, maybe many, will,” said Jacob Weisberg, the former chairman and editor in chief of the Slate Group, who recently started a new podcasting company, Pushkin Industries, with the author Malcolm Gladwell. “This is another one of these forms that’s being invented in the moment.”

Nicholas Quah, the writer of HotPod, a newsletter about podcasts, said there was room for more daily shows. “I am dying for a daily on sports news and a podcast that covers international news and Asia, where I’m from,” he said.

Some newsy daily podcasts have already faltered. BuzzFeed’s “Reporting to You” and The Outline’s “World Dispatch” ended their runs in September.

Despite those failed experiments, other news organizations are betting big on the medium. Here’s a look at eight recently introduced news podcasts that have a chance to last.

The organization: NPR.

The hosts: Rachel Martin, 44; David Greene, 42; Steve Inskeep, 50; and Noel King, 37, otherwise known as the gang from “Morning Edition.” Lately, the hosts have come in contact with fans — usually young adults — who don’t know them from the radio. “It’s funny, as someone who spent most of her career at NPR, this legacy news organization, that people now identify my name with the podcast,” Ms. Martin said.

The pitch: “We are what is central to your news diet,” Ms. Martin said. “We are your squared-away meal that will give you whatever you need.”

The vibe: Crisp, with a touch of NPR Nice.

Why now? “We are meeting the audience where they are, and the audience is more and more found on demand, on mobile,” said Kenya Young, the executive producer of “Up First,” which made its debut on April 5, 2017.

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Kenya Young, the executive producer of NPR’s “Up First," left, and the host Rachel Martin at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., in September.Credit...Allison Shelley for NPR

The organization: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The host: Jayme Poisson, 34, a former investigative journalist at The Toronto Star. She was a big fan of the medium before she became a podcaster. “I’d put on my earphones and walk with my dog, listen on my way to work, get on my bike,” Ms. Poisson said.

The pitch: “Our news cycle has also been overwhelmed by American news, particularly now, and I think that makes a lot of sense,” she said. “But we also have really important stories here at home that deserve a closer look, and I think this podcast medium is a perfect place to give that in-depth treatment.”

The vibe: Thoughtful, with a hint of maple syrup.

Why now? The CBC saw a growing demand for more Canadian podcasts before starting the show on Oct. 29.

The organization: The Washington Post.

The host: Martine Powers, 29, a former transportation reporter at the paper and the interim host of another Post podcast, the Trump-focused “Can He Do That?"

The pitch: The show, which started on Dec. 3, streams three segments in 20 minutes. “There’s a real news fatigue, so I think the variety will appeal to people,” said Madhulika Sikka, the show’s executive producer.

The vibe: Smart, efficient.

Why now? “It just makes perfect sense,” Ms. Sikka said. “The Washington Post is on every platform and we want to be where the audience is.”

The organization: ABC News.

The host: Brad Mielke, 33, a six-year radio veteran at ABC News. “He’s doing things that take listeners behind the scenes in a way that isn’t gratuitously promotional but informative,” said Steve Jones, the vice president and general manager of ABC Radio.

The pitch: “Our strength is that we have reporters who are on the ground and in the thick of stories in a way that a lot of other outlets just can’t match,” Mr. Mielke said of the show, which started on March 28 and covers three or four stories in 20 minutes.

The vibe: An evening news broadcast for your AirPods.

Why now? “We saw a lane for ourselves,” Mr. Mielke said.

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The team behind Vox’s “Today, Explained” podcast, from left, Noam Hassenfeld, Brigid McCarthy, Irene Noguchi, Sean Rameswaram, Luke Vander Ploeg and Catherine Wheeler, last month in Washington.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

The organization: Vox.

The host: Sean Rameswaram, 33, a former radio host, podcaster and producer at CBC, NPR, WNYC and Studio 360.

The pitch: “We will keep this thing fresh every day and approach the news every way we know how,” Mr. Rameswaram said. “Be it a straight two-way interview with clips and scoring, be it a radio drama, a song or wild interludes.”

The vibe: A friend gives you the day’s news, over drinks.

Why now? “I think Vox saw an opportunity, much like The New York Times and NPR did, where people wanted to have a nice summary of the news and what was going on in the world while they headed home,” said Irene Noguchi, the show’s executive producer. “But we wanted to do it in a slightly different style.”

The organization: Axios.

The host: Dan Primack, 42, a business editor at Axios. He records the show, which started July 23, from his home in Boston. “I’m not a huge podcast listener in general,” he said. “I don’t have a commute.”

The pitch: Think of the Axios motto, “smart brevity.” “My goal is to not waste people’s time,” Mr. Primack said. The typical episode is 10 minutes long. And the host talks fast.

The vibe: Rat-a-tat.

Why now? “A podcast was something we talked about, and we wanted to do it at some point, but we didn’t want to be first,” Mr. Primack said. “What I didn’t see out there was a show that’s short and felt comprehensive and made you feel you learn something in 10 minutes.”

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At Slate's podcast studio in Brooklyn.Credit...Sasha Maslov for The New York Times

The organization: The Guardian.

The host: Anushka Asthana, 38, formerly a politics editor at the paper. “Podcasting gives you another layer, which is to be creative in the way you make things,” she said. “And you have a completely different relationships with the listener and audience.”

The pitch: ​“We are able to speak to a ​British audience and speak to an international audience and speak to someone who doesn’t know a lot about a subject and offer something new for someone who does,” Ms. Asthana said.

The vibe: Cheeky yet serious.

Why a podcast? The Guardian experimented with a daily news show called “Guardian Daily”​ from 2006 to 2010.​ After the success of “The Daily,” the paper decided to go back to the medium for an everyday news program, which started on Nov. 1.

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Mary Harris at work in Slate's recording studio.Credit...Sasha Maslov for The New York Times

The organization: Slate.

The host: Mary Harris, 41, formerly of the New York public radio station WNYC. “This show doesn’t work without Mary,” said Gabriel Roth, the editorial director for audio at Slate. “Filling this job was a unicorn hunt, and we found our unicorn.”

The pitch: “We’re living in this ambient muck of news, and so our job is bring you out of the muck and into a point of clarity,” Ms. Harris said.

The vibe: Business casual.

Why now? Slate created the show, which goes into one topic per episode, as a newsier complement to another of its podcasts, “The Gist,” a freewheeling show hosted by Mike Pesca. “What Next” started on Oct. 16, went on hiatus last month and is scheduled to stream again in January.

A correction was made on 
Dec. 9, 2018

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the host of “The Gist,” a Slate podcast. He is Mike Pesca, not Fresca.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Podcasts Are Getting Newsier. Here Are 8 That Are Worth a Listen.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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