The Retrievals

Our new podcast, “The Good Whale,” is out now. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts, or follow it here: https://lnk.to/good-whale Serial Productions makes narrative podcasts that have transformed the medium. Sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter to find out about new shows, get behind the scenes stories, and see photos and videos you can’t see on a podcast. To get full access to Serial Productions shows, and to other New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts. Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com "Serial" began in 2014 as a spinoff of the public radio show "This American Life." In 2017, we formed Serial Productions when we launched the podcast “S-Town.” Since then, Serial Productions has produced every season of “Serial” along with shows like “Nice White Parents,” “The Trojan Horse Affair,” “The Coldest Case in Laramie,” “The Retrievals” and more. In 2020, we joined the New York Times Company. Our shows have reached many millions of listeners and have won nearly every major journalism award for audio, including the first-ever Peabody Award given to a podcast.

A strange letter appears on a city councillor’s desk in Birmingham, England, laying out an elaborate plot by Islamic extremists to infiltrate the city’s schools. The plot has a code name: Operation Trojan Horse. The story soon explodes in the news and kicks off a national panic. By the time it all dies down, the government has launched multiple investigations, beefed up the country’s counterterrorism policy, revamped schools and banned people from education for the rest of their lives. To Hamza Syed, who is watching the scandal unfold in his city, the whole thing seemed … off. Because through all the official inquiries and heated speeches in Parliament, no one has ever bothered to answer a basic question: Who wrote the letter? And why? The night before Hamza is to start journalism school, he has a chance meeting in Birmingham with the reporter Brian Reed, the host of the hit podcast S-Town. Together they team up to investigate: Who wrote the Trojan Horse letter? They quickly discover that it’s a question people in power do not want them asking. From Serial Productions and The New York Times comes The Trojan Horse Affair: a mystery in eight parts. To get full access to this show, and to other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.   To find out about new shows from Serial Productions, and get a look behind the scenes, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter.    Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com

Fans of the movie “Free Willy” are outraged to learn that the real whale who played Willy lives in a tiny pool at an amusement park in Mexico City. So well-intentioned experts embark on an epic science experiment to try to teach one celebrity orca how to be free — while the world watches. Sign up for our newsletter to see photos and videos of Keiko, and get a behind the scenes look at the making of The Good Whale. Sign up at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter Subscribers to the New York Times can listen to all episodes of The Good Whale early, and access the full archive of other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on The Good Whale or other shows from Serial Productions? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com

If you want to understand what’s wrong with our public schools, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in shaping them: white parents. A five-part series from the makers of Serial and The New York Times. Hosted by Chana Joffe-Walt. To get full access to this show, and to other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts. To find out about new shows from Serial Productions, and get a look behind the scenes, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter. Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com

From Serial Productions and The New York Times in partnership with ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio, “The Kids of Rutherford County” is reported and hosted by Meribah Knight, a Peabody-award winning reporter based in the South. For over a decade, one Tennessee county arrested and illegally jailed hundreds, maybe thousands, of children. A four-part narrative series reveals how this came to be, the adults responsible for it, and the two lawyers, former juvenile delinquents themselves, who try to do something about it. To get full access to this show, and to other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.   To find out about new shows from Serial Productions, and get a look behind the scenes, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter.    Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com

Kim Barker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, revisits an unsolved murder that took place while she was in high school in Laramie, Wyoming, nearly 40 years ago. She confronts the conflicting stories people have told themselves about the crime because of an unexpected development: the arrest of a former Laramie police officer accused in the murder. To get full access to this show, and to other Serial Productions and New York Times podcasts on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts.   To find out about new shows from Serial Productions, and get a look behind the scenes, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter.    Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at serialshows@nytimes.com