Keith Morrison has covered a wide range of topics during his previous eight podcast shows – the murder of a beauty queen, the murder of a teenage girl in her blue Mustang – but with his latest podcast series, Date NBC For once, the correspondent leaves real crime aside and plunges into the literary world.
Morrison’s Mysteries, premiering October 23rd on all major podcast platforms, it sees Morrison retelling classic fiction – something he was initially skeptical about when Date line senior special projects producer Charmian Ling proposed the idea. The two worked together for nearly 23 years, initially collaborating on a story about Vietnam.
“When she comes up with an idea, you pay attention to it,” Morrison tells PEOPLE. “At first I thought she was crazy, but that became clear to me.”
Morrison begins with a haunting short story by Washington Irving from 1820 The Legend of Sleepy Valley, long considered one of America’s best ghost stories. The podcast will divide the work into three episodes. After that, the veteran journalist and storyteller hints that he might tackle another well-known work of fiction perfect for the holiday season.
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‘Morrison Mysteries’, starring Keith Morrison, will premiere on Monday, October 23.
Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison’s new podcast series: The Morrison Mysteries
“Their language may sound mysterious at first, but they are really interesting explorations of how people do things, how they react, their flaws and their triumphs and their tragedies,” he explains.
While fiction like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has been unequivocally read by millions since its debut, adapted into audiobooks and several films, Morrison suggests his podcast show will make the works sound fresh despite their ancient origins.
“When you put them together the way we do and listen to them, they’re quite captivating and follow a narrative path that’s hard not to listen to on the fly. You kind of stick to it,” he says.
That’s a tall promise, but when it comes from Morrison, it’s worth suspecting a master storyteller.
The journalist’s previous podcast series, Murder in apartment 12, the six-episode true crime series that debuted in September investigating the death of Arkansas beauty queen Nona Dirksmeyer, went to No. 1 on Apple Podcasts and is still at No. 3. Many of his previous podcast series, incl The Thing About Pam, The Girl in the Blue Mustang and Murder and Magnolias, it also performed well in Apple’s podcast rankings.
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Dateline NBC Correspondent Keith Morrison.
Patrick Randak/NBC
Morrison, who records podcast episodes in a “small office” in his California home, is surprised by the sheer success of his podcast shows. Given his more traditional television journalism background and his start in radio, Morrison expressed open disbelief when colleagues approached him about projects he considered somewhat unconventional.
“I’ll say, ‘Are you crazy?’ Same thing I said about this Morrison Mysteries, but inevitably they turned out to be great ideas and they worked,” he admits, adding, “Podcasts are particularly effective, and in some ways more so than a movie or a television show because they’re very intimate. You want to be surrounded by a story, and I think almost a better way to do that is if you’re listening, maybe driving or something, but your attention is on the words.”
To that end, Morrison is flattered by the legions of people who listen to his podcasts, whether they drive, run, cook or even fall asleep to his buttery smooth narration.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of people who said I put them to sleep every night, which was nice, but it also reminds me of the radio days when the family would gather around the radio to listen to some drama that was prepared for them,” he continues. Morrison. “It’s actually the exact same thing.”
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The first three episodes Morrison Mysteries rid on Monday, October 23rd on all major podcast platforms, with additional episodes appearing in the coming holiday months.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education