How a short-term COVID podcast, Days Like These, unearthed remarkable stories and clocked up 100 episodes
Farz Edraki hosts Days Like These which has thrown up some surprising stories from everyday Australians. (ABC Audio Studios: Teresa Tan)
Imagine moving countries for someone you've only met twice in real life, or somehow letting dozens of monkeys escape their enclosure at the zoo.
And what would you do when a family holiday turns into a weird home invasion?
ABC Audio Studios's podcast Days Like These examines all these events and more, telling stories about ordinary people and the days that change everything forever.
The show hits a once unexpected milestone with its 100th episode published this week.
Created in the difficult days of COVID, when normal audio production became a logistical nightmare, it's gone from strength to strength, proving that many of us want to spend some time in the life of someone else.
Our one rule? Don't be boring.
Our 100th episode is a story about Tiana Penitani, Australian rugby league champion and co-host of ABC International's That Pacific Sports Show.
Tiana Penitani scores for the Sky Blues against the Maroons in Townsville. (Instagram @tianapenitani)
But the episode isn't focused on her incredibly impressive career as an athlete and broadcaster because on Days Like These, we do something different: we look at the complicated range of things that make up human lives; not just the public triumphs, but the private, everyday experiences that change us forever.
Tiana's story is about football, sure, but it's mostly about what happened after her life changed forever when her father was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It's about loss and family and it's also about hope.
How do we make podcasts during lockdown?
In 2020, COVID lockdowns made normal audio production nearly impossible.
ABC presenters and producers broadcast from their dining rooms, children interrupted live programs, and dogs barked in the background of intimate interviews.
ABC Sydney presenter Richard Glover hosting his program from home during the COVID pandemic in 2020. (ABC News)
In Audio Studios, the ABC's specialist podcast unit, production slates were shelved, schedules were redrawn, and like in much of the media, there was some major pivoting.
Days Like These was one such pivot, with a brief designed to overcome the logistical problem of working remotely and delivering a show that was "an antidote for the times".
The brainchild of Audio Studios's executive producers Ian Walker and Rachel Fountain, the idea was to create stories about the lives of ordinary people going about their lives, until the day that changes everything.
The stories would be simple, everyday and relatable.
"While COVID restrictions ground normal production practices to a halt, we saw an opportunity to build a brand-new show that could interview people wherever they were," Walker says.
"It meant we could record people over the phone, have our reporters making programs in their homes, and still connect with stories right around the country."
It was an emergency measure, but it opened up a new way of designing production.
"We got young reporters, hungry for experience, and gave them three weeks to produce a story – recording interviews, editing, working with us to make stories that helped ease the gloom of COVID," Walker says.
In the second series, You Am I's frontman, Tim Rogers, told how a visit to the dentist encouraged a lifelong obsession with The Rolling Stones. (Supplied)
Days Like These inaugural host Elizabeth Kulas was fresh from creating and hosting 7AM at Schwartz Media, after working in the US on premier podcasts like NPR's Planet Money and Gimlet's Reply All.
From the beginning, Kulas set the tone for the show with her warm hosting style and as well as rigorous editorial eye (and ear) which she lent to every story.
"It was definitely challenging, but so much fun," Kulas says
"It was a breath of fresh air."
Days Like These wasn't necessarily created for the long haul.
"I think we initially thought our show might wind up after COVID, that the audience need would be met but it turns out well-crafted, single-person, short documentaries that are uplifting, that have that emotional punch, are evergreen," Walker says.
And now, our focus is still the same.
As executive producer, I'm just as intent on working with emerging reporters as ever.
Tamar Cranswick doing an interview for a story on a new baby, an affair and starting over. (ABC Audio Studios)
I'm looking for journalists and producers with access to talent that you don't necessarily get by sitting at a desk in ABC offices.
And we know now that we don't have to be sitting together to make something cohesive, with a shared idea of what Days Like These is.
There have been some changes.
New host Farz Edraki brings the Days Like These warmth to each episode, along with the occasional dad joke.
Edraki says each story is enhanced by feedback from the entire team. (ABC Audio Studios)
We try to get reporters to work for us for longer stints and are looking for producers who can continue making episodes for a few months or more.
But we have kept to the discipline of a story being made in three weeks, and reporters work to a tight schedule of interviewing and recording, cutting tape, story conferences and script editing, sound design and mixing.
It's a constantly evolving team, and while each producer has their own slate of stories, we move in a pack – we're all over each other's work.
Group edits are a fundamental part of the process and so is tight script editing from me as EP.
You can so often lose yourself in a story so we know how important the generosity of the team is – we're always there to get things back on track, to make a program better.
"Our listening parties are invaluable," Edraki says.
"Everyone brings a different perspective, and having that feedback always makes the story so much stronger."
What's next for Days Like These?
We've got a rom-com featuring (almost) Irish star Paul Mescal, a couple whose fourth date was in hospital during labour, and a Nazi-fighter who finds that DIY genital piercing is not a bad hobby.
Whatever the story, you can be assured it won't be boring.