"We Were Three" Podcast Premieres: Family, Lies & COVID

 In July 2020, The New York Times purchased Serial Productions, the company behind the hit podcast Serial.  The Times paid $25 million for the company in yet another move to increase its digital journalism footprint.

The arrangement enabled Serial Productions to increase the number of shows it makes, said Julie Snyder, the executive editor of Serial Productions, when interviewed about the purchase. Serial podcasts are now promoted on The Times’s website, in its newsletters and through its other channels.

“The idea is to drive New York Times readers and listeners toward Serial projects,” Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor who oversees The Times’s audio efforts, said in an interview about the purchase in 2020. “There’s going to be ways that we can help Serial tell more stories, bigger stories and, down the road, figure out how our newsroom and theirs can coordinate even more deeply.”

Now, from Serial Productions and The New York Times comes “We Were Three,” a new limited podcast series hosted by “This American Life” producer Nancy Updike. A three-part series, We Were Three, is a story of lies, family, America and what Covid revealed, as well as what it destroyed.

When Rachel McKibbens’s father and brother died suddenly last fall, two weeks apart, from Covid, she’d had no idea her father was sick, and no idea her brother was dying. They were unvaccinated, but the story of what happened started long before that.

All episodes of We Were Three are available to listen to now, wherever you get your podcasts.

“Nancy Updike is a titan of audio storytelling, and we are thrilled to work with her on her first podcast series,” said Julie Snyder, executive editor of Serial Productions. “Nancy has a winning ability to explore idiosyncratic stories with sensitivity and humor, while also raising questions about the universal themes that affect us all — family, history and grief. “We Were Three” is an incredible, one-of-a-kind show.”

“Rachel wrote on Twitter about her shock at finding out her father had suddenly died of Covid, when she hadn’t even known he was sick,” said Nancy. “Then her brother died soon after, at 44 years old, when she thought he’d gone to the hospital and gotten better. I wanted to find out what happened.”

Nancy Updike is a writer, editor and producer at “This American Life,” and one of the show’s founders. She has won several awards for her work, which includes reporting from Iraq, Egypt, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.

Check out We Were Three and gain more insight into why vaccines have been a political rather than a public and personal health issue.

Photo by RF Studio