Pivot to podcasts: How Josh Dean reinvented his career through audio
The Campside Media co-founder talks about White Devil, his latest hit series, and making the switch from feature writing to podcasting.
In today’s media landscape, few stories are as compelling as that of Josh Dean, co-founder of the New York–based podcast studio Campside Media. Dean’s journey from longform print journalist — at outlets like Outside, GQ, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Popular Science — to podcasting pioneer encapsulates the dynamic shift in how stories are being told and consumed. His transition, marked by a blend of serendipity and strategic pivoting, offers a fascinating glimpse into the evolving world of narrative audio.
Dean, who also has several books to his name, is the host of Campside’s White Devil podcast, a gripping 12-part limited series that delves into the shocking 2021 death of Henry Jemmott, a senior Belizean police officer who was allegedly shot by Jasmine Hartin, a Canadian property developer with powerful local connections. The series, whose 10th episode dropped yesterday, has enraptured true crime podcast fans, rocketing to the No. 6 spot on Apple Podcasts Top Shows chart.
Dean chatted with Depth Perception, via email, about White Devil and his evolving career. —Parker Molloy
Tell us about co-founding Campside Media and how it has shaped your career.
There are times in your life when you're just at the right place at the right time and this is one of those. Matt Shaer and I were professional colleagues — Twitter friends, I guess — and he made a successful podcast, Over My Dead Body, right before I did. So we were both talking about audio, and I asked him if he’d ever thought about maybe starting his own company. He said he was actually just talking to Vanessa Grigoriadis — another narrative journalist who’d just made a podcast — about the idea and suggested maybe we could all get together and talk about it.
Around this same time, I was also talking to a film and TV producer, named Adam Hoff, who had chased a few of my stories. He was also seeing the rise of narrative audio and, being a law school grad who worked at a hedge fund before he moved into film, he was very interested in this idea of an audio company fronted by creatives. So the four of us got on a call and sorta started a company by accident. Within a few months, we’d found an investor, and we were off and running. We assumed it would be a side hustle — a few shows a year that we’d try and slowly grow. That seems laughable in retrospect. It went pretty much zero to 100 — a full time job and then some.
How does your approach to storytelling differ between writing articles and producing podcasts?
One thing that was clear to me on The Clearing was how much my skillset did transfer over to audio. One of the hardest parts of telling these stories is finding them. Then also getting the sources to cooperate, and having the ability to translate a big and complicated story into a form that’s entertaining and reaches a large audience. It’s at least half of the puzzle when you’re making a podcast, and that’s all stuff we did as magazine writers. You then marry that skill up with the right audio producer, and it’s a true partnership. We built Campside on that model.
There are so many similarities, and also differences. In audio, you need a lot of twists in a story, to create those cliffhangers that drive listeners forward into the next episode. And there needs to be some honest connection between the host and the story. Listeners seem to like to follow the host on a journey, or to at least believe they're listening to the only person who could be telling this tale.
Long Shadow: Rise of the American Far Right (a Josh Dean joint)
As a writer and podcaster, Josh Dean’s work is full of twists and turns. But the Campside Media co-founder has a surprise of his own: He also executive produced the second season of Long Lead’s Signal Award-winning, Garrett Graff-hosted podcast, Long Shadow.
“Rise of the American Far Right” explores how the modern domestic extremist movement grew from a fatal shootout on a mountain top in Idaho and led to a riot on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Crackling with rich archival sound and riveting interviews, the 2023, seven-episode limited series examines a thread of history that’s vitally relevant to our current political climate.
A leading presidential candidate is campaigning on a platform of retribution — how did we get here? Listen and subscribe at www.longshadowpodcast.com.
Regarding Campside’s White Devil podcast, what drew you to the story?
This was a strange one for me because it did not, at first, seem like the kind of story that I would work on. It felt tabloid-y and probably not that complicated, and I don’t tend to do ripped-from-headlines stuff. But this was during the pandemic, and for whatever reason I started following it, and dipped a toe in, and what I pretty quickly found is that the story was far different and more complicated that what we were seeing in press accounts. And that’s ultimately what hooked me: Wow, even a little journalism applied to this is going to turn out a very different story — and a surprising one. Most of that came through access to Jasmine Hartin who, when I reached out, was very frustrated and ready to talk.
What were some of the most surprising or challenging aspects of investigating this case?
The biggest one is separating the tragedy of Henry Jemmott’s death — a terrible accident — from everything that happened afterwards. Henry’s death was terrible, and very sad, and so traumatic for his family. Many people, including the family, blamed Jasmine —which I of course understand — and then never moved on from that position. Those who have opened their minds and listened to the podcast, though, have probably come to see this all very differently. I’ve heard from many of them, including some pretty influential people in Belize.
The other big challenge of this one was the legal process. It has been thoroughly vetted by a team of very good lawyers who understood that we were telling a story that might upset some very powerful people. We took this extremely seriously, reported it as intently and objectively as we could, and then followed a process set out by legal advisers. There’s been a pretty clear effort to discredit Jasmine and the show, but we’ve yet to have a single fact corrected. As I often tell people who question us, we have never caught Jasmine in a lie. Ever. She might forget certain things, but not many. Her memory is pretty incredible.
What techniques do you use to build suspense and maintain narrative flow in a true crime podcast?
As I said before, you need a story with twists. Episodes need to end on some kind of moment that’s either a cliffhanger or an escalation in tension or action so that listeners — who have to wait a full week for a new episode — are dying to come back to it. If your story runs out of drama and momentum, listeners will fall away. This is the longest show I’ve ever made. It’s 12 episodes. I guess I’m about to find out how well I’ve pulled this off!
Further listening and reading from Josh Dean
The Life and Times of the Stopwatch Gang (Atavist, 2015)
The Taking of K-129: How the CIA Used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History (Penguin/Random House, 2017)
The Clearing (Pineapple Street/Gimlet, 2019)
Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen (Campside Media, 2022)
White Devil (Campside Media, 2024)