TAMARA KEITH, HOST:
Throughout the year, we've highlighted podcasts produced by NPR member stations across the country. Now that it's the last weekend of 2025, we're going to take a few minutes to go through some of the most memorable conversations from this year, just in case you missed them the first time around.
Let's start with New Hampshire Public Radio's Lauren Chooljian and a story that sounds like something out of a movie. She published an investigation into allegations of sexual assault and harassment by Eric Spofford, the founder of the state's largest network of addiction treatment centers. Then her home was vandalized. And in June this year, Spofford himself was arrested and accused of orchestrating a conspiracy to vandalize Chooljian's home and the homes of her editor and her parents. Here's an excerpt of her conversation with my colleague Scott Detrow, reflecting on the experience.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
SCOTT DETROW: You have continued to be a journalist, and I'm wondering has this investigation, has its aftermath changed the way you approach that job?
LAUREN CHOOLJIAN: Oh, yeah. Even before the vandalism, what I learned from having all these conversations with these women who had these allegations was this is unlike any kind of reporting I had done before. I have learned so much about how to be a trauma-informed reporter and understanding that sometimes sources are going to drop out on you. And while that might not feed your deadline, you have to respect where they're coming from because what happened to them and what's in their body and how they want it, you know, put out in the world or not, that's the No. 1 most important thing.
DETROW: Just understand it on a deeper, deeper level.
CHOOLJIAN: A hundred percent - and I think what's unique now, now that Eric Spofford has been arrested, it's also, like, pushed that into a whole new category, where I have my sources coming to me saying, now we all have a story about Eric. And that is a position, Scott, I have never - I could have never imagined, and who has the guidebook for that? And yet I'm really determined to continue to do the right thing because this reporting is so important.
KEITH: And we should note that Spofford was charged with stalking, and he pled not guilty to four counts. Scott also took us outdoors with WNYC's podcast, Our Common Nature, where host Ana Gonzalez and cellist Yo-Yo Ma stepped outside of the concert hall and into nature to make music. Here's an excerpt from their conversation, starting with a section from their first episode in Maine's Acadia National Park, during a sunrise performance with Wabanaki musicians.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting in non-English language).
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO MUSIC)
LAUREN STEVENS: This was the first time I had ever heard our traditional music with a nontraditional instrument. And to hear the welcome song played by Yo-Yo on the cello, it resonated internally. Like, I could feel it in my body. It vibrated my soul.
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO MUSIC)
DETROW: First, Ana, can you describe what was happening in that scene?
ANA GONZALEZ: It was the summer of 2021. It was, you know, right as dawn was breaking. And the woman you're hearing, her name is Lauren Stevens. She's a Wabanaki singer. And this is not a traditional ceremony because those aren't allowed to be recorded, but this was kind of a way for the musicians like Lauren Stevens and Chris Newell, who is playing the drum in that recording, to give Yo-Yo and other people who were present just a taste of what it means to welcome the sun with music, how music can be a vehicle for both connecting people to each other, but also the natural occurrences that are happening all around us.
YO-YO MA: Scott, I have to say something - that, you know, we all spend so much time looking for purpose and meaning...
DETROW: Yeah.
MA: ...And to find a group of people that it's so obvious what meaning is to them, and to be welcomed into their community, into their circle of trust, and after, you know, rising up at dawn, which is kind of a little daunting sometimes, you know? But all of us - we sat in a circle and everybody - it's like a Quaker ceremony. You know, people just would speak and speak their thought. And to have that kind of conversation, it's a world opening, and it just gives you a different perspective on life.
KEITH: 2025 also marked the 30th anniversary of one of the most controversial and successful wildlife programs in U.S. history - the reintroduction of wolves into the Western United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOLVES HOWLING)
KEITH: So let's head to the back countries of Idaho with Boise Public Radio's podcast, Howl. Here's Pien Huang talking with reporter Heath Druzin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
PIEN HUANG: You actually went backpacking with Doug Smith, the wolf biologist who helped put wolves back into Yellowstone National Park. Here he explains how the return of wolves and other predators even affects trees through a process known as the trophic cascade.
DOUG SMITH: So a trophic cascade is kind of - deals with how ecosystems are structured. There's top-down control. That's predators eat prey, and prey eats vegetation. So predators are indirectly impacting vegetation through the impact they have on prey, which are things like elk and deer, which eat the vegetation.
HUANG: When you were out with Doug Smith, did you actually see what that trophic cascade in fact looks like?
HEATH DRUZIN: We did. Wolves are obviously apex predators, right? Like he was saying, they eat elk and deer mostly. The animals they ate - because they were worried about being eaten by wolves, they didn't hang around as long eating these young trees. So whereas in the past, they were sitting there and kind of chewing these aspen trees to the nub before they could grow, now they're on the move, on the lookout, and you're seeing these trees grow much taller than they did in the past. And Doug would show us this, these healthy groves of trees that just weren't there 30 years ago.
KEITH: Speaking of eating, let's close out the year in Texas with host Mando Rayo's podcast, Tacos of Texas, exploring taco culture across the state. He spoke with Andrew Limbong. Here's a bite of their chat.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
ANDREW LIMBONG: You call yourself a taco journalist, which is not a standard job title.
MANDO RAYO: No.
LIMBONG: How do you define that? And when did you decide to turn your love of tacos into a career?
RAYO: It was all about representation, to be honest. It was about, you know, when we talk about food, we have to talk about people, and we have to talk about the community. And we have to talk about the history and the roots of that food, right? And for me, that's what taco journalism is about. It's not just like, hey, let me go try these new trendy tacos. But let me go into the cocinas. Let me go into, you know, the backyards of people actually making the food and find out kind of, like, what is that story behind that?
And some of that, you know, explores issues that are important to people - around gentrification, around vendor rights, around the political climate we're in. These are just conversations with regular folks...
LIMBONG: Yeah.
RAYO: ...Whether they're cocineras - you know, the women that run kitchens and restaurants - you know, somebody's abuela that really just, you know, has it down on how to make some great corn tortillas.
KEITH: And if any of these excerpts made you hungry for more, you can find the full podcasts on npr.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
