The Good Government Show is a great podcast with the goal of sharing positive stories about how local governments are doing their best to help people, proving that there are publicly elected officials who are trying to make the world a better place starting with their own backyard.
The podcast is co-hosted by David Martin and Carol D’Auria, both experienced journalists who take turns presenting a different topic over eleven episodes. Martin is a founder of Valley Park Productions, a former television producer for PBS in New York, CBS News and WABC-TV, and reporter for the Daily News, the New York Post, and Reuters. D’Auria is an award winning reporter and anchor at 1010 WINS, a New York City News Radio Station covering NYC, New Jersey, and Long Island. Over the years, she has covered infamous crimes, trials, and major tragedies.
Now the two of them have come together to share enjoyable stories that shed light on a variety of projects and initiatives from all across the US; feel good stories about helping veterans, rehabilitating prisoners, revitalizing towns and creating community centers, and even cleaning up man-made waterways. They include interviews with public officials and organizers, so you’re not just hearing about these things from the hosts but from the individuals directly involved as well, which is great. You can really tell they have a background in reporting with the way they investigate each topic and ensure they obtain interviews with the people involved, whether they are the organizers, town or city officials, or even those being directly affected and benefiting from a specific program.
Plus, this show doesn’t care if you’re left or right, blue or red, liberal or conservative, republican or democrat. There is something for everyone to enjoy and feel good about the work being done in those communities.
Season one of the podcast is available now, wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, so go out and search for. I’m just going to list the episodes from the first season, and most of the titles will give you a quick synopsis of the topics that you will be able to enjoy.
Episode One: The Farmingdale Downtown Restoration
Episode Two: Reading Revitalization
Episode Three: A Tiny Piece of Paradise – Homes for the Homeless
Episode Four: Modernizing the Old Bookmobile
Episode Five: A solution over 75 years in the making, putting the Diabled to work
Episode Six: Taking Care of Women Veterans Texas Style
Episode Seven: What’s Old is New Again updating a bowling alley to art center
Episode Eight: Suicide Preventions Six Strings at a time
Episode Nine: A Park where Everyone can Band on the Drum all Day
Episode Ten: A jail that’s not a jail, but a way out of Jail
Episode Eleven: Clear blue water and deep dirty problems, how the Florida Keys are cleaning up their polluted waterways.
I highly recommend listening to this podcast and its stories for yourself, and I look forward to season two!