Cool Mules
2021 podcast from Canadaland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cool Mules is a podcast by Canadaland about a cocaine-smuggling ring led by Slava Pastuk that operated within Vice Media.
| Cool Mules | |
|---|---|
| |
| Genre | True crime |
| Cast and voices | |
| Hosted by | Kasia Mychajlowycz |
| Publication | |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Original release | 2 March – 29 March 2020 |
| Provider | Canadaland |
| Related | |
| Website | www |
It won a National Magazine Awards Gold Award for best podcast in 2021.
Production
Cool Mules was produced and co-written by Jesse Brown; Kasia Mychajlowycz was the host, reporter and producer, Jonathan Goldsbie did research, Nathan Burley did the music, and Chandra Bulucon did the sound design and mixing.[1][2]
It was released in six parts, the first of which was released on March 2, 2020.[3]
Synopsis
The podcast tells the story of Toronto-based[3] Yaroslav Pastukhov/Slava Pastuk, a Vice Media music editor who goes by the pseudonym of Slava P.[4][5] The story takes placed between 2014 and 2016,[3] in which Slava P recruits younger Vice employees into an international cocaine-smuggling ring.[6]
Themes in the podcast include the gig-economy, worker exploitation, and the line between journalists reporting news and creating news.[4]
Critical reception
In 2021, Cool Mules won a Digital Publishing Awards Gold Award for best podcast (arts & culture) from the National Magazine Awards.[7]
Maxine Betteridge-Moes writing for Smack Media described the podcast as refreshing and fascinating.[4] Lizzy Steiner, writing in CrimeReads writes "host Kasia Mychajlowycz painstaking unpacks a crime that seems custom-built for the millennial generation."[3]
US corporation Storied Media Group bought the rights to the story.[6][8]
See also
- Bad Trips, 2022 by Slava Pastuk about the same subject.