Pick of the podcasts: The Thing About Pam, Conversations With People Who Hate Me, Rumble with Michael Moore

Dateline is a television show that’s familiar to most American viewers – you could think of it as a US version of Panorama, except it’s obsessed with true crime.

For 30 years it has dominated the airwaves across the Atlantic when it comes to telly-based whodunit investigations, and now it’s dipping its toe into the world of podcasts.

It’s launched a Dateline podcast, each episode looking at a different case – but recently has been launching dedicated series.

Start, if you’re interested, with The Thing About Pam.

Gravel-voiced presenter Keith Morrison takes us through the intrigue surrounding the murder of Betsy Faria in Troy, Missouri.

Betsy’s husband Russ was charged with her murder but her friend Pam Hupp – the Pam from the title of the show, pictured above – is a name that comes up a lot in the series.

Pam benefited from a life insurance policy taken out on Betsy’s life – a cash windfall to the tune of £120,000 or so.

It was a lump sum Pam Hupp refused to share with Betsy’s family.

The strangeness only continues from there, and what follows is a startling tale of greed and underhandedness.

The story will keep you guessing and, thankfully, unlike a lot of podcast series, has a satisfying conclusion.

“The funny thing about making Dateline,” says presenter Morrison, “is that a lot of times the murderer is pretty obvious.”

With The Thing About Pam, things aren’t quite so clear.

The Thing About Pam (Apple Podcasts, Spotify)

Conversations With People Who Hate Me (Apple Podcasts)

Social media, especially Twitter, is a bit of a bear pit where people on opposing sides of arguments have epic battles over very important, and not so important, topics. Those opponents are brought together here to see if they can work it out…

Rumble With Michael Moore (Stitcher)

Can you believe that it is 18 years since the ­documentary Bowling For Columbine was released? Filmmaker Michael Moore’s podcast has a similar tone to his Oscar-winning polemic about gun culture in the US. Here he offers his subversive take on the issues of the day and talks to a wide range of people, from comedians to politicians.