# This American Life

8 Hacker News commenters recommended This American Life and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for well-reported episodes on journalism, immigration and science, and for Ira Glass's narration. Critics say its framing shows a clear agenda toward one side.

## Why people recommend it

- Standout episodes on varied topics (3 comments): "There is an excellent "This American Life" episode on rats." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48790827)) "Check out this podcast on the purge of immigration judges" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45813184)) "did a good narration of this in Act 2 of episode 803" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690442))
- Excellent narration and delivery (2 comments): "did a good narration of this in Act 2 of episode 803" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690442)) "hard to beat Ira's delivery" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49887393))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Dwarkesh Podcast](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dwarkesh-podcast.md): 29 recommend
- [Oxide and Friends](https://hackerapproved.com/p/oxide-and-friends-podcast.md): 26 recommend
- [Acquired podcast](https://hackerapproved.com/p/acquired-podcast.md): 25 recommend
- [Behind the Bastards podcast](https://hackerapproved.com/p/behind-the-bastards-podcast.md): 18 recommend
- [Mindscape podcast by Sean Carroll](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mindscape-podcast.md): 18 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "This American Life", https://hackerapproved.com/p/this-american-life/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).