Defector’s newest podcast arrives next week: Only If You Get Caught is our latest show and it’s all about breaking the rules. The first episode is out October 21.
Over the course of our first season, we will tell the stories of eight cheating scandals, both in and outside of sports. That is the first task of each episode anyway; the more interesting part of the show, the thing that makes it special and makes me feel especially proud of our work, is that each cheating scandal is also a window into something larger. The operating theory of OIYGC is that if you want to answer the questions that really matter about any given competitive framework—Who has power? Where are the lines of tension?—you have to understand why people break the rules, and how.
