Finding Fred

Fred Rogers of  Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood  fame doesn’t need anyone to vouch for his character, but it’s hard not to obsess over his kindness anyway. A man of profound emotional intelligence who used his PBS TV show as a way to mentor children, Rogers was cerebral, polite, and humble.  Finding Fred  and its host Carvell Wallace seek, most of all, to understand its subject’s unique compassion. The series kicks off with Wallace asking why the “explosion of Mister Rogers nostalgia going around” is happening  right now , even after the show’s 50th anniversary. The series’ success at answering this question is what makes  Finding Fred  the best podcast of the year. Wallace tells the writers and empathy philosophers that he interviews, such as Ashley C. Ford and W. Kamau Bell, how he feels about Rogers and asks them to do the same. The host and his guests channel the goodness of Rogers in every exchange and ask listeners to be better by extension, the way Rogers would have. “Oh my, this is a noisy world,” the TV host once said. Fred Rogers has endured, the podcast wisely argues, because he tried to quiet the roar.