Start Here

Start Here is ABC News's morning news podcast, and it's built around a simple promise: twenty minutes, three big stories, and you'll walk away actually understanding what's going on. Host Brad Mielke has been running the show since it launched in 2018, and he's got a knack for asking the questions a normal person would ask rather than the ones a Beltway reporter assumes everyone already knows. Each episode opens with the day's top story, usually handed off to an ABC correspondent in the field who explains what happened and why it matters. The second and third segments might cover a Supreme Court decision, a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf, or a tech story that's actually worth caring about. Mielke is good at cutting off jargon and asking follow-ups in plain English. The show publishes early enough to catch a morning commute on the East Coast, and episodes rarely run past the twenty-minute mark. It doesn't try to be a deep-dive show or an opinion show, and that restraint is part of why it works. If you want a single daily listen that catches you up without making you feel like you need a political science degree, this is a reliable pick.