About Darknet Diaries

Darknet Diaries is a documentary type of podcast that cover stories about cybercrime and computer hacking. It currently gets over 300,000 downloads per episode and has won numerous awards and been written up in many news outlets.

Mission Statement

Darknet Diaries produces audio stories specifically intended to capture, preserve, and explain the culture around hacking and cyber security in order to educate and entertain both technical and non-technical audiences.

We adhere to journalistic standards by fact checking and ethical sourcing of information. We adopt principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability.

The total service should be trustworthy, enhance intellectual development, expand knowledge, deepen aural enjoyment, increase the awareness of living in a highly technical society, and result in a service to listeners which makes them more responsive, informed citizens of their digital lives.

Open Positions

Episode Producer

Posted 8/31/2021 - Post will be deleted when position is filled.

Darknet Diaries needs a person to produce episodes for the podcast. Duties include:

  • Adhere to journalistic standards and our mission statement (see above).
  • Researching story.
  • Preparing questions for interview.
  • Optionally: Being present for the interview.
  • Becoming familiar with interview tape.
  • Cutting the tape to save the clips which will be used in the episode.
  • Sourcing additional bits of audio such as press conference audio or news clips.
  • Writing the narration for the host to narrate the episode.
  • Once narration is complete, assembling the episode with the narration and tape clips.

Jack Rhysider typically does the narration for the show, but it’s possible for the producer to do the narration in the future if it’s a good fit for the show.

Once the episode is assembled it will then be sent to one of our sound designers for completion.

Qualified candidates will have the following:

  • 2+ years experience creating narrated audio stories.
  • A strong understanding of technology (most episodes are tech related).
  • Good research abilities (such as combing through court cases or fact checking some of the pieces of the story).
  • Be a great storyteller.

This is a freelance position, which means the producer will work on one story at a time and be paid per episode.

Position starts at $1,500 per episode and can go up with skill level. Typically we like to start here and see how the first episode goes and adjust from there. Episodes are usually an hour long.

If interested, send resume and samples of audio stories produced to: jack@darknetdiaries.com. It may take a few weeks to receive a response but each email will be considered.

Writer

Posted 8/31/2021 - Post will be deleted when position is filled.

We are seeking a writer to help with the Darknet Diaries podcast and YouTube channel.

Some episodes of Darknet Diaries do not contain any interviews with guests and are written entirely from articles and court documents. We then take the written story and turn it into a podcast episode. Here is an example of a podcast episode which was entirely narrated from a written story. EP 86: The LinkedIn Incident (Transcript).

We have also been producing some YouTube videos which require research and writing to create. This is likely what you’ll start with since it’s shorter form and easier to begin with. Here is an example of some of the video content we are looking to create more of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_lPgHbondk.

The writer for this position should be able to:

  • Research stories extensively. This includes reading articles, court documents, technical writeups, and news stories.
  • Be able to produce sources to include with the story.
  • Adhere to journalistic standards and our mission statement (see above).
  • Be able to write technical stories which typically include hacking and cybercrime elements.
  • Be able to write for the ear, with a more casual tone. Writing for the ear means using shorter sentences, not cramming too many numbers or names into a story which is hard to keep track of, and to remind the listener every now and then about details that were mentioned earlier. This is far different than writing news articles.
  • Be a great storyteller.
  • Be able to write longform stories. A typical episode is 5,000-12,000 words.
  • Have 3+ years writing professionally.

This is a freelance position, which means the writer will be paid on a per piece basis.

Position starts at $0.30 per word and can go up with skill level. Typically we like to start here and see how the first story goes and adjust from there. Stories are usually 5,000-12,000 words.

If interested, send resume and sample of work to: jack@darknetdiaries.com. It may take a few weeks to receive a response but each email will be considered.