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B.S.ing with Josie Duffy Rice

Josie Duffy Rice, Harvard law school graduate, journalist, writer, and podcast host, is the granddaughter of civil rights activist, Josie Robinson Johnson from whom she inherited her passion for social justice and reform of the criminal justice system. In her conversation with Merle Vaughn, she shares why storytelling is important and how her most recent podcast, Unreformed: The story of Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, exposes how the U.S. criminal legal system is failing us.


Josie Duffy Rice
is a journalist, writer, law school graduate, and podcast host whose work is primarily focused on prosecutors, prisons, and other criminal justice issues.

She is the host of the podcast Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, released in January 2023, which she also co-wrote. In addition, she co-hosts What a Day, Crooked Media’s daily news podcast, two days a week. She is also the creator and co-host of the podcast Justice in America. Until May 2021, she was President of The Appeal, a news publication that publishes original journalism about the criminal justice system.

Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, among others. She was a writer on the FX show The Premise. Josie was also a consulting producer for Campside Media’s #1 podcast Suspect.

Josie has appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, All In with Chris Hayes, and others. She’s also been a guest on podcasts such as You’re Wrong About, 5-4, Call Your Girlfriend, The Dig, 92Y, Why Is This Happening?, Citations Needed, and many more. She’s also been a regular guest host of Political Gabfest.

Josie is a graduate of Harvard Law School and received her bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. She is currently a Type Media Fellow, and was previously a 2020 New America Fellow and a Civic Media Fellow at University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab. She is writing a book and lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children. 

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