Katz discusses his acclaimed podcast, “Inconceivable Truth,” with fellow journalist Charles Stile. The pod details the startling, and sometimes troubling, revelations of a search for his birth father.
FROM THE PRODUCERS
Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter Matt Katz has been searching for his biological father since he was a little kid. But it wasn't until his 40s that he realized he was on the wrong journey altogether. The true story is wrapped in confusion and secrecy, and in the end it upended the truth about who he is – raising questions about identity, fatherhood, medical ethics and what family really means. But will finding answers make him whole, or just make things even more complicated? “Inconceivable Truth,” named a Best of 2024 Podcast by Audible and Vanity Fair magazine, is available free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
BIOS PROVIDED BY PRESENTERS
Matt Katz is an investigative reporter, journalist and podcast host who has worked in newspapers, magazines, TV and audio for more than two decades, reporting on everything from local school boards to presidential elections to natural disasters. As an on-air reporter and host at WNYC and NPR for 11 years, he won several awards for watchdog reporting, including a 2022 Sidney Award for publishing never-before-seen images of squalid conditions at jails on Rikers Island in New York. For many years he covered former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, first for The Philadelphia Inquirer and then WNYC, winning a Peabody Award for a series of stories about the Bridgegate scandal that rocked Christie's political career. His book, “American Governor: Chris Christie's Bridge to Redemption,” was published by Simon & Schuster in 2016.
He is executive producer of City Cast Philly, a daily news-and-culture podcast and newsletter about Philadelphia. In 2024 he created, wrote, and hosted an autobiographical podcast, "Inconceivable Truth," that hit the Top 10 on the charts on Apple Podcasts, where it has more than 2,000 reviews and 4.8 stars. Vogue magazine named "Inconceivable Truth" one of the best podcasts of 2024. Matt's reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, PBS, The Washington Post, and Politico Magazine. He also works as an adjunct professor teaching journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. Once upon a time, he wrote a nationally syndicated dating column.
Charles Stile, a Princeton resident, is the veteran political columnist at The Bergen Record/USA TodayNetwork, providing readers street-level reporting and distinctive analysis on all areas of New Jersey politics. He has covered every governor since the final six months of Jim Florio’s tumultuous term in 1993. Stile joined The Record’s State House bureau in 2000 and moved up to become bureau chief in 2003. A year later, Stile guided the bureau during the spectacular collapse of Gov. Jim McGreevey’s administration. He was named a full-time columnist in 2007, making him one of a handful of State House-based columnists in the country.
In October 2023, Stile was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in New Jersey Journalism from the Corporation For New Jersey Local Media at the non-profit’s Third Annual Byrne-Kean Dinner, which recognizes “journalistic excellence on the local, regional and statewide levels.” Before coming to The Record, Stile worked at The Times of Trenton as a reporter covering the business community and later as a as a general assignment reporter chronicling Trenton city politics and urban issues. He joined that paper’s State House bureau in 1993. He began his career one week after graduating from Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey) in 1983, as a city hall reporter for the Sentinel-Ledger of Ocean City. Like many of his protégés on the school newspaper, The Signal, Stile was a student of Bob Cole, the legendary journalism professor. Later that year, he joined the Princeton Packet, assigned to the Princeton University beat.
Stile was born in Mineola, N.Y., and is a 1978 graduate of Lower Cape May Regional High School. He lives in Princeton with his wife, the acclaimed storyteller Maria LoBiondo
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