About Us
The Lemmings Don’t Leap podcast is developed, researched, written, and narrated by Allan Britnell. Allan studied journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University (back when it was called Ryerson Polytechnic). It was there that he first learned about and grew to love the idea of substantive fact-checking. In short, for publications that follow the practice, every single factual detail within a story is verified, ideally by at least two or three different sources, before it is published. This ranges from the spelling of a quoted source’s name and their age and job title, if given, to stats, figures, and even facts shared within a quote.
Early in his career, he did a lot of fact-checking work for various Canadian magazines (Toronto Life, Cottage Life, Homemakers, etc.) While checking a nature article for Cottage Life, he first stumbled upon a 1981 episode of CBC’s Fifth Estate, which exposed how a Disney documentary crew faked the filming of lemmings suicidally leaping off a cliff into the ocean.
Probably from seeing the original Disney documentary, Allan thought he knew for a "fact" that lemmings committed mass suicide when faced with food shortages. But it turns out it simply wasn't true. Which got him wondering what other "facts" he'd be told that were wrong.
That kernel stuck and slowly grew until now, when it finally leaps forth as Lemmings Don’t Leap: A podcast about things you probably know, but are likely wrong about.
Why make the Lemmings Don’t Leap podcast?
Does knowing that lemmings don’t really commit mass suicide change anything in your day-to-day life? Probably not.
Does learning that Christopher Columbus had nothing to do with proving that the Earth was round have an impact? Not really, but it does give you a quick roundup of facts to spew if you ever find yourself trapped in conversation with a Flat Earther.
Will it change anything in your life knowing that Vikings didn’t wear horns on their helmets? Unless you’re planning on making a historically accurate Halloween costume, not likely.
But I firmly believe that facts matter. And in our increasingly digital, social media-obsessed, AI-driven world, it can be hard to sort out truth from fiction. My goal with Lemmings Don’t Leap is to encourage people to think twice about the “facts” they take for granted, and cast a critical lens on the information that they’re bombarded with on a daily basis.
I also hope you enjoy learning these little tidbits of history and culture as much as I do.
Disclaimer
This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes. Every factual element of each episode is cross-checked using credible sources and verified to the best of our ability.
Early in his career, Allan worked as a freelance writer and editor for various magazines and newspapers, primarily in Canada but also in the US and UK. More recently, he's been focussed on marketing and communications.
But, whatever he's been working on, he's been obsessed with factual accuracy. And that's what Lemmings Don't Leap is about: debunking commonly held, but erroneous beliefs.