Before undercover documentaries, frontline immersion reporting, or journalists embedding themselves inside dangerous systems, there was Nellie Bly.

In this episode of pplpod, we follow the astonishing life of the woman who practically invented modern investigative immersion journalism. Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864 Pennsylvania, she began as a young woman furious at the narrow role society expected her to play. After reading a sexist newspaper column claiming women belonged in the home, she fired off a blistering response under the pseudonym “Lonely Orphan Girl.” The editor was so impressed he tracked her down and offered her a job.

What followed barely sounds real.

Bly went undercover inside factories to expose labor abuse. She fled Mexico after criticizing a dictatorship. She convinced doctors and judges she was insane s ...