🏀 The day the NBA shut down, Disney for adults, In the Dark, coyotes 🌵 Amy Westervelt 🌎
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app and listening life of Boston-based Kali Ridley, brand marketing manager at Google and writer, who runs the media and culture based newsletter, sorry to stare.
App you use: Apple Podcasts (on phone and laptop)
Listening time per week: around 8-12 (usually 45 mins in the morning and evening)
When you listen: I turn a podcast on the moment I woke up to avoid social media scrolling and wake myself up with something "academic" ranging from news (The Daily, Up First, Today, Explained, The Daily Show), politics/economics (Pod Save America, Freakonomics Radio), interesting business/entertainment interviews (Fresh Air, Second Life, Big Questions, Armchair Expert).
Then, later in the day when I'm going on a quarantine "walk" or doing things around the house like cooking, doing my hair, cleaning, etc. I queue up my "entertainment" podcasts. I really love comedy. These vary, but my favorites are Girls Gotta Eat, This is Actually Happening, Still Processing, Okay Now Listen, and Death Sex and Money.
If I have a hard time falling asleep, I try to listen to something I think is calm like The Moth or Modern Love. The podcast, Sleep with Me is super funky but really does knock you out if you try it a few times.
How you discover: I write a newsletter where I send out a lot of my personal recommendations for podcasts, things to read, watch and beyond. So, I look at a lot of newsletters as well, like this one. I love to peruse the Apple Podcast app's "browse" section quite a bit, as always curious about top rated shows and why they are so high ranking. I also think word of mouth is the best way to find great podcasts. I rely on friends' and coworkers' recommendations and also look into the podcasts that people interview on the shows I listen to regularly.
xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Amy Westervelt
Amy Westervelt runs the Critical Frequency podcast network. She also reports and hosts the podcast Drilled, and co-host the podcasts Hot Take and Labor. Follow her on Twitter here, and follow Critical Frequency on Twitter here.
How did you get introduced to the audio space? Have you always loved it, before podcasting?
About 7 years ago now I was driving around listening to NPR and wishing I could do audio. I had been a print reporter for about 13 years by that point, and I thought well I could probably learn how to do audio and I haven't learned anything new in a while. So I contacted my local NPR member station (in Reno, NV) and asked if I could be an over-aged intern for them. They taught me the ropes for a month or two and then hired me as a staff reporter. As a community reporter in Reno, you wind up with a WHOLE LOT of characters and stories that don't make it into your news feature, so my colleague Julia Ritchey and I started a podcast called Range to capture all those lost moments. I loved doing audio, but podcasting made it an obsession.
Fill in the blank: You will like Drilled and Hot Take if you like ______.
Oh wow that's tough because they're so different! I think you will like Drilled if you like conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, and you will like Hot Take if you like dad jokes, f-bombs, and real talk on climate.
Hot Take feels so totally different. Why is there nothing else like it, why aren't these intersectional climate change conversations happening all over the place?
Thank you! We think so too -- I think it has a lot to do with how the conversation around climate has evolved. In the early days it was all scientists raising the alarm and they were largely white men, plus climate emerged as this thing that was separate from the environmental movement, and then the environmental movement evolved totally separately from the environmental justice movement, so you really had these three separate groups of people who largely weren't talking to each other. For the first 20 years or so of the climate movement there was this pervasive notion that you shouldn't scare people by talking too much about the impacts, and that you should stick to hard data and science. It's only really been in the last 5 or so years that those rules have started to relax and that people have increasingly come to see the climate movement as a justice movement. So yeah, I think it's taken a while for people to learn how to talk about climate as something other than just this very scientific, complicated, scary topic.
How has climate podcasting changed over the past few years and...where is it going?
It has changed so much! When I first started Drilled, I initially tried to pitch it to some of the more established podcast companies and they were like "there's just no audience for a climate show," plus I think they didn't see how a climate pod could be narrative. Now, three years later there's an explosion of climate podcasts, all the big companies either have one or are starting one. I'm still not seeing a ton of experimentation in terms of the types of climate shows -- Drilled is still one of only a couple narrative climate pods, for example—but I think that will come.
How has podcasting changed the conversations we are heaving about climate change?
I think it's provided a lot more onramps for a wider variety of people and made the climate conversation more accessible. We hear from a lot of Hot Take listeners, for example, that we've helped them connect the dots between another topic they care about and climate and that the fact that we are not "very serious climate people" helps people feel like they can join the conversation. And then Drilled has actually been the basis for congressional hearings and some proposed policy changes, so climate pods can have an impact on policy conversations too!
Your shows highlight so many fascinating stories...what's one that's stuck with you?
In the second season of Drilled, I followed a group of crab fishermen in California who had decided to sue the top 30 oil companies for their role in delaying climate action. It's an interesting case because it's the first time another industry is suing Big Oil so it's tough for them to make the usual business vs. the environment arguments, plus it's not like fishermen are a bunch of liberal elites. But the story that really stuck with me that season was a woman I spoke with who is a named plaintiff in that suit but still doesn't believe that humans are contributing to climate change. For her, it's about fairness. Whether it's humans or nature causing climate change, oil companies knew it was coming and prepared for it, doing various things to make their business resilient to it while telling everyone else not to worry about it. That was a real aha moment for me because for a really long time the cost of entry to the climate movement has been "believing" in climate science, and people act like that's a really low bar but... climate science is complicated. You know what's not complicated? Fairness. It's like the first story we learn as toddlers -- that person took something from me, why does that person have more than me, he's not playing by the rules, etc. That story really shifted my thinking about how we frame the issue.
Do you think there are any rules all podcasters should adhere to?
I do, and I think we're at a bit of a tipping point on that front. I think we're really in danger of podcasting becoming the next Facebook where disinformation is concerned. Because there are no rules around advertising, you hear stuff in podcast ads that you'd never hear on broadcast. I hear it in oil company greenwashing ads all the time, for example. And then on the content side I really think more podcasters should think about fact-checking. I hear a LOT of bad journalism happening in non-fiction pods and I don't think just because you're not doing a news podcast you should be nonchalant about facts or about where the information is coming from that they share. I heard a host of a very popular podcast recently straight up parrot a talking point from the chemical industry, for example, which is unfortunate because now that information seems credible to that shows millions of listeners. So... yeah, I'm not advocating censorship or anything but I do think podcasters need to be more aware of the power they have to shape people's understanding of the world. And I think as an industry we should come up with some sort of consistent guidelines around advertising. When I asked NPR why their podcasts didn't follow the same ad rules as their broadcast shows, their answer was basically that the laws were different for each. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's ethical, and as an industry we could and should do better.
What shows do you love?
Scene on Radio, Behind the Bastards, Invisibilia, Floodlines.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
🎙️Over vacation, I finally found time to listen to season one of In The Dark, which tells the story of the kidnapping and murder of Jacob Wetterling. I had listened to In The Dark’s series on Curtis Flowers, which is one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever listened to, and this season was equally compelling. (I actually listened to In The Dark backwards, beginning with the series Coronavirus in the Delta.) The reporting is so good it changed the way I think about true crime—I found myself watching and listening to other true crime shows in a more critical way. Madeleine Baran starts sketching out the night of October 22, 1989, and with each episode, that night emerges with more color and vibrance. If you think true crime is not your thing, try either season of In The Dark. It will prove to you that just because a show is true crime doesn’t mean it falls into that lazy, oversaturated true crime category, and can contain superb storytelling and journalism that can change who you are as a person.
💎BTW💎
🎙️On Greetings From Somewhere, Zach Mack traveled to Disney World to try to understand something that is a mystery to him—why people, why adults, love Disney world. I agree with him when he says that with the absence of nostalgia for Disney, it’s hard to love Walt Disney World. Ripping on Disney World is easy to do and lazy, but that is not what Zach he does. Instead he interviews Carlye Wisel of a podcast I love, Very Amusing, who explains something that I believe, that adults who love Disney World are totally normal and healthy, but she goes even further, saying these people are more evolved, that they are more in touch with their creative side. (Listen to a clip here.) I am one of these adults, and I’ve never thought about it this way. I’m committing Carlye’s words to memory and repeating them any time someone gives me side-eye when I tell them I love Disney World. (HELLO NEW YORK POST.)
🎙️American Coyote tells the legend of Elden Kidd, an American dad who, between 1987 and 2001, crossed over 1000 migrants from Mexico into the United States, and it’s packed with some of the most unbelievable stories I’ve ever heard. Elden’s methods for crossing people over are outlandish, risky, hilarious, and stranger than fiction. My dad brought up a good point. (Spoiler alert ahead.) At one point, we hear about how Elden, when he was a raft guide, would pay criminals to rob the people on his tours, so that he could swoop in, rescue the items, and emerge a hero. It’s a disturbing detail that makes you question Elden and his commitment to the truth. So maybe some of these stories are far-fetched, and maybe some of them have become more fable than truth. Either way, I find myself perk up every time I see a new chapter is released.
🎙️I’m really enjoying The Gatekeepers, a podcast from DAMEMagazine and The Electorette that’s asking the question “Who owns public spaces?” They rereleased Perilous Waters, which is about the policing of swimming pools and excellent, I’ve written about it before. Policing Play tells two more disgraceful stories about policing pools, decades apart, that prove how little things have changed since the Civil Rights Movement. My heart broke twice.
🎙️I listened to Double Threat’s Best of 2020, which had a clip from On a Zoom Call with Woody Allen, and it’s worth listening to the whole thing, especially if you thought it curious that Alec Baldwin moved his show Here’s the Thing from WNYC to iHeart. Julie and Tom hilariously rip Baldwin’s interview with Woody Allen to shreds, pointing out why the episode was such a mess, and proving that when two unaware, privileged white men engage in an hour-long circle jerk, anyone who doesn’t have their heads up their asses will probably see the piece for what it is—a self-serving, artificial, parody of a celebrity interview. I loled so hard.
🎙️30 For 30 has a solid piece on the day the NBA was suspended and the country acknowledged the real danger of coronavirus. In March 11, 2020, you are welcomed to the day Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tests positive for coronavirus, hearing from local and National reporters about what they experienced, perfectly recapturing what that day was like. This episode feels alive and it belongs in a 2020 time capsule.
🎙️Paradise investigates the murders of Peta Frampton and Chris Farmer, who were brutally murdered in Guatemala in 1978 on a ship captained by a man named Silas Duane Boston. It took 38 years to arrest him for the crime. The most chilling part of the series is hearing an interview with one of Boston’s sons, who was on the ship and forced by his dad to be an accomplice in the murders. He’s trying to piece together the story just like the rest of the world—the journalists who have been dedicated to the case, Boston’s family, and the family of Peta and Chris.
🎙️On What Things Are What Things, Zach Pugh invites funny people to play a game show that imagines what things (like boy bands) are what things (like cheese) for a score. It’s completely ridiculous but always funny, and some of my favorite comedians have made appearances. (I started with Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus’ episode, What Difficult Directors Are What Retail Stores.)
🎙️My only complaint about I’m Not a Monster is that the six whole days it takes between episode releases kills me. This is a show I want to binge. It tells the story of Sam Sally, an American woman who was tricked by her husband into going to Syria with her young children, ended up trapped in Syria, and was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for supporting ISIS and financing terrorism. So I know what happens, I know where the dots are, but I’m hungry for every detail I get along the way as host Josh Baker connects them. Through Josh’s rigorous reporting and storytelling, and his conversations with Sam, the story pulls into sharp focus and you are able to make your own conclusions about the story Sam is telling.
🎙️Ear Hustle’s The Bells is an homage to San Quentin inmates who were infected with and died from Covid, and it’s worthy of your time. You hear from the families who lost someone, and short dedications to many of the people who died and might otherwise not be remembered. One interview is with a man who was released early, to a hotel to quarantine. But he was terrified, after being in prison for so long, to live in freedom, by himself. There have been a lot of pieces dedicated to Covid in prison systems, and this episode is an important piece of the puzzle.
🎙️The other day, my dad randomly mentioned Blake Griffin, which reminded me of my favorite episode of The Champs, a now defunct podcast hosted by Moshe Kasher and Neal Brennan that interviews almost exclusively Black comedians, athletes, and musicians. There is a moment from Blake’s interview that still makes me laugh when I think of it. (You can listen to that moment here.) It reminded me how funny this show was. DJ Dougpound drops ridiculous beats throughout, Moshe and Neal get totally off track and ask the most ridiculous questions that nobody else would ask, and they each insert their own specific style of humor, which comes together to produce some of the funniest comedy interviews I’ve ever heard.
🎙️Family Ghosts is back for season three and I re-listened to a few of my favorite old episodes—a series about The Love Family, a Seattle cult led by Paul Erdmann, who renamed himself Love Israel. The Love Family obviously exploited its members, and in the final episode of the series, Sam Dingman talks to the daughter of one of the cult’s members. The mother was Schizophrenic and her daughter is left wondering if she joined the cult because of her mental illness or if it was the other way around.
🎙️I was surprised to see how warmly the film Happiest Season was received. So much of it bothered me and I couldn’t find anyone in writing, or on Twitter or Podcasts, who was looking at it critically. On The Bechdel Cast, Caitlin Durante, Jamie Loftus, and Jes Tom did such a job putting to words what I felt like the movie got wrong. Jes points out that as a gay woman, she had been looking forward to a happy holiday rom com, but was treated to “1 hr 40 minutes of abject emotional suffering.” (She tweets: “are lesbians ok??? when do we learn it's not romantic to endure sheer misery at all times.”)
🎙️Unshaming is a podcast that tells stories of people who have felt shame, to try to figure out where that shame comes from, and how being honest about shame can help alleviate it. The stories are each well done, but I think this is one show that is greater than the sum of its parts—listening to them all together, it becomes obvious that people have all sorts of shame that might make zero sense to anyone else. Some of these stories are rooted in something timeless and universal, like having shame for living in poverty. Some seem to be a reflection of our time—a woman who opens up about her eating disorder to talk about how the pressure of looking good on social media expedited her abusive relationship with her body. One woman talks about the shame some people have about not having shame for getting an abortion. The different kinds of shame seemed both deeply unrelatable yet relatable. Unshaming is a reflection of the human condition.
🎙️I love the story of Freddie Mercury, and I especially love listening to Guy Branum talk about Freddie Mercury on podcasts. (It has happened a lot.) But the story of Mary Austin and Farrokh Bulsara, as told in an episode of About a Girl, is even more interesting. It’s an unusual love story. Mary seemed to prioritize loving Freddie (Farrokh) in any way he would allow her. When he told her he was bi, she told him, “I think you’re gay.” This entire show is about the amazing women who were behind, and inspired, some of the biggest male musicians of our time (with scripted narrative.) But in the story of Mary and Freddy, you truly sense that Freddy needed Mary and her love, that nobody else could have filled the position.
🎙️Last Day has an episode that illustrates how difficult it is to help someone struggling with mental illness. Jenny was six months pregnant when her husband started saying there were people following him, and in the house. (But there wasn’t.) She took him to the hospital, but because his problems weren’t physical, he was sent home. There weren’t enough hospital beds. The repercussions were devastating. Jenny’s husband’s suicide right after her daughter was born ripped her apart, and a look at how we deal with mental health makes clear that something preventative could have been done.
🎙️I discovered Modern West because they started following me on Twitter—thank you, social media manager! Modern West mines for diverse perspectives from people shaping the present and future of the west. To me, the west seems like a wild place, and listening to these episodes, I realize it really is. But the personal stories illustrate what it’s really like there. Stories of ghost towns, a small-town drag queen, and bringing home the buffalo all do a great job of making the west feel less nebulous and more alive.
🎙️BirdNote’s Threatened brings you to remote places in North America to explore the sounds and songs of birds. But it’s not just about the birds, it’s about the people and places they are entwined with. My favorite episode was A Riot of Nesting Seabirds, which opens with a 16-year-old clinging to the side of a cliff in the Pribilof Islands as she hunts for murre eggs, a tradition she’s learning from her grandmother, and a tradition that dates back more than two centuries.
🎙️I love you!