❤️Podcast The Newsletter❤️
Bonjour.
My friend Emily Winter recently launched a podcast, Comedians With Ghost Stories (listen now, during spooky season!) and I am excited for her because I love Emily and I love podcasts and it's a very fun show. Shortly after she launched it, she tweeted, "Last week I started a podcast and I WILL NOT STOP apologizing."
We have entered the age where it could be meaningless that someone has a podcast. Of course you do! Join the club! But the tweet haunted me. Why would a creator, a comedian, be ashamed of having a podcast? Are people ashamed of having "just a podcast" and not a book or a TV show or a Broadway show? I think Emily should be proud.
I asked my Bello Collective friends if they agreed, that people should stop apologizing for having a podcast, so long as they are creating quality content. A few of them read the tweet differently than I did, thinking she meant that as a woman, Emily felt the need to apologize for taking up space with her voice, something even more complicated. Women feel the need to apologize more than men for telling their stories.
When I asked Emily about this, she said she wasn't really apologizing but was being self-deprecating for joining the zillions of others who have started a podcast. And Emily is a comedian. I shouldn't have taken her tweet so seriously!
Whether or not Emily was joking or not, I do feel strongly that anyone creating a podcast, especially a woman who is creating a good show, should not apologize. I want to thank Emily for bringing me something wonderful (and for free.)
It's one reason I have a hard time criticizing other shows that I don't like. I appreciate that someone has dedicated themselves to figuring out the tech, telling me a story, and entering the exciting world of podcasting. I always ask people, "are there too many podcasts?" I don't think there are. There are a lot! But I don't think we should put a cap on good shows. I always welcome more voices, more perspectives, more creative projects. (Similarly, I have always hated being critical about books like THE DAVINCI CODE, because these books get more people reading who otherwise wouldn't do so. And I want more people to read books. Any books.)
So whether or not Emily was joking or not, this sentiment does exist, and I want it to change. I won't roll my eyes when I hear someone has a podcast. My first question is always, "what's your podcast? Tell me about why you're making it! I can't wait to listen."
xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Reset's Arielle Duhaime-Ross
Arielle Duhaime-Ross is the host of Vox’s Reset. Follow her on Twitter here.
You are such a new host! Congratulations. Do you feel like you are at the point already where you have been able to define yourself as a host, or do you think that’s something that takes time?
Thanks! And good question!
What’s so exciting about Reset is that although we’ll explore big topics, like artificial intelligence, the ethics of biohacking, and racial bias in facial recognition, the podcast format lets me have a bit more fun and really infuse my personality into the discussion. I think people saw one side of me in my work at my old gig, at VICE News Tonight on HBO. I was able to lead difficult conversations there, and ask tough questions of people like President Trump’s science advisor. But with Reset — and within the podcast format — I can introduce and explore my own experiences and opinions, which hasn’t always been possible for me in other formats.
How do you respond to men who are hostile to you when they find out you are a badass woman in science?
I don’t really consider myself a woman “in science” anymore. I stopped being a scientist years ago, when I completed my bachelor’s degree in zoology. But as a woman who covers science for a living, I’ve definitely gotten some pretty condescending and/or violent comments sent my way. I’ve grown a pretty thick skin over the years, and these days I rarely engage; I block Twitter accounts pretty liberally. But that doesn’t solve the problem, which is a lot bigger than one science journalist getting harassed by men who think they know better. That’s part of the reason why I am trying to make sure that the folks we interview for Reset are as diverse as possible. I want to elevate voices that don’t always get heard — despite belonging to people who are highly competent and compelling!
What shows do you listen to for research? What shows do you listen to for pleasure?
I don’t really differentiate the shows I listen to for research from the shows I listen to for pleasure. Except for Keep It and Here to Make Friends (yes, I watch the Bachelor), most of the podcasts I listen to are directly related to the subjects I cover. Those include Flash Forward, Gender Reveal, Ologies, The Fifth Column, The Vergecast, Science Vs., Underunderstood, and Today, Explained.
Doing a 3-times-a-week news show is hard and stressful, I’m sure ESPECIALLY if you are handling tough tech and science news. How will you take care of yourself? Do you have any self-care rituals?
I journal! I’ve been journaling for years; I did it all throughout my time at VICE News Tonight. I am no longer in therapy, but if things got more stressful than they currently are, I would absolutely go back. Therapy has been very good to me in the past. I also work out, though that’s been hard recently. I am dealing with a shoulder injury that’s preventing me from powerlifting — my sport of choice — so most of the exercise I get comes from walking my tiny Chihuahua mix, Reggie. She doesn’t walk particularly fast and she definitely doesn’t go long distances, so I’m sort of living the sedentary life at the moment, and that’s ok! I’ll get back in the saddle soon.
I think women are trained to hate their voices, along with so many other things about themselves. What is your relationship to your voice?
I know a lot of women who don’t like hearing themselves. And it’s true: I don’t see that as much with men. My guess is that has a lot to do with how women are socialized and the general policing of women’s voices. I don’t seem to have that problem though. I like my voice. Part of me thinks it’s because I’m queer. I have a really deep appreciation for women’s voices — they’re attractive! But I don’t think that explains it all so I thought about it and here’s the reason I came up with: I attended a feminist all-girls high school in Montreal. It wasn’t perfect, but being there taught me to speak up in class. The teachers regularly encouraged us take on leadership roles, and — this will sound corny — they would often tell us we could change the world. One principal, in particular, would regularly remind us that we “are people.” It’s a weird thing to hear when you’re 13. At the time, all I could think was “No duh.” I thought he was nuts. But once I graduated, I realized that a lot of people consider women to be sub-human. I benefited from hearing otherwise. And I imagine that that experience may also play a role in the relationship I have with my voice.
💎BTW:💎
🎙️Please stop what you are doing and listen to Mija, Lory Martinez's audio drama that tells the heart-felt story of a Colombian-American family’s immigration to the United States across generations. Read more about the project here. I do not have the words to describe why I loved Mija so much. It's powerful storytelling. Each 10-minute episode focuses on one family member, describing in great detail on one tiny moment of the person's life. With a single, bite-sized story, the listener gets to know the family on a very deep level. It's amazing to see what Lory is capable of doing in just ten minutes. The podcast is trilingual, too, offering a channel in English, French and Spanish. The word that comes to my mind is magic. It brought me so much joy.
🎙️Skye Pillsbury (❤️) was in the popular group in middle school, but one night her best friends TPed her home and wrote "fuck you" on her garage door. After that night, they never spoke again. 30 years later, for an episode of Heavyweight, Skye and her 11-year-old son Clark set out to confront the girls, now grown women with children of their own, to find out WHY. It's an excellent story (host Jonathan Goldstein brights so much humor to the piece) but Clark is the star, he's constantly pushing his mom to be more direct and assertive. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Skye to do this. She has a very kind and sweet nature, and I'm sure she would have been fine putting this incident in her past. She recognizes it is strange for these women to be confronted about something they did 30 years ago. So it's a balancing act for Skye, to seem both polite and understanding and direct and strong in the confrontation of one of the women. This story would have been so different had Clark been left out of the story. I love how much he's included—Jonathan treats him like a producer, and Clark also acts as both mediator for Skye and her ex-friend, and a motivator for Skye. The episode has been nominated for best audio documentary by the IDA and it's so deserving of the award. My favorite part was picturing Skye, Clark, and Jonathan jumping into a car in San Francisco (I'm picturing a convertible?) to set out on a podcast adventure. Read Skye's interview with Jonathan about the episode on Bello Collective.
🎙️Today's Invisibilia episode Back When I Was Older is about a couple who become concerned when their son starts saying things like "I used to skateboard back when I was older" and things that make them suspect he was once another person. The kid mentions very specific details about his past life. I listened to this episode twice. The first time, I listened as if the boy was really tapped into another soul's being, reporting things from the life experience of another person. And it was quite spooky to listen to! But kids are smart and manipulative, and I started wondering WHAT IF this kid just wanted to fuck with his parents and knew all the right things to say to so it. So the second time, I listened with that scenario in mind. And that was a HILARIOUS listen. Imagine a little boy fucking with his parents, and the Invisibilia crew taking it so seriously, setting the story to dramatic music. Are you laughing, too? Just me? The episode is short (20 min) so I recommend listening both ways, too.
🎙️I cried multiple times, through the entire first episode of Finding Fred, a new show from iHeartRadio and Fatherly that "digs into the deep and simple language of Mister Rogers to uncover his very adult lessons about how to build a meaningful life." (I cry when the man says the word "crayon"—it's masterful.) The first episode, A Genius of Empathy, talks about the beauty and simplicity of Mister Rogers's message, and his knack for telling children things they are longing and need to hear. When I was a kid, I thought Mister Rogers was boring. He was telling me that he loved me and that I was perfect the way I was. As a kid, I already knew that. The world has since ruined me. I need this message now. Mister Rogers isn't for kids, it's for adults. And that's what this show is all about.
🎙️I was interested to binge Deadly Manners over the weekend, a fictional murder mystery from AMC/Sundance that includes the voices of Kristen Bell, Anna Chlumsky, RuPaul, LeVar Burton, Denis O’Hare and Alisha Boe. (There are so many famous names in the credits, it's mind-blowing.) The story opens in 1955 at the home of a rich family's dinner party during a snowstorm and as guests start getting killed off, a traditional "and then there were none" scenario unfolds. Much care was taken to produce the sound and music. A few times I jumped in my seat to hear a glass crashing in my left ear, and then voices or the sound of a juicy camera flash or a squishy noise, or Nancy's evil laugh in my right. It's a 360-degree experience. There are more than a few twists and turns, and the silly writing made it so much fun to listen to. (There are some great writers on this project, but the story is SO SILLY. I can't wait until the writing on these excellently produced shows is elevated.) I felt like I was taken back to old-timey radio days, but listening to a show with superb quality. This show is a delight, treat yourself to it when you need a break from your regular podcast listening.
🎙️I am a loyal listener of The Ezra Klein Show, but somehow missed the recent episode with Nicole Hannah-Jones on the New York Times's 1916 Project. (What on earth was I doing on September 19th?) Hannah-Jones is an investigative journalist and winner of the MacArthur Genius Grant, and in this conversation with Ezra, talks about the economics of slavery, why it took a civil war to end slavery in America but not elsewhere, what it means to love a country that doesn't love you back, and more subjects explored in 1619, which is a wonderful project. (If you have not yet listened to the two-part episode that, with a single personal story, paints the picture of black land ownership in America, listen now. And prepare to feel gutted and helpless.)
🎙️See Something Say Something's annual jinn episode is here! Every year around this time, tapping into the spooky, Halloween season, Ahmed Ali Akbar highlights the important of jinn, those mischievous beings made of smokeless fire featured in the Qur’an. (They’re important figures in folklore and a common indicator of the religion’s adaption to local culture.) This year, Assistant Professor of History Ali A. Olomi joins the podcast to tell some spooky stories and to help us understand what the jinn really are.
🎙️Are you in need of company during those strange days and lonely nights? Every Monday, Molly Lambert, Tess Lynch and Emily Yoshida, gather in dark rooms for a free jazz blend of pop culture theory, internet fascinations, and venture down a plethora of half-baked conspiracy theory rabbit holes to produce Night Call. It doesn't matter when I listen to Night Call, I feel like it is the night, like I woke up at 3 AM and called my friends Molly, Tess, and Emily to talk about weird zeitgeist topics I have been wondering about on my own. It feels like old-fashioned radio. If you love smart girl talk and conspiracy theories, let Night Call be your guide. On the recent episode, The Last Splash with Karina Longworth (of You Must Remember This), the ladies talk to Karina about the new season of You Must Remember This, which will have a special batch of episodes dedicated to Disney's Song of the South...
🎙️...and it feels like this series was made just for me. It's not something I'm dying to hear! I love Disney almost as much as I love podcasts, maybe more, and it's been very easy for me to forgive Disney for Song of The South. After listening to Karina talk about it, I don't think I can overlook the racism, anymore. I recently read about the origin of Song of the South in Nathalia Holt's The Queens of Animation, and I even think this deep dive didn't go into as much detail as the first episode of YMRT. Episode one of the new season sets the scene for when Song of The South was released. It wasn't like the whole country was on board with the racism. EVEN WHEN WE WERE WAY MORE RACIST, IT WAS NOT OKAY. Karina talks a lot about why the film was locked in the Disney Vault, Walt's McCarthyism, and why the film has become one of the company's dirtiest secrets. I can't wait to listen to more. (Even though it's hard for me to do.)
🎙️And then I tapped into the newest episode of The View From Somewhere, which talks about how the media's response to Michael Brown shaped the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Wesley Lowery reflects on how "objective" outlets failed the country in their reporting. I kept thinking about how different the world would look if people of color were reporting on news as much as white people. How different the world would have looked if people of color had influence on Disney films in the 1940s. How different the world would look if there were more people of color in publishing and in Hollywood. We are not experiencing life as we should because of the (white) people we have elected to tell our stories.
🎙️I was so excited to see Liana Finck on Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! Kate and I recorded with Liana for The Shelf-Care Podcast and I totally fell in love with her. Liana is a talented artist and the author of EXCUSE ME: CARTOONS, COMPLAINTS, AND NOTES TO SELF (she is a cartoonist for The New Yorker and has designed many book covers.) Liana is sweet and interesting and has a beautiful way of talking about anything. The ARIYNBF conversation is great, because Alison Rosen is great, and this wonderful combination of people talking made my heart explode. Alison is a wonderful interviewer and it's a very fun chat.
🎙️I listened to Sick, a new investigative podcast about Dr. Donald Cline, who inseminated his fertility patients with his own sperm. It's gross to listen to, although it's interesting to hear the perspectives the people affected by Cline's crime. The show is fine, it feels like Dr. Death to me. I think it could be saying and doing more.
🎙️Like Public Intellectual. God, I love this show. The latest episode, Impossible Fathers with Nara Milanich, actually dives deep into many of the issues that Sick left out in the first two episodes. (But maybe it will cover these issues later.) What is paternity? How has the idea of paternity changed over the decades? And how does paternity break up family?
🎙️God bless Deborah Francis White. I have long been a regular listener to her wildly entertaining and smart live-show podcast The Guilty Feminist. This week she brought up another podcast I love, and one that she has been a guest on, Elizabeth Day's How to Fail. (I worked at Little, Brown when we published Elizabeth's delicious novel THE PARTY.) On How to Fail, Elizabeth talks to artists about how they failed and why. It's a show that has inspired me to make big moves of my own. But Deborah notes in this episode that it's always the women admitting their failures, while men are the ones who deny that their failures were failures at all. Deborah points out an episode of Elizabeth's show where Elizabeth interviewed James Frey, author of A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. It was an interview that totally aggravated me at the time. James FUCKED UP with his book, which he claimed was a memoir, although he was exposed as a fraud who fabricated the whole thing (Oprah basically told him to fuck off on her show) but refuses to admit that he failed. He sounds like such a jackass on Elizabeth's show, and she was so sweet to him, anyway. Deborah calls it like it is in the way that she always does, with a response that stings, lots of humor, and a hysterical impersonation of James Frey. I am sure Deborah will never read this, but if you see her, tell her thank you, from Lauren Passell. For calling out James Frey and for every single episode of her treasure trove of a show.
🎙️I love how on every podcast that Cameron Esposito appears on, she talks about Jesus's beautiful message. I truly appreciate it. (Hear her talk about that and more on Unhappy Hour with Matt Bellassai.)
🎙️Launching December 3 comes Storybound, a radio theater program presented by Lit Hub and The Podglomerate and hosted by Jude Brewer. With original music composed for each episode, the podcast features the voices of today’s top literary icons reading their essays, poems, and fiction. I'm excited to hear Caitlin Doughty read from Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs (with sound design and music composition from Stephanie Strange) and Lidia Yuknavitch read her short story “Street Walker" (with sound design and music composition from Whiston & Warmack.)
🎙️Edison Research and PodcastOne's study into podcast super listeners found that 44% of people surveyed agree they pay more attention to ads on podcasts than on other forms of media, and 37% said that podcasting was the best way a brand could reach them. 70% of the people surveyed said they considered a product or brand they heard about on a podcast. And when the people surveyed were asked "which types of media have too many ads?" podcasts ranked last. See the full report here.
🎙️You're Wrong About's Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes were featured in Columbia Journalism's Review's "Can a 'nobody' make a popular, financially stable podcast?" "Along with her moral concerns, Marshall sees sponsorship as a slippery slope to losing touch with her active and engaged audience. A sudden boost in attention—through a trick of an algorithm, or a high-profile endorsement—could turn her small, supportive community into a mass of strangers, who may crave new content faster than Marshall and Hobbes are used to producing on a crowd-funded budget."
🎙️Dan Misener found that the social platforms that get the most clicks-to-download conversion rates are, in order, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Would you have guessed that LinkedIn was number one? That was news to me.
🎙️Kathy Griffin's mother has dementia and loves Fox News (because the "characters" wear loud bright colors and they are always yelling) so Kathy went over to her mother's condo and turned on The Rachel Maddow Show without telling her that Rachel Maddow is not a Fox News journalist. Kathy's mom didn't realize this and was basically brain-washed to become more liberal. (I am paraphrasing this story.) Rachel Maddow caught wind of this and sent Kathy's mother a signed photo of herself, autographed, along with the message, "Love it here on Fox News. Thanks for watching." And Kathy's mom said to Kathy, "Rachel Maddow is the most handsome man on Fox News." I don't know why I'm telling you this, I just thought it was a great story. She told it to Margaret Cho on The Margaret Cho. Go listen.
🎙️Sophia Chang was talked to Peter Kafka for Vox's Recode. If you haven't dipped into Sophia's story yet, listen here.
🎙️Another one of my clients, Megan Anderluh, editor of the & Beyond Travel Guides, was on Millennial Minimalists to talk about travel with intention. I thought the hosts did a great job forming Megan's expertise into content that's a great fit for their show.
🎙️I love you!
💎If you binge one thing this week...💎
In 2017, Mindy Fried toured the country with a book she wrote called Caring for Red: A Daughter’s Memoir. The book captures her experience caring for her father in his last year of life, but also presents an ethnographic perspective on living in assisted living. As a sociologist who has taught about aging in society, Mindy was unable to find a book that brought the reader inside assisted living. During her book talks, after she shared her story, she was excited to hear other from other people. She discovered that they were hungry to share their own caregiving stories. They talked about the challenges of being a “parent” to one’s parent, coordinating care with siblings, and making decisions about whether and/or when to put a loved one into an institution. She decided to create The Shape of Care in order to break the isolation of the caregiving experience, and to provide a platform for a “caregiving conversation,” one that hopefully helps people feel less alone.
As a sociologist, Mindy brings her knowledge of theory, skills as a research methodologist (she's done over 1000 interviews over the course of her career,) her content knowledge around issues related to aging, gender, class, and her experience as a social policy person. Though she initially thought the podcast would be interview-based, she decided to go with a nonfiction storytelling format. She interviewed 10 people for the podcast, and have woven the stories together.
When I asked her for comparisons, she pointed to Sick Boy, which tackles the stigma of living with an illness; and Good Grief, with Cheryl Jones, which is an interview-based podcast with people who have experienced grief and loss. But The Shape of Care stands out to me, there is nothing quite like it.
Episode 1 just dropped, and there are 5 more episodes coming, all exploring the world of caregiving, focusing on the perspectives of informal caregivers and paid care workers, creators of innovative programs and care activists who are organizing nationally to mobilize care workers and implement a progressive national care agenda.
Listen here.
Forbes wrote about Tink! Check it out.
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