Tag Archives: podcasting

Podcast interview exemplar: Gaby Dunn interviews Stephanie Beatriz

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Bad with Money with Gaby Dunn is one of my favorite podcasts; I’ve listened to every episode, which I can’t say about any other shows. I followed Dunn’s comedy channel on YouTube before she started her podcast, and the show’s first season draws largely on her and her guests’ experiences with class transition and the showbiz industry in Hollywood. (For the second and third seasons, Dunn — an Emerson alum! — drew on her experience as an investigative reporter to look at wider issues through a social justice lens – like student debt, medical bills, campaign finance laws, our food system, and more.) As a podcaster and an interviewer, Dunn is frank and unfiltered, thoughtful and well-researched but spontaneous. She doesn’t shy away from exploring uncomfortable issues or revealing her own money woes. Also, as a formerly broke millennial, she’s super relatable to her audience.

Bad with Money album art

One of my all-time favorite Bad with Money episodes aired as part of Season 1 in November 2016. In The New American Dream, Dunn interviews actor Stephanie Beatriz, who plays Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn 99, about Beatriz’s own experience with class transition and her immigrant experience (Beatriz immigrated to America from Argentina with her family at the age of 3). The episode was particularly timely due to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has been around more or less constantly and overtly since the run-up to the 2016 election.

I’ve listened to plenty of audio interviews, for podcasts and other media, that were fairly awkward — it was obvious that the host and the guest didn’t have a great rapport. In contrast, I love Dunn’s interview of Beatriz because the two already knew each other before recording the show, which immediately makes the interview engaging and warm. Beatriz talks about growing up as a poor Latina immigrant in a wealthy Texas town and, later, how she made it in Hollywood after years of hard work as an actor. Dunn is great at drawing out these stories, and she knows which questions to ask since she’s also experienced a class transition – from what clothing brands Beatriz coveted as a poor middle schooler to what jobs she did to make ends meet before getting cast as Rosa.

Dunn always does a great job of assuming her listeners are starting from zero in terms of knowledge of whatever subject she’s covering – which is super helpful when it comes to concepts like subprime mortgages. In this interview, Dunn asks questions that walk the listener through Beatriz’s experience of working the regional theater circuit and then the process of making it in Hollywood, as well as the uncomfortable feelings and strange situations that come from suddenly going from being broke to actually having quite a bit of money — like Beatriz’s guilt over buying a nice piece of furniture for her new apartment, even though she could afford it. In this case, the match between interviewer and interviewee is flawless, and allows Beatriz to share her life experiences clearly and candidly.

Like most podcasts, you can find Bad With Money on iTunes (check it out here), Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts (I prefer Overcast); it’s well worth a listen. Enjoy!

Favorite Interview Based Podcast

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My favorite interview-based-podcast is called Chicks in the Office. It’s sponsored by Barstool sports and consists of two girls in their twenties talking about pop culture and occasionally having special guests/ interviews with celebrities.

This episode has an interview with Constance Zimmer who was on Entourage and House of Cards. What I like about this interview is it does not feel like an interview. It feels more like a couple of friends talking about current events and their lives. The hosts did do their homework and knew what they were talking about when asking Constance about the shows she’s on and has been on. Someone who has never heard of this goes would be able to understand and appreciate the conversation because they don’t just talk about Constance’s career and the shows she has done. They also talk about culture that is happening now and music, tv shows, and movies. This is the kind of podcast that is not really educational, more of just conversational and pop culture driven, so there aren’t any opinions or stances to agree or disagree with. I was pretty happy with the questions the interviewers asked Constance, because I personally have not watched the main tv shows she has been in, Im not a huge fan of her work, so all the information I learned about her was new and interesting.

Check out the podcast here:

https://www.barstoolsports.com/newyork/mamma-mia-ft-constance-zimmer

Interview with a Flat-Earther: What I Learned from Ross, Carrie, and Mark Sargent

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How do you interview someone you disagree with? I don’t mean civil disagreement here; I mean someone whose views you find actively harmful and repulsive. How can you give them the space to speak their mind and represent themselves without tacitly endorsing their awful stance?

Fortunately, that’s not a problem I anticipate running into myself. I’m fortunate because that’s a brutally difficult line to walk — the line between respect and endorsement. If I ever do need to give it a try, though, I’ll remember when Ross and Carrie interviewed Mark Sargent.

Oh, No, Ross and Carrie! album art

Oh, No, Ross and Carrie! is a podcast about scepticism. It’s about meeting claims of the paranormal with an open mind and evaluating their claims for what they are (usually, pseudoscientific or false in some key manner). The hosts use common sense and an educated layman’s understanding of science to take them through their various encounters with groups making “extraordinary claims.” Reason is their lodestar.

Mark Sargent thinks Earth is flat.

He also turns out, over the course of the interview, to be painfully arrogant and rather misogynistic. He doesn’t have much respect for the interviewers, especially Carrie, whose questions he tends to blow off (in one particularly cringeworthy moment, he “corrects” her pronunciation of “Foucault pendulum,” saying it’s “Foh-cult”). But Ross and Carrie never contradict him. They give him all the space he wants to talk and expound on his ideas. Which he does for a long time. They never outright say he’s wrong, even when he transparently is (note when he says he never published anything saying that round-earthers are “hiding God,” and then immediately says he believes that and cites a video where he says that). They’re remarkably good about giving him space to outline his actual views without being deceptive.

At the same time, it’s clear that they don’t buy Mark’s theory for a second. They put the interview in context of a five-part series on the Flat Earth movement, the first four parts of which allow them to voice their own views. Then they asked sceptical questions during the interview… and then allowed Sargent to answer, giving him space to talk and not trying to jump in with “gotchas.”

The interview is fascinating listening, albeit very cringeworthy. It’s very long, clocking in at an hour and thirty-five minutes, but it’s strangely compelling all the way through. I doubt I’ll ever have to interview a Mark Sargent, but there are some things I learned from this interview I’ll be happy to take with me into my own interviewing in the future. The interview is ultimately about the interviewee; it’s their chance to speak their mind and be heard. The job of the interviewer is to fairly represent what the interviewee says. Tempting as it may be to impose their own views on the dialogue, an interviewer shouldn’t try to make an interview into what they want to hear. They can say their piece outside of the interview. Being that respectful to one’s guest makes for ethical interviewing good podcasting. It’s a lesson I’ll take to heart moving forward.

You can listen to the interview here.

Strange Fruit’s Nuanced Take On the Political/Pop Culture Podcast

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Whenever looking for new podcasts, the first thing that always stands out to me is a series that fills a vital societal need or shines the spotlight on a perspective oft-ignored by hegemony. This was most certainly the case for the weekly news/interview show Strange Fruit. Produced by 89.3 WFPL News Louisville and hosted by NPR, Strange Fruit “examines black gay life through the voices and stories of those of us who live it….and live it well!” The series, hosted by Jaison Gardner and Dr. Kaila Story, often spends each of its approximately 30-minute-long episodes focusing on a single subject within the realm of politics and pop culture, with the pair interviewing guests who have written on the topic or, in some cases, the creators of the work they are discussing.

For the purposes of this assignment, I listened to two episodes whose titles caught my attention most, each one taking a different approaches towards the podcast’s overarching goals. One of the most recent episodes finds Gardner and Story replaying interviews they conducted with musician/actress Janelle Monae and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney from weeks or years past shortly following the film Moonlight’s Best Picture victory at the Oscars. The film itself fits right into the focus of the podcast, but where this episode stood out to me was in how it exploded my expectations of what these discussions would be about, covering everything from afrofuturism to the power of theater. Both of the guests in this episode provided some very insightful commentary about the ideologies and art that mattered to them, creating a multifaceted reflection on blackness that stems directly from these interviewees’ passions.

https://soundcloud.com/strangefruitpod/sf187

The second episode I listened to was more of a traditional roundtable dialogue between Gardner, Story, and Dr. Brittney Cooper as they dissect their complicated and evolving reactions to Adele’s win for Album of the Year at the Grammys and her speech directed at Beyonce where she made reference to “my black friends.” This discussion, in particular, really struck me for how nuanced and analytical the conversation got, with each participant in this talk grappling with their visceral and reflective thoughts on the matter, along with their criticisms directed at the awards ceremony’s recurring tendency to have black musicians perform but fail to adequately award black talent. This would be a lot for any podcast to cover in under 30 minutes, but it’s a testament to the hosts and their guest that all three of them manage to deftly cover all this ground seamlessly. I’m already greatly looking forward to delving into the Strange Fruit backlog even further and listening to these hosts discuss so many more subjects.

https://soundcloud.com/strangefruitpod/strange-fruit-184-beyonce-the-grammys-and-adeles-black-friends

Late to the Party as Usual

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Considering the requirements of this assignment, I’ve had the extremely good fortune of never listening to or looking up Welcome to Night Vale before, despite knowing several fans who have loved it for years, and also despite finding the album art very attractive.

These shades of purple fall within a range I call “Jerri Purple” because I like them so much and everyone knows it

I listened to a handful of episodes for this post, and I definitely get the hype. This podcast is a ton of fun, and made me laugh a lot while also creeping me out and breaking my heart, which is pretty much exactly what I want out of my media. I’m immediately a bit obsessed, and really excited to finally get into this fandom.

I enjoy the surrealism and absurdity of the story, the editing and delivery, and although the background music kind of annoyed me at first, that has also grown on me. Far and away, though, my favorite thing about the podcast so far is the narrator’s infatuation with Carlos. It’s such an adorable, baffling, and frustrating part of the Night Vale world, and feels like an unfortunately on-the-nose commentary for how people observe (or don’t observe) the dangers and/or circumstances of the world around them. I see it as pretty clearly missing the forest for the trees, and how often do we ignore problematic behavior or information because the source is pretty?

The narrator’s noble but bizarrely naive efforts to report accurate and honest news has also struck a chord with me, because despite his dedicated and diligent work, he’s still operating under so much misinformation and with such a peculiar understanding of what’s happening around him. I haven’t gotten very far in the podcast yet, so I’m sure there’s plenty of development and opportunity for his unique sort of innocence to either lend itself to his work effectively or disappear, but his position is probably where I most feel the aforementioned heartbreak. Anything that ends up feeling like a potential exercise in futility from someone with such passion really makes me feel a lot because I root for those people in particularly really hard.

Hopefully the timing of getting into this podcast won’t be too devastating as I try to get caught caught up on it while also trying to get all my other work done 😉

Couric’s Podcast Continues Long Line of Journalism

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As a huge fan of Katie Couric and her journalistic work, I was happy to discover that she has her own podcast where she explores the lighter side of her journalistic personality. The podcast takes a more casual look at the interview medium, and Couric definitely shows more of her own personality through these podcasts than her more straight-forward journalism interviews.

I found the episodes I listened to very engaging and funny. I didn’t realize how much I was learning throughout the interview because of Couric’s own ease with the process. Her honesty throughout the show, about her experiences as a female reporter, a mother, a woman, are inspiring, and her guests are equally engaging. Couric has a way of making topics that might be difficult or boring intensely interesting through her choice of interviewees.

One particular brightspot was Couric’s interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfus from last year where they both discuss the show Veep and the impact it has had on the 2016 election. They also talk about the optimism they both have concerning Hillary Clinton. Couric’s interview with Louis-Dreyfus is light and funny, but not the entire podcast. She then speaks with journalist and writer Rebecca Traister to gain a different perspective on the election and the rise of Hillary Clinton. They both frankly discuss sexism in their field and the way the press has carefully constructed Clinton throughout her time in the spotlight. Both women weren’t afraid to be critical, but they were also very casual in their conversation.

Beekeeping with Beehive Jive

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Typically, I listen to podcasts that deal with international news, economics, and politics. I mainly stick to content provided by news agencies like CNN, NPR, and BBC because I admire their investigative journalism and trust the information that they are providing. When I was presented with the opportunity to listen to something new I decided to look for a completely different subject matter and ended up finding the Beehive Jive podcast, a podcast for beekeepers. Although I’m not a beekeeper (and don’t plan on becoming one) I decided to give their podcast a try; mainly because I was curious as to how much content a person could possibly produce about what seems like a pretty straightforward hobby/activity. It turns out that Tracey and Paul have a lot to say about beekeeping.

The podcast has only been running since January of this year and has a grand total of three episodes. Tracey and Paul, the show’s hosts, describe themselves as “beekeeping friends” and share their experiences as South London honey bee keepers. Their latest episode is focused on “helping your bees spring into spring” and is over an hour and twenty minutes long. Clearly there is a lot to be said about beekeeping, but I can’t imagine anyone (even the bee-gest enthusiast) listening through the whole thing. In comparison, their other two episodes are around an hour long each, which I still think is way too long. Over all, the sound quality is good and their voices and conversation are quite pleasant to listen to. I think they would greatly benefit from shortening their episodes and publishing content more frequently.

Even though I’m no beekeeper, listening to Beehive Jive was pretty sweet!

Beehive Jive Podcast Art Cover

An Interview with Cayla Ames!

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Take a look at the sneak peak of Cayla Ames’s new podcast!

What is your podcast about?
My podcast is about reviewing Christian fiction. I have found that good Christian fiction is hard to come by, and having a podcast dedicated to reviewing the latest release, or whatever title I had just finished, will help readers become more informed about what Christian fiction titles are out there.

What format will it take?
The format will always be just me.

Why did you choose this topic?
I chose this topic because Christian fiction is my favorite genre to read, and I want to spread the word about what makes these books unique. Christian fiction is a genre that is often overlooked, but there are some gems that make it a worthwhile experience.

Who do you think your audience will be, and who do you wish you could get? (Who do you think would like your podcast, but may have a hard time finding it)
I think my audience would be primarily similar readers of Christian fiction, or those who are looking for an author that is similar to one they already like. For example, those who like Stephen King may also like the Christian equivalent Ted Dekker. I hope by posting about new releases and positive commentary about different authors, listeners will check out the author and book and ultimately consider diving into the genre of Christian fiction more.

What book would you most recommend for people who don’t normally read in the genre and why?
I would start with authors that are similar in style to secular authors. For romance, I would suggest Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. It’s an emotional story about unconditional love. For fans of Stephen King, like mentioned earlier, I would recommend Ted Dekker’s Thr3e. It is a smart thriller that deals with the theme of good vs. evil.

If you could get a guest on the podcast, who would you most want to get?
Probably one of my favorite Christian fiction writers, Susan May Warren. Her books blend together a compelling plot, faith, and romance that make her a well-known author in the Christian fiction market. I would like to interview her and discover her writing techniques, favorite books, and the like!

Three Overwhelmingly Positive Podcast Reviews

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Tv Movie Mistress Is the Queen of Entertainment

How many entertainment podcasts exist? A lot, probably. How many of those review and/or recap TV shows, movies, albums, and so forth? Again, a lot. Too many to count, I’m sure. Well, out of that sea of podcasts, one in particular stands out for a couple of reasons. One, they review/recap one of the hottest show currently airing on the CW channel, The 100. And two, they are a duo of opinionated, hilarious ladies who open-mindedly discuss two of The 100’s most impactful, socially relevant themes: politics and LGBT representation.

Any fan of The 100 will list all the reasons why everybody needs to watch the show. Anyone who somewhat follows the story will say something about why people should at least check it out. Tv Movie Mistress goes above and beyond hyping up and recommending the show. They provide listeners with detailed recaps of each episode and discussions about plot, character development, direction, writing, scenery, acting, and pretty much anything else potentially relevant to the story. What’s more, they take the time to express their opinions, analyze hidden meanings and double entendres, and really dig into any insight this fictional sci-fi Young Adult television show has to offer about our society. It’s not all serious business with these ladies, however. Yes, they do their best to educate listeners and encourage critical thinking into social commentary. But they also entertain. Their easy humor flows effortlessly throughout their conversation; one of the highlights of listening to this podcast is being privy to their hilarious banter. And their “fangirling” over the actors. When is that not funny?

And here’s the best part: their podcasts are all over one hour. Sometimes, they are over two hours. Tv Movie Mistress is not stingy when it comes to content. And most of it is genuinely interesting, thought-provoking, content that will keep listeners engaged all the way through. If anything, the negative side-effect of listening to Tv Movie Mistress podcast is getting so into it that there won’t be time for anything else. Besides watching The 100, of course.

Tv Movie Mistress Podcast Review

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Tweet Review

.@TvMovieMistress latest recap of #the100 is an epic 3-HOUR-LONG podcast that will make you think, reflect, and laugh so hard you’ll cry

Three Styles: The Boundless Show Podcast Review

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  1. Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review):

The Boundless Show

The Boundless Show is a weekly podcast put on by Focus on the Family dedicated to single, Christian young adults. Hosted by Lisa Anderson, the podcast provides a community for Christian singles as topics are discussed such as career, dating, singleness, music, friendships, and more. Through roundtable discussion, one-on-one interviews, and an advice segment based on a specific listener question or topic, the show is committed to providing insight on how to balance singleness with life’s demands. This podcast brings positive community to a stage that all go through, for some longer than others. The listeners are as young as college age up to late thirties, which provides a slew of diverse perspective views and personalities. Everyone on the show, including the host, comes from a Christian background, so bringing faith into the conversation adds a unique position to the podcast. On a recent podcast entitled “No Worries: Episode 416,” a guest on the show explained how not having a significant other makes her rely more on God for her provisions and day-to-day situations, which may not have occurred if she was married. In addition, as the host, Lisa Anderson herself is single and in her 40s, which brings great perspective for those who are single at any age, because she has been there. Her wisdom, sense of humor, and personable approach allows the show to flourish and become relatable to every listener.

  1. NPR Audio Review:

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  • Tweet:
    The Boundless Show podcast brings insight on faith, singleness, culture and career for Christian young adults.

    • Podcasting Then and Now

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    1. RSS Enclosures

    Podcasting originated in 2000. Tristan Louis, an XML developer, suggested an enclosure to the 0.92 version of RSS. Former MTV VJ and well-known podcaster, Adam Curry, had also been thinking about how to deliver audio and video media to people through broadband around the same time.

    2. Grateful Dead

    Adam Curry pitched his idea of adding audio and video elements to Dave Winer, the developer of RSS 0.92, in October of 2000. After modifying RSS to support enclosures, Winer released a Grateful Dead recording through RSS on January 11, 2001.

    3. Audio Enclosure Audience

    RSS audio enclosures had few users and virtually no audience for the first couple years after its development. Winer began working with Christopher Lyndon, a Boston-based radio show host, and together began creating interviews to distribute via RSS feeds. For a while, Lyndon was the only regular podcaster.

    4. The iPod

    Curry introduced the RSS2iPod AppleScript for pulling mp3s from an RSS feed and loading them to an iPod in October of 2003. Shortly after, the iPod mini debuted in January of 2004 and was hugely successful. The iPod’s success is credited with accelerating the growth and popularity of podcasts.

    5. “Podcasting”

    Earlier referred to as “audio blogging,” the first publishing of the term “podcasting” dates back to an article published in The Guardian in February 2004 by Ben Hammersley. The term is a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcasting.”

    6. Daily Source Code

    On August 13, 2004, Curry began the podcast Daily Source Code. He began with: “Well, good morning everybody, and welcome to the Daily Source Code. Thank you very much for taking the time to download this MP3 file. Some of you may have received it overnight as an enclosure in your aggregator. In that case, thanks for subscribing. So first what I’d like to do is to explain exactly what this is, and what the Daily Source Code is going to be.”

    7. iPodder

    Although not the very first, Daily Source Code is relevant in that it was a test for using an improved Apple Script to pull audio enclosures off RSS and use iTunes to sync it to an iPod. This software became iPodder, which was one of the first “podcatchers” (the term used for software that could automatically deliver RSS files to iPods).

    8. Mainstream Podcasting

    In June of 2005, Apple developed its own “podcatcher” directly in iTunes. It led to the end of iPodder and other podcatchers, but it greatly helped expand the audience for podcasters. Apple itself made podcasting mainstream with the release of iTunes 4.9.

    9. iPod nano

    In September of 2005, Steve Jobs launched the iPod nano to mass success. In just 17 days, the nano had one million sales. It was used widely by podcasters and podcast audiences. “Podcast” was also declared the Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionary in 2005.

    10. Continued Growth

    By November 2006, 12 percent of internet users reported downloading podcasts. This signified a growth of 5 percent in just seven months. With the release of the iPhone in 2007, that number grew to 19 percent.

    11. The future of Podcasting

    Today, accessibility to podcasts continues to grow. Many radio shows have converted to having a podcast form available, and many niche programs have developed and been successfully distributed. Many apps have been developed to easily stream content to mobile devices and large companies, such as Pandora, are looking into podcast distribution. With the increasing technology and distribution methods, the popularity of podcasts is likely to continue to grow.