What It Takes to Be an Outstanding Podcast Producer
Be vigilant but judicious.
I made my first podcast in 2005.
At this point it’s almost embarrassing to reveal that back then it was considered revolutionary to take a print story, read it aloud in front of a microphone, then edit it and publish it as an audio file. Still, it was already clear that there was an audience for that content. Although the “print” story was available for anyone to read on the web, there were a whole bunch of people who preferred to experience it as audio. If asked to explain why they chose that format, most would say they didn’t have time to read, but they could listen at the gym, as they did chores, or whatever.
The other striking aspect of this experience was that I got more positive feedback for those very basic podcasts, which took time and concentration but not a ton of thought, than I did for stories I spent days dredging from my very soul. And I hadn’t even written them — just read them out loud! There’s an immediacy to audio that print has to work very hard to replicate.
In the 17 years since, I’ve hosted many other podcasts — mostly chat shows with a couple of other co-hosts, or interview formats. And an unclassifiable hybrid that went behind the scenes of the TV show The Americans. I’ve also produced a few.
