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"If they want to re-capture their audience they need to put their journalists to work creating more audio content that people can consume in their "found time"

"If they want to re-capture their audience they need to put their journalists to work creating more audio content that people can consume in their "found time" along with their other podcasts." At least the NYT has a daily podcast, an updating podcast on the impeachment (when the impeachment happened), a podcast series on engagement algorithms in radicalizing people, I think several more. The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, NPR (So many NPR podcasts), etc. also have podcasts. I think podcasts are well covered and this argument is coming from a place of ignorance.

pharke 6y ago
I was aware of NPR's offerings but not of the others. That tells you something to start with, those offerings aren't being made a centre piece. The Atlantic has them buried in a sidebar halfway down their page under a list of authors. They also seem to be fairly infrequent and listening to them briefly they are a turn off due to their over-production. They're also short, 30 min. Why would I want to wait 3 weeks for a 30 minute radio show? Pass. NPR has more on offer, they are listed as a menu item at the top of their site, they are more frequent, unfortunately they're still overdone which is why I don't follow them. The NYT daily is actually a pleasant surprise, they feature it a bit more prominently on their site, I'm listening to one right now and it's a straight up interview which is great, daily releases make up for the shorter run length so I'll try this one out. I think my argument still stands, newspapers are still in the print business. Doing a quick search of other papers seems to show a trend of having a podcast as an afterthought and/or treating it as a way to deliver radio content. Putting a radio show on the internet doesn't make it a podcast. Give me a discussion, a long form interview, something real. I don't want cuts, voiceovers, musical interludes, or scripts. I'm coming down hard on the production quality because it's a sure sign that something has been editorialized to death, generally by a committee of people with competing interests and vanities. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

pharke 6y ago

I was aware of NPR's offerings but not of the others. That tells you something to start with, those offerings aren't being made a centre piece. The Atlantic has them buried in a sidebar halfway down their page under a list of authors. They also seem to be fairly infrequent and listening to them briefly they are a turn off due to their over-production. They're also short, 30 min. Why would I want to wait 3 weeks for a 30 minute radio show? Pass. NPR has more on offer, they are listed as a menu item at the top of their site, they are more frequent, unfortunately they're still overdone which is why I don't follow them. The NYT daily is actually a pleasant surprise, they feature it a bit more prominently on their site, I'm listening to one right now and it's a straight up interview which is great, daily releases make up for the shorter run length so I'll try this one out. I think my argument still stands, newspapers are still in the print business. Doing a quick search of other papers seems to show a trend of having a podcast as an afterthought and/or treating it as a way to deliver radio content. Putting a radio show on the internet doesn't make it a podcast. Give me a discussion, a long form interview, something real. I don't want cuts, voiceovers, musical interludes, or scripts. I'm coming down hard on the production quality because it's a sure sign that something has been editorialized to death, generally by a committee of people with competing interests and vanities. Too many cooks spoil the broth.