the state of podcasting

at least we have each other

Last weekend was Resonate, the world’s best and only festival for narrative podcasts. Improbably, it’s in Richmond, so all my far-flung peers and colleagues trek to my fair city and rudely stay in hotels instead of my basement.

The conference was at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, and co-organized by Dr. Chioke I'Anson, one of Richmond’s greatest and the owner of that beautiful voice when you’re hearing who brought you this message from NPR.

NPR sponsored so it had a little table in the middle of the lobby. Below please behold Dan Girma, who years ago interned at Planet Money; we stay devastated that he moved on, but he is flourishing at Embedded. Alongside him is new friend Andrew Beck Grace, who cohosts White Lies, a nonfiction series on the Embedded feed/platform.

we sold out of ALL the free pens and magnets. people didn’t really want LIVESTRONG-style bracelets.

Resonate is centered around narrative podcasts, but, at least in my conversation, we mostly talked about chatpods. We’d all listened to the Zadie Smith episode of Ezra Klein’s pod (at least one of us PRINTED IT OUT), and the Jia Tolentino one. Chatpods are obviously way cheaper and easier to create; you need ProTools and the Joe Rogan mic to do a decent job. To do a GOOD job, add a producer/editor. By comparison, a decent narrative episode requires, like, three weeks of five full-time people. Expensive! I think it’s worth it, but I’m the definition of biased.

As the great Anna Sale said at last year’s Resonate, there IS still an audience. People are listening, millions of them. And niche still works — for example, the woman who invented The Daily just helped create this series about “powerful women, witches, and magick.” (I was the ~50th person to recommend the “woo woo” episode of Critics at Large to her lol) But also the signals are somewhat confused. My favorite Resonate presentation was Gabby Bulgarelli’s, senior producer on NPR’s Louder Than A Riot, about how to tackle structural problems in building your narrative. The show won the NABJ Journalist of the Year award…awkwardly AFTER it was canceled. And listen. I don’t know the download numbers. And we all know prestige ≠ funding (and ok they may often be inversely related), but one does want good work to be rewarded, not canceled. Something fundamental is broken.

Anyway. I didn’t document the last event of the conference, when we walked five blocks to the afterparty (with police escort), ringing bells, wearing masks, singing “I used to think…I had control…but now I know…I can’t control…anything.” (some of us took issue with the lyrics, but I guess it’s a debate!) We were followed by a drone, I don’t know whose; I personally didn’t love that, I don’t think drones have party energy. When we got to the afterparty, this is what awaited us on the roof:

Kaitlin Prest as mermaid at the afterparty at Common House

It’s Kaitlin Prest as a mermaid, in a pool, rolling a cigarette. Aux cables dangled into the water (for a lot of audio people, this was hard to see).

On Sunday I had the distinct honor of ferrying folks to Redbird Equestrian Center to trot horses around on a beautiful day. I grabbed a velvet helmet because I read that’s what Mary Kate Olsen wears; equestrian Sarah Mankoff told Kaitlin Phillips velvet helmets are “[v]ery classy, very rarely seen” bc they’re so hot. It was a cool day so I thought could get away with it, and I did! (Virginia does fall exquisitely. It’s longer than ten minutes here; you can wear your transitional jackets for months.)

we went horseback riding!!! we were varying levels of expert but it was peaceful. Nick van der Kolk gets ready to saddle up; Julie Shapiro says hello to her horse for the day <3

Seeing friends and making new ones, being buoyed by shared enthusiasm and commiseration — it all filled my heart. But also… the vibe felt adjacent to grief. One person told me that, like a lot of people present, he attended Resonate 2023 freshly laid off but optimistic about his prospects, but this time around he was still unemployed and a lot less optimistic. Now — after 12-18mo of layoffs, employers shrinking, disappearing, filing for bankruptcy — the pool of folks he’s competing against is bigger and absurdly talented. I heard more than a few times that people felt at a crossroads, in transition. Those with jobs seemed to be waiting to see how long that will last.

I come from print, which has been dying for decades, so this isn’t new to me. I joined audio in 2019 when the industry was still on a Serial high and raking in money. Call Her Daddy was new and still co-hosted, lol. Today, this conference feels necessary as support group and also networking for the next life raft.

For those readers who are considering starting a podcast at this late stage, boy can I recommend some great people for you to hire!!!!

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The Thursday before was Student Podcast Day, so I sat at a table in the lobby so students could question me. A minor problem: my sign said I’m a producer. I am NOT! I could in a pinch produce my own segment, but you wouldn’t rly want me to; I can tell you what gear I use, and I can troubleshoot your setup if your audio sounds like you’re speaking in a tin can under the sea. But (hopefully) most people in audio can do all that?? That’s not what to ask me about!

before/after

I fixed it.

(in case you are looking for a notebook so large it makes you feel like a tiny doll — mine is the LEUCHTTURM1917 Notebook Hardcover Master Classic A4+, in Navy, with dotted pages. Für Denken mit der Hand, they say. because Schreiben ist Denken.)

Students DID ask me questions about reporting and hosting, and told me about their dreams and aspirations. I regretted to inform them about the industry’s decay, but many were already aware, and in turn some were SO with it that I felt a little glimmer of hope.

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Speaking of a good chatpod — my husband was on the most recent episode of Roben Farzad’s Full Disclosure!! The episode is about being a musician yet also making money. HusbandScott literally just won an Emmy, I’m so proud.

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A thank-you for scrolling this far: I went to the eye doctor for a checkup exam, and look what I saw.

my what