What makes an interview podcast good or great?(marginalrevolution.com)
marginalrevolution.com
What makes an interview podcast good or great?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/what-makes-a-podcast-good-or-great.html
71 comments
One thing I have noticed recently in particular with the coronavirus, but also other topics, is that several interview podcasts fall into a sort of trap where they have guests on that have some sort of contrarian viewpoint, and this gives listeners a dopamine hit for apparently having discovered some sort of truth that is unknown to society. Now this is great if the host finds someone who has something genuinely interesting to say, but it can quickly devolve into having a bunch of crackpots on the show. In fact I think it may go one step further in that the popularity of this format has lead otherwise reasonable (and well-credentialed) people to take more kooky positions because it gives them the chance to appear on these podcasts (I've read it described as "throwing themselves off an epistemic cliff" somewhere).
Insight porn is another way of describing it. And these guests tend to do more than one podcast in a short period of time which, coupled with social media, contributes to the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
It's heard this referred to as "it's a 'as it turns out'"
Aka TED talks
That's a great word for it!
> they have guests on that have some sort of contrarian viewpoint ... but it can quickly devolve into having a bunch of crackpots on the show.
Joe Rogan has entered the chat.
Joe Rogan has entered the chat.
I got into Lex Fridman's podcast [1] maybe a year ago and was instantly a fan of his depth-first search style. It's often frustrating in other interview style podcasts when something interesting is mentioned but not explored. Lex will often say something like "oh that's interesting, let's talk about that" then that becomes the subject of discussion for 20-30 minutes, but he's good at backing up to the original point after that branch is exhausted. Incidentally he's a computer scientist!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/lexfridman
[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/lexfridman
Lex was the most obvious example of a bad interviewer that came to mind after I read the title of this post. He's had an impressive selection of people on his podcast but his communication and interviewing style is the worst I've ever come across - very dry delivery, not following up on what the guests says, pointless questions about the meaning of life or good and evil or scifi-technology that doesn't exist, reading from a list of prepared questions, trying too hard to push his own opinions at some points, sucking up too much to Joe Rogan and Elon Musk etc.
I really don't know how he managed to get the selection of guests that he's had especially in the early days of the podcast.
I really don't know how he managed to get the selection of guests that he's had especially in the early days of the podcast.
>I really don't know how he managed to get the selection of guests
For the later guests who were not colleagues at MIT or his previous contract work at Google, they do what many guests do: they look at the interviewer's previous episodes and see if they like his style. It's a big commitment to spend ~3 hours with someone they don't know so they use the previous episodes as a "résumé" to see if it's worth their time.
>, not following up on what the guests says
And the parent comment you replied to said the opposite: >Lex will often say something like "oh that's interesting, let's talk about that"
Not debating you but it's an interesting observation to me that different people will see contradictory evidence.
>, reading from a list of prepared questions
The way a lot of these podcasts' preparations work behind-the-scenes with emails/phone calls before the actual interview is that the interviewer will propose a list of topics to talk about. The guest can also add (or subtract) from the list of topics because they are the ones who ultimately agree whether to appear on the podcast at all.
Therefore, using prepared questions is actually respecting the guest's agreement to be interviewed.
Now, if on the other hand you're complaining about the delivery of the prepared questions... such as "Lex should memorize the 50 prepared questions perfectly instead of reading a sheet of paper in front of him" or "Lex should use a cue card or teleprompter off camera to read the prepared question" ... it seems like a really trivial thing to complain about.
For the later guests who were not colleagues at MIT or his previous contract work at Google, they do what many guests do: they look at the interviewer's previous episodes and see if they like his style. It's a big commitment to spend ~3 hours with someone they don't know so they use the previous episodes as a "résumé" to see if it's worth their time.
>, not following up on what the guests says
And the parent comment you replied to said the opposite: >Lex will often say something like "oh that's interesting, let's talk about that"
Not debating you but it's an interesting observation to me that different people will see contradictory evidence.
>, reading from a list of prepared questions
The way a lot of these podcasts' preparations work behind-the-scenes with emails/phone calls before the actual interview is that the interviewer will propose a list of topics to talk about. The guest can also add (or subtract) from the list of topics because they are the ones who ultimately agree whether to appear on the podcast at all.
Therefore, using prepared questions is actually respecting the guest's agreement to be interviewed.
Now, if on the other hand you're complaining about the delivery of the prepared questions... such as "Lex should memorize the 50 prepared questions perfectly instead of reading a sheet of paper in front of him" or "Lex should use a cue card or teleprompter off camera to read the prepared question" ... it seems like a really trivial thing to complain about.
> they do what many guests do: they look at the interviewer's previous episodes and see if they like his style.
Unless you have some inside information, you can't know that this is the case. I find it difficult to believe given that some of his early guests are
Steven Pinker - episode 3
Guido van Rossum - episode 6
Eric Schmidt - episode 8
Elon Musk - episode 18
It's naive to think that you get a retired-Google-CEO-billionare by cold calling and getting him to review and like the first 7 episodes of your newly started podcast.
Unless you have some inside information, you can't know that this is the case. I find it difficult to believe given that some of his early guests are
Steven Pinker - episode 3
Guido van Rossum - episode 6
Eric Schmidt - episode 8
Elon Musk - episode 18
It's naive to think that you get a retired-Google-CEO-billionare by cold calling and getting him to review and like the first 7 episodes of your newly started podcast.
>It's naive to think that you get a retired-Google-CEO-billionare by cold calling
Hey, you cut out the quote where I conditionally qualified my statement with "later guests who were not colleagues at MIT or his previous contract work at Google,".
Anyway, it seems reasonable to presume that his connections at Google went up the chain and reached Eric Schmidt. So it wouldn't have been a true cold call.
He said Elon Musk happened because his A.I. research on Tesla self-driving was already seen by Elon.
Some of the early guests who were professors via his MIT connections. Some guests (especially physicists) might have been connections with his dad who is a physics professor. His older brother runs a biotech company so that may also spur some introductions.
With "6-degrees-of-separation" being what it is, what looks like a cold-call to outsiders ("how did he get Eric Schmidt?!?") could have actually been a friend-of-a-friend or colleague-of-a-colleague. I'm a nobody and I happen to know the billionaire fund manager and owner of a major sports team. With 3-degrees of separation with various past co-workers, I can connect the dots to several CEOs of major corporations. That doesn't mean they'd agree to be on my hypothetical podcast if I asked them but if a few of them said "yes", some viewers would wonder, "how did he manage to get X with a cold call?" -- The answer is that my extended social graph is invisible to viewers and it really wasn't a cold call.
Examples of "later" guests that are more "cold calls" with no help from MIT/Google were Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) and some of the female guests who weren't scientists. This isn't speculation because the guests themselves said they looked at Lex's previous podcasts to see his work.
In general, the playbook for a new podcaster (with no audience of millions yet) to get guests follows a similar trajectory:
1) Start with personal connections to build a body of work. Cold-calling famous people won't work at this early stage because they don't have any prior work to see to if it's worth their time.
2) The previous podcasts episodes can start to act as a résumé so host doesn't have to rely on personal connections. The ever-increasing audience numbers also pads the résumé and adds credibility to the interviewer.
3) The transition eventually happens where interviewer can get new guests based on reputation more than personal connections.
Hey, you cut out the quote where I conditionally qualified my statement with "later guests who were not colleagues at MIT or his previous contract work at Google,".
Anyway, it seems reasonable to presume that his connections at Google went up the chain and reached Eric Schmidt. So it wouldn't have been a true cold call.
He said Elon Musk happened because his A.I. research on Tesla self-driving was already seen by Elon.
Some of the early guests who were professors via his MIT connections. Some guests (especially physicists) might have been connections with his dad who is a physics professor. His older brother runs a biotech company so that may also spur some introductions.
With "6-degrees-of-separation" being what it is, what looks like a cold-call to outsiders ("how did he get Eric Schmidt?!?") could have actually been a friend-of-a-friend or colleague-of-a-colleague. I'm a nobody and I happen to know the billionaire fund manager and owner of a major sports team. With 3-degrees of separation with various past co-workers, I can connect the dots to several CEOs of major corporations. That doesn't mean they'd agree to be on my hypothetical podcast if I asked them but if a few of them said "yes", some viewers would wonder, "how did he manage to get X with a cold call?" -- The answer is that my extended social graph is invisible to viewers and it really wasn't a cold call.
Examples of "later" guests that are more "cold calls" with no help from MIT/Google were Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) and some of the female guests who weren't scientists. This isn't speculation because the guests themselves said they looked at Lex's previous podcasts to see his work.
In general, the playbook for a new podcaster (with no audience of millions yet) to get guests follows a similar trajectory:
1) Start with personal connections to build a body of work. Cold-calling famous people won't work at this early stage because they don't have any prior work to see to if it's worth their time.
2) The previous podcasts episodes can start to act as a résumé so host doesn't have to rely on personal connections. The ever-increasing audience numbers also pads the résumé and adds credibility to the interviewer.
3) The transition eventually happens where interviewer can get new guests based on reputation more than personal connections.
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Lex, if you read this, I think improving the questions you ask is the biggest thing that would contribute to improving your interviews.
"The meaning of life" is an ok question, but asking every interviewee about aliens and sci-fi technology, regardless of background, is getting repetitive. It doesn't seem to really give you, or the audience much to work with, and basically encourages the interviewee to spout off random stuff.
Now, the Jim Keller interview, that was good stuff because Jim Keller is an interesting person and a good people manager.
"The meaning of life" is an ok question, but asking every interviewee about aliens and sci-fi technology, regardless of background, is getting repetitive. It doesn't seem to really give you, or the audience much to work with, and basically encourages the interviewee to spout off random stuff.
Now, the Jim Keller interview, that was good stuff because Jim Keller is an interesting person and a good people manager.
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I have no idea whether this applies to Lex, or if there are better explanations, but... he probably just asks. In my limited experience with my little podcast in the sports analytics world, I'm consistently surprised by who says yes, and how few people say no. ~90% of the people I've asked to be a guest have said yes, and those who have said no haven't done so because they're "too famous" or something like that.
I think that he's had way too many billionaires, top researchers, authors, computer scientists, and celebrities to attribute it to just asking.
Working at MIT and having a small history of good guests probably helps.
The guests themselves make value judgments of whether this polite, motivated, knowledgeable, reasonably boring guy with a sizeable audience and good credentials can help them to spread their own messages without much journalistic pushback.
His audio quality is also not bad.
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Personal opinion: The interviews are far too long. I'd like an informed opinion of the best (as opposed to most famous or controversial or odd) guests. If a biology expert told me Lex's interview with Eric Lander was a Must Listen, I'd value that more than, "oh! It's three hours of Elon Musk, but his personal values are well-known and haven't changed."
I would listen to a few very interesting conversations unedited OR a larger collection of reasonably interesting, short, heavily curated conversations. I enjoy hearing about subjects I normally don't encounter, and some of his guests bring this experience. Listening to months of audio to find these gems is not for me.
I prefer a small group of podcasts that have shorter episodes, entertaining/engaging hosts, interesting guests,
The guests themselves make value judgments of whether this polite, motivated, knowledgeable, reasonably boring guy with a sizeable audience and good credentials can help them to spread their own messages without much journalistic pushback.
His audio quality is also not bad.
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Personal opinion: The interviews are far too long. I'd like an informed opinion of the best (as opposed to most famous or controversial or odd) guests. If a biology expert told me Lex's interview with Eric Lander was a Must Listen, I'd value that more than, "oh! It's three hours of Elon Musk, but his personal values are well-known and haven't changed."
I would listen to a few very interesting conversations unedited OR a larger collection of reasonably interesting, short, heavily curated conversations. I enjoy hearing about subjects I normally don't encounter, and some of his guests bring this experience. Listening to months of audio to find these gems is not for me.
I prefer a small group of podcasts that have shorter episodes, entertaining/engaging hosts, interesting guests,
Personally I find 20 to 30 minute interviews the sweet spot. Sometimes I’ll go a bit shorter and sometimes a bit longer but for 1:1 something like an hour feels too much most of the time.
I like the long conversations, because it’s easier to be a fake person for 30 minutes, but comparatively it’s hard to fake being a genuine person or expert on a topic for 2 or 3 hours.
I'm sure it's a fault of my attention span but I tend to be a fan of 30 minute conference presentations and otherwise distilling topics down to about that length. Otherwise, it often feels like you're dragging things out. I'm not having a date with the person. I want to discover for my audience what key insights they have.
I do sometimes have longer podcast conversations with people I know well but 20-30 minutes feels like the natural sweet spot for my typical interview.
I do sometimes have longer podcast conversations with people I know well but 20-30 minutes feels like the natural sweet spot for my typical interview.
I want brisket that is delicious after you microwave it, but it tends to require a long time in the oven.
But I don't have 2 or 3 hours to listen in to conversations of strangers and then decide if they are worthwhile or not.
I was also drawn in by Lex's selection of guests, but haven't been listening since his interview with Yeonmi Park. I was attentive for the first half, but she abrubtly refers to LGBT culture as regressive and the conversion devolves into rambling praise for Jorden P., who happens to have also had her on his podcast recently (see the comment on Frequency Bias above).
Well yeah he isn’t the most polished, but he puts the guests at ease and the conversations benefit from that. He reminds me of Tim Ferris in some ways, who was often barely coherent, although Ferris was never quite believably authentic and was clearly building some kind of empire.
I used to like this podcast but two behaviors by the host ultimately turned me off:
- Lex’s weird comments and massive oversimplification of ethical topics. He always seems to ask people if X is Good or Evil, with no consideration of nuance. I get that he’s a computer scientist and not a ethicist, but I somewhat expected more.
- He doesn’t question the guest or curate the discussion very well. Some of the episodes are 3, 4, 5 hours long, which is madness. I want to listen to his guests, but I can’t spend 5 hours on a conversation that has an hour of insight. This is the job of a good host.
Overall the strength of his podcast comes from the quality of guests. I wish he would take his role as journalist/interviewer a little more seriously.
- Lex’s weird comments and massive oversimplification of ethical topics. He always seems to ask people if X is Good or Evil, with no consideration of nuance. I get that he’s a computer scientist and not a ethicist, but I somewhat expected more.
- He doesn’t question the guest or curate the discussion very well. Some of the episodes are 3, 4, 5 hours long, which is madness. I want to listen to his guests, but I can’t spend 5 hours on a conversation that has an hour of insight. This is the job of a good host.
Overall the strength of his podcast comes from the quality of guests. I wish he would take his role as journalist/interviewer a little more seriously.
To counter:
-unnuanced prompts/questions tend to trigger better responses. highly nuanced questions don't. it's up to the answerer to freely craft their response w/ little cognitive load or host-assumptions to manage.
-some of the longer podcasts are where the veil of persona disappears & one can see the authentic guest. I like long, deep, authentic conversations personally.
-unnuanced prompts/questions tend to trigger better responses. highly nuanced questions don't. it's up to the answerer to freely craft their response w/ little cognitive load or host-assumptions to manage.
-some of the longer podcasts are where the veil of persona disappears & one can see the authentic guest. I like long, deep, authentic conversations personally.
- I don’t think Lex asks open-ended questions, he asks exceedingly basic ones that often betray a lack of knowledge on the topic.
- Long is not equal to deep. There is a lot of empty filler content that isn’t authentic or relevant.
- Long is not equal to deep. There is a lot of empty filler content that isn’t authentic or relevant.
Asking basic questions might be annoying for a spectator who is already an expert and is just trying to find the latest tid bits of information in the field but for the vast majority of people the basic questions are the ones they want answered. Having a specialist engage in an open ended conversation with a non expert is often more interesting because it is a better approximation of the conversation the listener would have with the same person. I’m not sure what you mean by filler, to me shorter interviews have a higher percentage of filler since people usually have about 40 minutes of standard dialogue on hand. It’s only when you go well past the hour mark that you start to get the unscripted stuff that you wouldn’t normally hear without getting to know the person.
It’s only when you go well past the hour mark that you start to get the unscripted stuff that you wouldn’t normally hear without getting to know the person.
You see, for me this is almost always the stuff I don't care about. It almost always ends up either rambling personal anecdotes and the two of them sharing 'funny' stories or two people pontificating on subjects way outside their areas of expertise. Both of which are completely uninteresting to me.
Two blokes chatting bollocks about stuff they don't really understand is only fun if I'm one of them.
You see, for me this is almost always the stuff I don't care about. It almost always ends up either rambling personal anecdotes and the two of them sharing 'funny' stories or two people pontificating on subjects way outside their areas of expertise. Both of which are completely uninteresting to me.
Two blokes chatting bollocks about stuff they don't really understand is only fun if I'm one of them.
As an interviewee, I'm going to be exhausted after an hour on mic and talking about whatever random things come to mind--which are probably mostly random digressions that aren't very interesting. I have been taped for longer than that--with a break or two--but with the intent that the footage was going to be heavily edited.
I'm not even in the efficiency "play it at 2x" camp. But I pretty much have zero interest in hearing two or more people randomly ramble on. The fact that NPR/NPR-like podcasts and radio shows tend to have segments on even 1 hour shows probably says something about what pros find works best.
(I'm also a fan of shorter conference presentations although at large conferences, I appreciate that there are logistical issues associated with moving people between rooms too frequently.)
I'm not even in the efficiency "play it at 2x" camp. But I pretty much have zero interest in hearing two or more people randomly ramble on. The fact that NPR/NPR-like podcasts and radio shows tend to have segments on even 1 hour shows probably says something about what pros find works best.
(I'm also a fan of shorter conference presentations although at large conferences, I appreciate that there are logistical issues associated with moving people between rooms too frequently.)
I was going to reply to the comment directly but I completely agree with what you said here.
And to add more to your second point: Lex is catering to people who want long form interviews. There are thousands of other podcasts that fit the interview to the time rather than fit the time to the interview for those that don't like this.
And to add more to your second point: Lex is catering to people who want long form interviews. There are thousands of other podcasts that fit the interview to the time rather than fit the time to the interview for those that don't like this.
Yeah exactly. There's a whole lotta non-deep-conversational shortform interview shows out there.
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I don't like Lex Fridman's podcasts because his interviews are way too long and he cannot and does not want to keep them concise. Interviews are no different from books in that respect, length does not equate to depth. On the contrary, the short ones are usually the gems. There is nothing worse than university professors and billionaires talking for hours about things they don't have much insightful to say about instead of talking for half an hour about the things they know best.
I like his interviews because they're long, and it lets me see the the perspective on things outside of the normal boxes the guests get put into, like machine learning guest = talk of research from latest paper only. I can always find another podcast (often duplicates), or even a news interview, where the guests stay within, and quickly burn through, their area of expertise. I like understanding the guest just as much as their day job.
I'd subscribed to Lex based on positive comments I've seen elsewhere and ... am not impressed.
His guest list is impressive.
The topics range from interesting to overhyped (bitcoin/crypto).
Lex's own problems start with his voice: he sounds drugged, slurred, and frankly somewhat dim, the last impression strongly reinforced by his questions and follow-up.
The episodes themselves run too long, and would benefit greatly in my view by much tighter editing. Aiming for a set length (20, 30, or 60 minutes, say), going over that in the interview, and editing down, would be a vast improvement.
His guest list is impressive.
The topics range from interesting to overhyped (bitcoin/crypto).
Lex's own problems start with his voice: he sounds drugged, slurred, and frankly somewhat dim, the last impression strongly reinforced by his questions and follow-up.
The episodes themselves run too long, and would benefit greatly in my view by much tighter editing. Aiming for a set length (20, 30, or 60 minutes, say), going over that in the interview, and editing down, would be a vast improvement.
I rate Tyler Cowen's (the author of the linked post) podcast highly because his questions are so incredibly well crafted.
(Incidentally, I just found this article on the blog which suggests a set of guidelines for asking high quality questions. [1])
However, the issue I take with his interviews is that, because the questions are often pre-meditated, the conversation oftentimes fails to flow smoothly as tangential questions follow an interviewee's answer. It sometimes feels more of a Q&A than a conversation.
[1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/06/ho...
(Incidentally, I just found this article on the blog which suggests a set of guidelines for asking high quality questions. [1])
However, the issue I take with his interviews is that, because the questions are often pre-meditated, the conversation oftentimes fails to flow smoothly as tangential questions follow an interviewee's answer. It sometimes feels more of a Q&A than a conversation.
[1] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/06/ho...
I actually really appreciate that aspect of Conversations with Tyler. So many podcast are "bring on someone who just wrote a book and let them pontificate for an hour" which can be interesting if the topic is interesting but it often ends up sounding like a set piece as the guest just "reads their script." Cowen's style of asking really oblique questions and skipping around to topics really allows guests to demonstrate a dynamic range of intellect and often say things that are interesting and "off script." It doesn't always work but when it does it is brilliant.
Conversations with Tyler are interviews rather than organic conversations per se.
The lack of flow is actually part of Tyler's personality -- I've followed him for years and watched interviews with him. He has a very "economical" style of communication. One of his greatest gifts is that he can answer questions extemporaneously without pausing, with no umms or ahs, and definitely no pleasantries though that doesn't make him unpleasant, merely efficient. Despite that he does still comes across as kind of avuncular and soft.
I actually like that his main questions are pre-meditated and that he isn't afraid to switch topics abruptly. This way he manages to cover a huge span of topics rather than letting the interviewee go down rabbit holes. He packs a lot of insightful content into his podcasts with a minimal of pleasantries. He doesn't waste time dwelling on things.
He often says of his conversations that they are the conversations that "he wants to have, not the one you want to have". And I have to hand it to him, his questions are often way more insightful and high quality than the ones us mortals would ever come up with. He does put in a lot of work though -- in a behind-the-scenes episode, he mentions that he preps for 2 weeks before each interview, and actually reads the interviewee's works and other works related to the topic. He's so thorough that he's even impressed Nassim Taleb.
I've learned so much over the years from the Conversations with Tyler podcast.
The lack of flow is actually part of Tyler's personality -- I've followed him for years and watched interviews with him. He has a very "economical" style of communication. One of his greatest gifts is that he can answer questions extemporaneously without pausing, with no umms or ahs, and definitely no pleasantries though that doesn't make him unpleasant, merely efficient. Despite that he does still comes across as kind of avuncular and soft.
I actually like that his main questions are pre-meditated and that he isn't afraid to switch topics abruptly. This way he manages to cover a huge span of topics rather than letting the interviewee go down rabbit holes. He packs a lot of insightful content into his podcasts with a minimal of pleasantries. He doesn't waste time dwelling on things.
He often says of his conversations that they are the conversations that "he wants to have, not the one you want to have". And I have to hand it to him, his questions are often way more insightful and high quality than the ones us mortals would ever come up with. He does put in a lot of work though -- in a behind-the-scenes episode, he mentions that he preps for 2 weeks before each interview, and actually reads the interviewee's works and other works related to the topic. He's so thorough that he's even impressed Nassim Taleb.
I've learned so much over the years from the Conversations with Tyler podcast.
One thing to note is that Tyler takes a special pleasure in asking questions in a sequence such that there's no discernible reason to it at first, but when you sit back and think you realize that one informed the next in a non-obvious way. Even the guests occasionally notice in real time and comment on it ("Oh you want to ask my about this movie? But of course you do because its also a weird sort of commentary on that same thing from the economics paper you just asked me about..." etc)
I agree, and find it ironic that he explicitly calls his podcast a "conversation", when indeed it's the least conversational podcast around (except when he clearly really likes the person or has a strong opinion on the topic)
Where can i find Tyler crowns podcast?
Wherever you listen to podcasts?
https://conversationswithtyler.com/
https://conversationswithtyler.com/
It's subjective. I'd say pick three: 1) interviewer knows the topic 2) interviewer knows the person 3) interviewer does not speak for the person 4) neither total agreement nor disagreement. Also, they've got to know how to use a mic. On the other hand, if the person's a really good storyteller, it matters less what the interviewer does.
But so subjective. Personally, I usually can't stand Terry Gross and I've heard many say she's one of the best. I really liked some of Joe Rogan's interviews, but others are train wrecks.
But so subjective. Personally, I usually can't stand Terry Gross and I've heard many say she's one of the best. I really liked some of Joe Rogan's interviews, but others are train wrecks.
Like all new mediums, podcasting has been DIY. The content creators have had more creative control, are in charge of their own programming.
Though I don't like the Guest of the Week format, I recognize the skills of Terry Gross and others, for their medium.
The phases of experimentation and retrenchment are cyclic. Like all other mediums. The hotness in podcasting will spasm back and forth between indies and studios.
Though I don't like the Guest of the Week format, I recognize the skills of Terry Gross and others, for their medium.
The phases of experimentation and retrenchment are cyclic. Like all other mediums. The hotness in podcasting will spasm back and forth between indies and studios.
Terry Gross is an institution now, there are both lovers and haters. I've listened to her programme off and on for decades.
The plusses as I see them are:
- Fantastic range of material. She covers arts & culture, news and politics, world events, and science. I strongly suspect the show's staff has a lot to do with this.
- The intereviewer (not always Gross --- Dave Davies stands in fairly frequently and occasionally others) mostly get out of the way of the guest, though Gross herself is known for her five-minute-wind-up question. OK, it's not five minutes, but there's usually a question or two in the show that has a very long preamble.
- The interviews are edited. Not heavily, but just enough to fit format, for continuity, and relevance. This virtually always helps, and most especially avoids all of the live-on-air annoyances of technical glitches and rushing the guest at the end of the time window.
I see these as strong positives.
Gross's voice and intonation may strike people differently. I appreciate the non-shrill, calm manner (most commercial broadcast feels like people screaming or shouting, by contrast). It's instantly soothing. Her politics are clearly left/liberal, though she does try to get out of her comfort zone occasionally, and when she does so the results are far more equitable than what I see with leading interviewers from the right. Most notably Bill O'Reilly, though also Kiss lead man Gene Simmons, off the top of my head. (I heard both when originally aired.)
The format is not especially combative, though Gross will dig gently on occasion. (Contrast, say, Bob Garfield's hard press on occasion, notably an oil-industry apologist and Internet revenge-porn hoster. Even there, Garfield isn't aggressive, but he's very clearly assertive and making his views clear.)
The high consistency of interviews regardless of host is what makes me feel that there's probably a lot of teamwork involved. Gross is pretty good in arts and culture issues, but weaker on technology and science. Despite that, the science and technology interviews still tend to be pretty good, especially in a general-audience venue.
What becomes clear is that Gross has her own favourites and crushes. Some are somewhat surprising (Johnny Cash), others more predictable though understandable and reciprocated --- Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart especially, occasionally other public media names such as This American Life's Ira Glass. Again I find this endearing.
The plusses as I see them are:
- Fantastic range of material. She covers arts & culture, news and politics, world events, and science. I strongly suspect the show's staff has a lot to do with this.
- The intereviewer (not always Gross --- Dave Davies stands in fairly frequently and occasionally others) mostly get out of the way of the guest, though Gross herself is known for her five-minute-wind-up question. OK, it's not five minutes, but there's usually a question or two in the show that has a very long preamble.
- The interviews are edited. Not heavily, but just enough to fit format, for continuity, and relevance. This virtually always helps, and most especially avoids all of the live-on-air annoyances of technical glitches and rushing the guest at the end of the time window.
I see these as strong positives.
Gross's voice and intonation may strike people differently. I appreciate the non-shrill, calm manner (most commercial broadcast feels like people screaming or shouting, by contrast). It's instantly soothing. Her politics are clearly left/liberal, though she does try to get out of her comfort zone occasionally, and when she does so the results are far more equitable than what I see with leading interviewers from the right. Most notably Bill O'Reilly, though also Kiss lead man Gene Simmons, off the top of my head. (I heard both when originally aired.)
The format is not especially combative, though Gross will dig gently on occasion. (Contrast, say, Bob Garfield's hard press on occasion, notably an oil-industry apologist and Internet revenge-porn hoster. Even there, Garfield isn't aggressive, but he's very clearly assertive and making his views clear.)
The high consistency of interviews regardless of host is what makes me feel that there's probably a lot of teamwork involved. Gross is pretty good in arts and culture issues, but weaker on technology and science. Despite that, the science and technology interviews still tend to be pretty good, especially in a general-audience venue.
What becomes clear is that Gross has her own favourites and crushes. Some are somewhat surprising (Johnny Cash), others more predictable though understandable and reciprocated --- Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart especially, occasionally other public media names such as This American Life's Ira Glass. Again I find this endearing.
When the interviewer does not attempt to control the conversation but is receptive and genuinely curious about the guest and their perspectives, encouraging a free flowing conversation.
I can tell you someone who does the opposite of that and it destroys the interviews is John Gruber. He has guests on I genuinely want to listen to, and John talks more than they do.
Thinking back, this is what my favorite podcasts have in common:
- Research has been done on the guest, their work, the subject, etc.
- The interviewer asks interesting questions that the guest likely hadn't heard before. For instance, I'd much rather hear about something very specific versus something like, "What was your audition for Killing Eve like?" The latter's probably been asked dozens of times, and I'll bet that the guest's sick of hearing it.
- The interviewer asks their questions but gives the interviewee enough room to answer without interruption. While it's good to find a balance between an interview and a conversation, I think, I can't stand it when the interviewer interrupts.
- Simply put, the interview is the focus. I stopped listening to a knowledge-based podcast because the host interrupted the interview with "fun fact about [Subject]" segues. They were edited in after the interview happened, but it frustrated me because I was way more interested in hearing the guest speak.
- Research has been done on the guest, their work, the subject, etc.
- The interviewer asks interesting questions that the guest likely hadn't heard before. For instance, I'd much rather hear about something very specific versus something like, "What was your audition for Killing Eve like?" The latter's probably been asked dozens of times, and I'll bet that the guest's sick of hearing it.
- The interviewer asks their questions but gives the interviewee enough room to answer without interruption. While it's good to find a balance between an interview and a conversation, I think, I can't stand it when the interviewer interrupts.
- Simply put, the interview is the focus. I stopped listening to a knowledge-based podcast because the host interrupted the interview with "fun fact about [Subject]" segues. They were edited in after the interview happened, but it frustrated me because I was way more interested in hearing the guest speak.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this?t=15985...
How i built this is an excellent podcast full of VERY interesting stories and hes had big names on it.
How i built this is an excellent podcast full of VERY interesting stories and hes had big names on it.
The reason I really like shows like Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman are because they get an amazing variety of high profile guests that don't often do long form interviews / discussions.
Russ Roberts is a terrific interviewer. He is excellent at understanding perspectives other than his own and asking questions from that perspective. When he is interjecting with his own bias, he's also very good at acknowledging his bias. The handful of times I've heard him interview someone about a book they wrote and I've gone on to read the book, I feel like I've gotten most of the main point already from listening to the EconTalk interview.
I agree. However, I've found the topics of his episodes less and less interesting lately.
I don't want to search through all threads so I'm going to make a separate thread where everyone can add their ONE favorite episode which you think are great interviews. I start with my favorite Chuck Palahniuk on Joe Rogan (which is really more due to the interviewee) https://open.spotify.com/episode/1j5rNNfDQuGjj3EjErwVge
https://www.alieward.com/ologies/phallology
This episode was rock solid.
This episode was rock solid.
I think Charisma on Command nailed it in their video: https://youtu.be/cHyYlFCaXPM
The biggest takeaway for me was: make the interviewee feel comfortable by letting them talk freely about subjects they feel passionate about, and the interviewer should ask genuine and good questions by properly researching the interviewee beforehand.
The biggest takeaway for me was: make the interviewee feel comfortable by letting them talk freely about subjects they feel passionate about, and the interviewer should ask genuine and good questions by properly researching the interviewee beforehand.
I avoid interview podcasts because they wander across so many topics. If one were to stick strictly to a well defined topic or question, then I would personally be more open to them
Hosts should state the date at the very beginning of the episode. Minimally.
Extra credit each for episode number, show URL, guest names, topics, sponsors, sponsor URLs.
Extra credit each for episode number, show URL, guest names, topics, sponsors, sponsor URLs.
I stumbled across an S3 bucket with a set of historical radio interview archives dating from the 1950s to the 2010s, nearly 1,000 individual recordings (not all full episodes, some are outtakes or short edits).
None have the date indicated, either recording or air.
Their a pretty fascinating cross-section of history, but the task of identifying when and who each recording concerns is tedious.
The total set does correspond to a publicly-accessible interface, though that itself only provides access to a small subset of the total archive. (Likely because the hosting organisation is itself trying to identify and date the segments.)
I can understand how early in the project this might have been acceptable, but after a decade or five, you'd think the host or producers might have had the inspiration to clearly identify their work.
"Hello, I'm X, it's DATE, this is PROGRAM, and I'm talking today to GUEST(S)".
None have the date indicated, either recording or air.
Their a pretty fascinating cross-section of history, but the task of identifying when and who each recording concerns is tedious.
The total set does correspond to a publicly-accessible interface, though that itself only provides access to a small subset of the total archive. (Likely because the hosting organisation is itself trying to identify and date the segments.)
I can understand how early in the project this might have been acceptable, but after a decade or five, you'd think the host or producers might have had the inspiration to clearly identify their work.
"Hello, I'm X, it's DATE, this is PROGRAM, and I'm talking today to GUEST(S)".
With respect to date and guests (though the latter is usually stated anyway), aren't you typically coming into the episode through some mechanism that provides you with that information?
Quite frequently not. Raw audio exists. (See my earlier response.)
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You need to get just the right ratio of discussion about MMA, bowhunting, and stand up comedy.
Briefing the guest beforehand to not begin every spoken answer with "So: "
Postproduction editing is much more effective for removing verbal tics and the like.
On the Media ran a segment a few years back (2007) on the practice, and product, of audio editing:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/129437-pul... (transcript available, click to view)
audio: https://pdst.fm/e/www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wny...
On the Media ran a segment a few years back (2007) on the practice, and product, of audio editing:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/129437-pul... (transcript available, click to view)
audio: https://pdst.fm/e/www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wny...
Having a podcast makes you very aware of verbal tics, including your own. I don't knock myself out over it but I typically spend a couple hours on a podcast removing umms, pauses, general verbal stumbles, etc.
That's a start, though there's far more than that.
The roll the tape and broadcast everything school makes for terrible audio, with very few exceptions.
Editing should be for tics, extraneous discussion, flow, etc. No, don't pull a Project Veritas and make people say the opposite of what they did, but do get to the damned point.
I think it may have been This American Life (or some similar aughts-era narrative programmes) which published some really good guidelines on doing your own audio editing. I'll see if I can turn up something (though a quick scan seems to show a lot of similar guides and now, university coursework).
Updates:
There's a more recent guide (2018) from KQED-FM here: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/15/662070097/starting-your-podca... That covers far more than just audio editing, though it points here for specifics: https://training.npr.org/2018/10/31/mixing-diy/
Also not what I'd had in mind originally but a pretty good guide, here: https://medium.com/@ranlevi/the-importance-of-editing-to-you...
The roll the tape and broadcast everything school makes for terrible audio, with very few exceptions.
Editing should be for tics, extraneous discussion, flow, etc. No, don't pull a Project Veritas and make people say the opposite of what they did, but do get to the damned point.
I think it may have been This American Life (or some similar aughts-era narrative programmes) which published some really good guidelines on doing your own audio editing. I'll see if I can turn up something (though a quick scan seems to show a lot of similar guides and now, university coursework).
Updates:
There's a more recent guide (2018) from KQED-FM here: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/15/662070097/starting-your-podca... That covers far more than just audio editing, though it points here for specifics: https://training.npr.org/2018/10/31/mixing-diy/
Also not what I'd had in mind originally but a pretty good guide, here: https://medium.com/@ranlevi/the-importance-of-editing-to-you...
omg. I have a econ background and i used to read marginalrevolution religiously. Actually until economistsview shut down :(
Ahhh and they mention EconTalk at the start. I think its time to dive into my past haha
Ahhh and they mention EconTalk at the start. I think its time to dive into my past haha
Four things I do with every guest
1) Do real research. Read any other interviews this person has given. It helps you avoid the dumb questions and sparks new ideas.
2) Try to figure out what this person really wants to talk about but never gets asked about. Founders usually have some passion related to, but not really part of, their startup story. I don't always hit tis, but when I do, it's a magical conversation.
3) Challenge your guest. If they say something that seems too fluffy or hyped. Push back and ask them (very politely) to support it.
4) Sketch out the conversation arc beforehand. Know the story you want to tell. The interview will be a series of having the guest go off on interesting tangents, and you pulling them back onto the storyline.
I don't know if my podcast interview skills count as "great" or even "good". But that's the way I approach it.