Episode 95: Your Newsday Tuesday

Episode 95: Your Newsday Tuesday

This Decade in the Podcast Canon: Picks from The A.V. Club

The A.V. Club has picked podcasts that defined each year of the 2010s, but this isn’t just another end-of-decade listicle. The sheer newness of podcasting’s rise sets it apart from book, movie, and best-dressed lists — it’s history in context.

As Marnie Shure describes, “Thanks to its journey from fledgling medium to an entrenched facet of American culture, by 2019, podcasting both reflects and assists in shaping the media landscape around it.” Fame aside, the shows are “inarguably all a part of the podcast canon.”

Starting off the decade with Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and finishing with The New York Times’ 1619, the list represents “a body of work that continues to grow with series that surprise or challenge us.” As Shure credits the intrepid creators, “They saw our internet and raised us a radio.”

Jenna Wortham on the Hard Work and Rewards of Still Processing

In a powerfully honest Stylist piece about the origins and development of Still Processing, Jenna Wortham shares how “presenting a podcast taught her to trust in her own views.”

Wortham hosts The New York Times’ culture podcast with Pulitzer Prize-winning critic-at-large Wesley Morris. “I had a lot of anxiety in the beginning […] It’s incredibly nerve-wracking to work out your opinions in real time in front of other people, and I don’t know that our society inherently equips most women with the tools for it.”

Feedback from listeners has made all the difference to Wortham, who characterizes it as a “benevolent feedback loop”: “A lot of them told me that my viewpoints affirmed their own. That it’s helped them work through difficult emotions, world events and culturally tense moments.”

Evolving Podcast SEO: The How and Why of Verbalized Keywords for Visibility

Since Google’s announcement last spring that podcasts will be indexed as searchable audio, Manish Dudharejia notes that “we’ve started to see [them] trickle into the organic search results.”

“Until recently, podcasts – and other forms of audio content – were not seen as direct SEO assets,” Dudharejia points out in Search Engine Journal. Google is starting to display podcasts following “advancements in AI and natural language processing,” like upgrades to its speech-to-text feature.

Dudharejia’s guide explains how and why podcasts will show up SERPs (search engine results pages) as the service evolves. Just as important are sections on transcriptions, write-ups, and chapter designations to keep your work accessible to humans — and our robot overlords.

Happy Tuesday, readers, and thanks to Glynn Washington, host of Snap Judgment, for this consistency reality check. We truly enjoy seeing responses and supportive interactions on Twitter — you all make the internet a better place.

Cheers,

Team PM

Here's what else is going on:

• Tough climb: “In many cases, we want to be the noun (a songwriter) without doing the verb (writing songs),” writes Ozan Varol in a post for The Ladder. The key to any creative accomplishment is to “forget the noun and do the verb instead,” which “reorients you […] toward the process.”

• Measure up: Triton Digital has announced the integration of Voxnest with its IAB Tech Lab-certified Podcast Metrics measurement service. Voxnest clients can now participate in Triton’s Podcast Reports, using “trustworthy and transparent podcast data.”

• Camera ready: Washington, DC’s inaugural Video Show will take place December 4-5. Podcasting experts including Eric Nuzum (Magnificent Noise) and Melissa Monte (Mind Love) will share actionable tips and tricks, leading an entire content stream devoted to the medium.

• Storied future: WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, has announced that 30-year public radio veteran Margaret Low will be its next chief executive and general manager. Since 2010, WBUR has “roughly doubled its revenue” and “established itself as a leader in podcasting.”