That’s a long time! Not every reporter or outlet can afford to pursue a story for that long, and not every story has closure. Sometimes a story takes a few years to report. As Jon Ronson put it, “don’t use narrative dead ends for dramatic tension.”Ĭlosely related to number two. Maybe finish running down a lead before you post it, just in case. A bad one can get an innocent person fired, run out of town, etc., and solely because he seemed like he might be the killer for half an episode. It’s crass enough that we have to listen to your live reads about mattresses in the middle of the story of someone’s wife’s murder, don’t double down by adding some god awful slowed-down cover to “set the mood.” If the story alone isn’t sufficient to set the mood, fix the story.Ī good investigative podcast can help solve a murder or get someone wrongly convicted out of prison. “You know there are other transitions besides a star wipe, right?” So many podcasts are starting to add unnecessary sound effects, pointless music, and conspicuous edits that I’m reminded of that Simpsons episode where Homer learns to edit video. One of the most obnoxious trends in podcasts right now is the push to turn podcasts into “soundscapes.” Some shows do it better than others, and there are certainly some soundscape-y pods on this list, but the reason the medium is popular in the first place is that there is a simple power and pleasure in listening to a single human voice. Here are some of my hopes for the medium going forward: I don’t expect it will always be this way.
New serial podcast 2018 series#
Many of these series offer top-notch entertainment, but they’re also Important. Īt the close of 2018, we’re seeing incredible advocacy journalism being done in podcasts. *Though it’s worth mentioning: just because you can make a 10-hour podcast doesn’t always mean you should. Storytellers can tell longer-form narratives, some of these lasting up to 10 hours, without worrying that they’re boring people.* This quality also allows for more in-depth, more detailed reporting. It’s content you can take with you wherever you go, keeping you company on your commute or in your desperate attempt to tune out coworkers.
New serial podcast 2018 full#
This ability to be experienced on less than full engagement paradoxically makes podcasts more intimate. New stories are being told in unique ways, and - best of all - they’re being heard.Īudio is a more passive medium, in that it doesn’t require your full attention, and you can experience it while you do something else, like drive a car or clean your doll collection. But the serialized podcast format is creating all sorts of new opportunities for this brand of reporting and allowing it to be more in-depth than ever before. True crime writing, long-form reporting, documentaries, and radio documentaries have all existed for a long time.
New serial podcast 2018 zip#
So enjoy this brief period of podcasting’s adolescence while it lasts, and be glad that for now we only have the occasional Zip Recruiter live reads to fast forward through. We’re living through a golden age in podcasting - that perfect sweet spot where the general public has started to recognize the form, creators are expanding its possibilities, and there isn’t so much money in play that the speculators and non-enthusiasts have swept in to ruin it like… well, like most other things on the internet.įor now, podcasts are almost exclusively created by and for the people who love them, supported sometimes by ads, but even more often by people paying specifically for that content.