Sound Judgment (Elaine Appleton Grant)

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  Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. We make beautifully crafted shows for social impact and higher ed organizations, NGOs, the media — and ourselves. Work with us. 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Celeste Headlee has anchored many programs, including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, Here and Now, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. She also served as co-host of the national morning news show, The Takeaway, and served as executive producer of Georgia Public Radio’s On Second Thought.

Her best-selling books include We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing and Underliving, and Speaking of Race: Why Everybody Needs to Talk about Racism — and How to Do It. She also wrote Heard Mentality, a book specifically for journalists and podcasters.

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The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment: "A National Divorce Would Be a Good Thing," from  Hear Me Out

Hear Me Out is a podcast from Slate. The show is produced by Maura Currie. Ben Richmond is the Senior Director of Podcast Operations, and Alicia Montgomery is VP of Slate Audio. Celeste Headlee is the host. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Sound Judgment Episode 10: Snap Judgment’s Glynn Washington: Lessons from a Master Storyteller
• Bring lessons on hosting and producing into your inbox!  Did you know Sound Judgment is also a free newsletter? Every two weeks, get storytelling, hosting, and journalism strategies taken straight from the on-the-ground experiences of today’s best audio makers, no matter the genre. Newsletters feature examples for you to try in your studio; essays on the challenges and rewards of this craft; and news about fellow audio creatives making the kind of work we all aspire to. Click here to subscribe. 

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At the end of every episode, I give you a few of the many takeaways from these conversations. Here are today’s:  

1. There are big and important differences between interviewing to report a story, where you’re using selected sound bites, and hosting an interview. Celeste was initially dismayed that her vast experience as a reporter hadn’t prepared her to sit in that host chair. As a host of a conversation, you have to care about creating a story arc; about the order of your questions; and about the way in which you ask your questions. None of those apply universally to reporting.
2. A lot of what we think is true about good communication doesn’t prove to be true. Celeste says her research shows that tactics like making eye contact, saying uh-huh, nodding your head, and even repeating back what you heard – aren’t effective. It’s sharing perspectives that actually creates a connection, an empathic bond.
3. Learning to communicate well with one another could not be more important – because to communicate well is to survive. One thing that Celeste told me that took my breath away is that it is not true that the human species survived because of some innate higher intelligence. Rather, she said, “The way that we survived is through our communities. If you’re messing with one human being, you are almost always messing with more.”
4. To talk with those with whom you disagree, learn their arguments. You need to understand them as well as you know your own. Otherwise, they will dismiss your objection as coming from someone who simply doesn’t understand.

***

Work with us!

• We make original podcasts for NGOs, purpose-driven brands, and universities
• We also offer podcast strategy and consulting services
• Or contact us about our public media and individual training services for content creators and on-air talent

Visit podcastallies.com or email us at allies@podcastallies.com for more information. 

***

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode(s) discussed on today’s Sound Judgment: This American Life Episode 776, “I Work Better on Deadline.” Segment: “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum.”

Reporter: Sarah Gibson, NHPR

Producer: Chris Benderev

How to be a great host: Katie’s takeaways: 

1. What are your holy shit moments? 
   We need holy shit moments. What are those surprises – in the story, or about the people in your story – that make you say, “Wow, you’re never going to believe this!” Holy shit moments help get your pitch accepted – and they generate word of mouth.
2. In your pitch, identify people – characters – who have high stakes and are in conflict with each other. Make sure you have access to them, too. Care about these people and frame your story through their eyes – in the This American Life story we dissected here, why it matters that one man imagines an eight-year-old breaking a violin, and another is terrified at the prospect of paying thousands to send his kid to a public high school. Snowshoes and violins make important things memorable. Issues alone do not.
3. Here’s a three step pitch process for longform narrative: First, write a text-based pitch. This can be a short query letter or a full-fledged slide deck. Then, produce a sizzle reel. Use your best tape from whatever you’ve collected so far. If audio production isn’t your strong suit, ask for help. Finally, get feedback from friends or colleagues. Choose good storytellers or folks who have a great understanding of your potential audiences. Revise as necessary.
4. Editors and program directors in public media have tough decisions to make about podcasts. Done well, they can grow your audience enormously. 96% of the NHPR Document feed’s audience is from outside New Hampshire (Katie corrected that figure post-production). But managed poorly, podcasts can rob newsrooms of talent and even hurt local news. As Katie says, the Daily News needs of the state are great. A longform project has to meet a high bar if we’re going to take a reporter out of the newsroom. The new greenlight process helps them decide how to vet story pitches and decide what’s worth listeners’ time - and reporters’ time. This process can help any newsroom, and any podcast network.

About Katie Colaneri

Katie Colaneri is the senior editor of New Hampshire Public Radio’s Document team, which produces longform narrative audio documentaries. The team’s most recent work includes season 2 of the acclaimed true crime podcast, Bear Brook. Before joining NHPR in February 2022, she was the assistant news director at WHYY in Philadelphia, where she helped lead the newsroom for about five years. During that time, Katie also grew the station’s podcast portfolio, launching a daily news podcast and leading production of the Peabody-nominated investigative series Half Vaxxed. Katie is a graduate of Wellesley College. 

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn
 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly publication about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Share the show!
Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Work with us

• We make original podcasts for NGOs, purpose-driven brands, and universities
• We also offer podcast strategy and consulting services
• Or contact us about our public media and individual training services for content creators and on-air talent

Visit podcastallies.com or email us at allies@podcastallies.com for more information. 

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

In this series you'll learn how to use sound vision, structure, scenes, surprise, suspense, and specifics to make content that audiences love and share. Each of these bonus episodes is bite-sized and features examples from today's best audio storytellers. Growing your audience depends on more than marketing: It depends on creating compelling content that hooks your audience and keeps them with you. 

Apply the six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024
By developing skills from story structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

Did you miss Part 1 on Sound Vision? Listen here. 

Be sure to follow Sound Judgment so you don't miss the next bite-sized episodes on: 
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense
Part 6: Specifics

All of these segments — each around 10 minutes or less — will come together soon for a full episode on How to Hook Your Audience and Keep Them Coming Back. 

You won't miss a thing if you sign up for my Sound Judgment newsletter, which includes the popular hands-on segment "Try This in Your Studio," kudos to creators who are lifting up the art and business of audio storytelling, news about the show, and useful resources. 


"Six S" Storytelling Resources

Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 

 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Listeners to Sound Judgment know I’m on a quest to unpack how today’s best hosts make their magic — and to define the universal skills and qualities of “hostiness.” What makes some hosts stars, while we don’t remember the rest? 

Today, we name and explore the first of these universal skills: 

#1: Sparkling, Attention-Grabbing Intros
Compelling hosts know how to grab and hold listeners' attention from the very first seconds of an episode. A great intro, also called a "lede," relies on the elements of: 
— Surprise
— Curiosity
— Scene setting
— For interview and conversation shows, stating your purpose

We explore how three hosts, of two narrative podcasts and one interview show, use these elements in dramatically different ways to create remarkably effective ledes.

(Please note: This episode includes the sounds of guns and a brief discussion of some tough topics, including suicide, during my exploration of Stephanie Wittels Wachs’ lede into the Last Day episode, “A Love Story.” The third season of Last Day is about guns. If you’re a host or producer thinking about the tenth anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting yesterday, and how to report movingly and sensitively about guns, Last Day is a model of how to do this beautifully and ethically.)  

The episode(s) discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:
Last Day, A Love Story, from Sound Judgment Ep. 1, “Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs”

Crime Show, Paging Dr. Barnes, from Sound Judgment Ep. 4, “Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show’s Emma Courtland.” 

What Should I Read Next, Ep 350: “Book mail keeps us together” and 

Ep 351 “Book Club Favorites: LIVE from Bookmarks!”, from Sound Judgment Ep. 7, “Secrets of Hosting Live and In-Studio with the Queen of Book Podcasts, Anne Bogel.” 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.

Here’s a unique, last-minute gift idea for you or the podcast host in your life!

Make sure you’re doing everything you can to hook your listener with a personalized Hook-Your-Listener Audit. You or your podcaster will share an episode with us. We’ll examine the intro, sound quality, structure, relatability, credibility, pacing and more, all through the lens of hostiness. For the holidays, this 45-minute session, filled with action-packed takeaways specific to your show, is only $149. If your loved one (or you) has resolved to grow their show in 2023, this is a quick and painless way to transform your show – and more importantly, you as a host – from good to great! Get one of the last remaining sessions now through New Year’s Eve and schedule your audit for January or February. The price goes back up to $300 on January 1. What could be a more personal gift? Click here for this special holiday Hook-Your-Listener Audit. 

Help us grow! Rate and review the show or your favorite episode on Apple Podcasts 

Connect with Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Help lift up indie podcast hosts and producers! Bring untold stories to our ears with this worthy cause

We’re delighted to support the Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund. LWC Studios launched the fund to support independent BIPOC, Queer and Trans audio producers in submitting high-quality work to media/journalism awards and receiving production education and training. Diversifying audio storytelling enriches all of us. Please support the fund in whatever way works for you.  

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. For more information on our production and training services, visit us at www.podcastallies.com. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Classy with Jonathan Menjivar, Episode 1: Are Rich People Bad?

Jonathan Menjivar is a senior producer at Pineapple Street Studios and the creator and host of Classy with Jonathan Menjivar. He also made the hit shows Project Unabom and The Clearing. Prior to Pineapple, he was a longtime producer at the public radio show This American Life and also served as the show's music supervisor. He's also worked as a producer at Fresh Air with Terry Gross and contributed to numerous public radio outlets, including Marketplace and Transom.org. 

Classy with Jonathan Menjivar: Credits
Host Jonathan Menjivar also serves as senior producer on Classy. Additional credits: Kristen Torres, producer; Marina Henke, associate producer; Asha Saluja, senior managing producer; Haley Howle, editor; Joel Lovell, executive editor; Marina Paiz, senior engineer; Max Linsky and Jenna Weiss-Berman, executive producers.

You can follow Jonathan on X/Twitter; Instagram; and Threads or Pineapple Street Studios on X/Twitter and Instagram.

If you liked my conversation with Jonathan Menjivar, you’ll love: 

Sound Judgment Episode 16: How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story, with Katie Colaneri, senior podcast editor at New Hampshire Public Radio

If you love Sound Judgment, help us grow our show by giving us a five-star rating and a review. Visit soundjudgmentpodcast.com and click on Reviews – you can give us a five-star rating that’ll go to Apple or Spotify instantly. We’re grateful.

The Sound Judgment team is: 
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir

Cover art by Sarah Edgell
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC

Contact Us
To contact us with questions, comments, partnership and guesting requests, media interviews or speaking engagements, write to us at allies@podcastallies.com. We also welcome your voice memos; click the microphone icon at soundjudgmentpodcast.com. 

To follow Elaine Appleton Grant and the show: 
Subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling
Sound Judgment website
Elaine's LinkedIn

Elaine's Facebook

Sound Judgment Instagram
http://podcastallies.com  Podcast Allies is a boutique production and consulting company making magical podcasts for NGOs and nonprofits, higher ed, and media organizations. 

Jonathan’s takeaways
These are the takeaways from the end of the episode. For more takeaways from all of our guests, subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter and visit our blog. 

1. Tough topics don’t have to sound dreary or earnest. Right from the very beginning, Jonathan sets a scene that evokes joy. It makes you want to dance. In this way, he’s letting listeners know that he’s talking about class, but it’s not a lesson. You’re going to be entertained. 
    
2. It may be even more helpful to use humor when you’re tackling difficult topics than it is with anything else. When we add some jokes, people listen more. We can deal with hard stuff better. Make sure you point the jokes at yourself, though, not someone else. Jonathan says Classy listeners “should feel comfortable knowing that if I'm going to criticize anyone…it's going to be me first.”
    
3.  Classy is very revealing. We learn a lot about Jonathan’s feelings. So when you write your own scripts, think about what’s personal versus what’s private? Set boundaries. Know what you’re willing to share and what you’re not. 
    
4. Finding your own style of delivery is important, and it can be deceptively hard. It’s OK to start out copying someone else’s style, Jonathan says. Eventually, you’ll find what Jonathan found – his Hulk energy – the true voice that’s yours and nobody else’s.
   
    

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story. Karen worked with reporter/host Sara Ganim to create Believable. 

This episode was sponsored by Signal Hill Insights. 

Want to know how your podcast is affecting listeners? Need to plan to share outcomes with a branded client? 
Visit measureyourpodcast.com for a free 4-part email series that will tell you how and why to measure the unique impact of branded podcasts. Go beyond counting downloads. Instead, obtain real responses from real listeners to demonstrate the ROI of branded podcasts. You’ll learn how research generates practical insights to optimize your production and drive renewals. 

Karen Given’s takeaways
These are the takeaways from the end of the episode. For more takeaways from all of our guests, subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter and visit our blog. 

1. Karen set out to tell Coco Berthmann’s story as more than a basic scammer story. She wanted to investigate the social safety nets that allowed Coco’s deception to happen in the first place. It’s the concept of preventable harm: What makes for a much richer, more noteworthy and useful investigation is whether, in fact, the harm could have been prevented, by whom, and why it wasn’t. Especially with true crime, there’s a temptation to tell only a good yarn—the sensational one about the scammer. But those stories are like cotton candy — they might taste good at the time, but later you wonder why you bothered. 
    
2. Avoid creating unintended consequences. One of the most important and interesting lessons from Believable comes from the tricky line Karen and Sara walked. They needed to investigate the validity of Coco’s story without casting doubt on the stories of every sex trafficking victim, which could have done significant harm. One way they did this — that I would certainly steal if I were you — was to establish early on what is generally known about a phenomenon or a process. We need to understand what’s typical in order to get clarity on what’s not.
    
3. Storyboarding is a visual exercise. Karen’s a huge fan of sticky notes—in fact, 3M, if you’re listening, please name a line of Post-its after her. To get started, lay out your story beats on Post-its on a wall or in project management software like Trello or Asana. Trust me, you’ll be moving things around for your entire production process. Make it easy on yourself. 

Karen Given is a podcast story editor, producer and host. Her most recent project was Believable: the Coco Berthmann Story. A veteran of public radio, Karen started out as a technical director and worked her way up to executive producer and host. Along the way, she won the national Edward R. Murrow award twice, in 2007 and 2017. She also writes Narrative Beat, a free newsletter for journalists and podcast makers who want to tell better stories. 

Follow Karen Given: 

Subscribe to her newsletter, Narrative Beat

Website: Karen Given

Instagram: karengiven

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/klgiven/

Facebook: karenlgiven

If you liked my conversation with Karen Given, you’ll love: 

Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 8: The Heist: How to Produce an Award-Winning Investigative Series with Sally Herships

Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 5: Bone Valley: How to Produce a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference

We need your support! Please give Sound Judgment a five-star rating and a review. Visit our website to easily give us a 5-star rating and a review that’ll go to Apple or Spotify instantly. We’re grateful.

The Sound Judgment team is: 
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC, a boutique production and consulting company making magical podcasts for NGOs and nonprofits, higher ed, and social impact organizations. 

Contact Us
To contact us with collaborations, media interviews, speaking engagements, or sponsorships, email allies@podcastallies.com. We encourage your voice memos! Click the microphone icon at soundjudgmentpodcast.com. 

To follow Elaine Appleton Grant and the show: 
Subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling
Sound Judgment website
Elaine's LinkedIn

Elaine's Facebook

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Did you miss Part 1 of my conversation with Audio Branding's Jodi Krangle? 
Listen to it here. 

Takeaways from today's episode: 

1. Imposter syndrome and the art of the interview 

When she started hosting, Jodi Krangle, who makes her living using her voice, had to overcome one big negative belief.  “I didn’t think I was a speaker of any kind!” she says. It was hard for her to speak her own words, believe she had something worth saying, and be passionate enough to get her thoughts across. That was all harder than she expected – but she persevered. All of this is learnable, and mindset is the first thing we often need to change.

2. Why does sound matter?

Let’s take a look at the advertising industry for some clues. They spend millions of dollars crafting the right sounds and voices. Why? Because they know that sound can create deeper connections with the audience. We don’t buy things because of logic, but because of emotion. Brands use sound to communicate something distinct, unique, and ownable – so how are you using audio to communicate just how special, and different, you are from the crowd? 

3. Your sonic brand is worth millions.

If you work for an organization or a brand, you may already have a podcast or be thinking about starting one. When you do, make sure your show not only integrates with the rest of your communications, but also that it’s as high quality as everything else you put out into the world. Audio creates a brand, just as much as your visuals do. 

Do you know we have a free Sound Judgment newsletter, full of guidance on how to make great creative choices in audio storytelling?Join subscribers from NPR, PRX,  PRPD, Stanford, Spotify and more. Subscribe here and become a more confident host, audio storyteller or producer today. 

If you want to know more about how sound influences our behavior and how creators in the audio branding world make their work,  follow Audio Branding. 

Both parts of this conversation are also running on Audio Branding. Thanks to Audio Branding editor Humberto Franco for his beautiful work in audio and video. 

To learn more about Jodi Krangle and connect with her, visit voiceoversandvocals.com.

To watch shorts from this episode and other Audio Branding episodes, visit Jodi’s Youtube channel, JodiKrangleVO. 

Share this episode!
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Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts.
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, your favorite host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our consulting, production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Want to work with Elaine Appleton Grant or Podcast Allies? 

Visit the following for information on:
Coaching  and workshops for individuals, public media, nonprofits and universities

Online course

Production

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Juleyka Lantigua is the Founder/CEO of LWC Studios, which received a Peabody Award nomination and won a Third Coast Award “Director’s Prize.” A Fulbright Scholar and Tory Burch Fellow, Juleyka holds a Master’s in Journalism and an MFA in Creative Writing. 

Connect with Juleyka at LWCStudios.com. 

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

How to Talk to [Mamí and Papí] About Anything, Episode 112, “Convincing Mamí My Depression is Not About Her.”

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no podcast host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers and editors, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to every podcast team member whenever it’s possible to do so.

The team at How to Talk to [Mamí and Papí] About Anything includes:

Producer  Virginia Lora

Managing Producer Paulina Velasco

Lead Producer Kojin Tashiro
 

Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show. 
 

Congratulations to our Name Our Listeners Contest Winners!  
Almost 30 of you entered our contest to name our listeners, offering at least twice that many name suggestions. 

Congratulations to winners Carolyn Kiel and Áine Pennello, who both suggested our prize-winning entry: “storytellers.”  

In the end, sifting through a wide variety of creative and often pun-inspired names, the simplest seemed to us the best. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t all storytellers. Many of you work in sound. Some make films and TV. Others are writers. A handful speak on stage, or want to. And an increasing number work across many media. What holds us all together is a devotion to creating and presenting stories and conversations in ways that magnetize listeners, viewers, and readers. 

Carolyn Kiel hosts Beyond 6 Seconds. Her podcast features personal stories from neurodivergent entrepreneurs, creators, and advocates that shatter misconceptions, break stigma and showcase the vibrance of neurodiversity. 

Áine Pennello (AWN-YA Pen-nell-low) is a documentary film and radio producer. She recently worked on the Hulu series "Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields," which premiered at Sundance this year. 

The other big win for us? You offered up 30 of your favorite hosts as dream guests for Sound Judgment. 

Thank you!
 

Connect 
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Elaine welcomes genuine connections on LinkedIn.

Speaking: To hire Elaine to speak at your event, email allies@podcastallies.com.

Visit Podcast Allies to learn about:
— Radio show development services and talent, producer and editor training for public media
— Podcast development consulting for nonprofits, social impact businesses and higher ed

— Full-service podcast production services
— Training, coaching and online courses for individual creators. 

Say Thank You
Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
On the show page on your phone, scroll to the bottom of the episodes. Click on the stars to rate; click on “Write a Review” to tell us what you think! 
 

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host and Executive Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Design and Audio Editing: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell
 

Juleyka’s Takeaways (To read a more comprehensive discussion of all of these takeaways, visit our blog.) 

1. You are not simply delivering content to your listeners; you are creating and fostering a community—what Juleyka calls a “shared space” with listeners.
2. Test every original show idea with two questions for your avatar: Will they listen to it? Will they share it?
3. The editor is the listener's advocate; the producer is the sound advocate.
4. Non-narrated pieces may sound easy, but they’re hard to do well.
5. Why choose a non-narrated approach?
6. When jobseeking, amplify your cultural competence—your lived experience.
7. When hiring, diversify your content teams to expand perspectives and opportunities. Determine the importance of cultural competence to your show, and add it to hiring criteria when relevant.
8. Cultivate failure in order to succeed. Stop rejecting yourself first.
9. Don't succumb to doom and gloom over the current podcast industry headlines. Focus on how you are serving your audience.

* * *

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Don’t miss today’s takeaways! Scroll down for lessons from this episode. 

The episodes we discussed on today’s episode are History Daily: Silent Spring Sparks the Modern Environmental Movement and American History Tellers Season 61: Salem Witch Trials.

Takeaways from my conversation with Lindsay: 

1. In several of its shows, including American History Tellers, American Scandal, History Daily and Business Wars, Wondery employs a format that’s always been controversial. They call it “immersive storytelling.” It relies on a single narrator to voice all or most of the characters in an episode. It also employs fictionalized reenactments. As Lindsay says – some people hate this. “I can’t do anything about it,” he says, “cause that’s the show.” He also says, “I can’t help those people who want it to be different than it is.” And that’s the lesson: Choose what your show IS and lean into it. YOUR people will love it. If you do your job well, some people may, in fact, hate it. That’s OK. It’s not for them.
2. When they conduct historical research, Lindsay and his writers aren’t just cataloging facts. They’re on a treasure hunt to learn how the characters felt and how people in their lives felt about them. Those emotions make the historical world feel real, increase the stakes, and keep listeners glued to their headphones. This isn’t your father’s history class.
3. Here’s a tip for anyone leading a team: Create editorial guidelines and share them with everyone – writers, producers, sound designers, and engineers. Guidelines are great for onboarding newcomers. They also help make sure everyone is on the same page. Originally, Lindsay made a narrative podcast out of the American History Tellers guidelines; that’s a memorable way to get this information across. Whatever you do, remember that editorial guidelines are living documents – keep them up to date. 
4. Lindsay calls himself a champion thinker, but an “apprentice do-er.” Self-doubt and perfectionism gets in his way, as they did with his long-delayed introduction of the subscription service Into History. Once he stopped overthinking and started taking one step after another, introducing this new product turned out to be easier than he thought. Taking action brings confidence, and confidence, as Lindsay says, breeds more confidence. 
    

Visit Lindsay online:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsayagraham/

Twitter/X: @lindsayagraham

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Dinner Sisters Producer and Co-Host Betsy Wallace is an editorial director for podcasting at WebMD. Her career pivot into podcasting started in 2018 with the first episode of the Dinner Sisters, a cooking podcast she produces and co-hosts with her sister, Kate. Through the Dinner Sisters, Betsy has cooked and reviewed more than 500 recipes from popular food blogs, interviewed dozens of New York Time bestselling cookbook authors and competed on Season 15 of The Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race. 

Together, Betsy and her sister, Kate Schulz, prepare three recipes each week, compare experiences and informal reviews, and run the Dinner Sisters Facebook Group.

When they're not cooking or recording, they can be found hunting through the millions of online recipes and food blogs to discover timeless classics (Smitten Kitchen’s Oven Braised Beef with Tomatoes and Garlic, anyone?) and hidden gems just waiting to be cooked up. 

Kate lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. She loves collecting regional jams and jellies, recipes that claim to be THE BEST or WORLD CHANGING and baking overly complicated German holiday cookies.

Betsy lives and work in Atlanta, Georgia and cooks dinner for five. She has three kids with lots of opinions. She’s a fan of one-bowl baking recipes and is significantly better at making dinner since starting this podcast.

For takeaways from today's episode about purpose, structure, values, building a successful Facebook community, and podfading, visit www.podcastallies.com/blog.

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

Dinner Sisters Episode 210: Spinach Lasagna Dinner Party

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no podcast host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to every podcast producer whenever it’s possible to do so. Betsy and Kate produce and host Dinner Sisters on their own. Kate plans episodes and meals; Betsy handles the post-production. 

Connect 
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Elaine welcomes genuine connections on LinkedIn.

Work with us. Visit Podcast Allies to learn about our show development services, podcast development services, host and editor training and coaching for public radio stations and mission driven-organizations, including NGOs and higher ed.  

Speaking: To hire Elaine to speak at your event, email allies@podcastallies.com.

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Share your Sound Judgment dream guest with us. Who’s your favorite podcast host? Drop us an email at allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Say Thank You
Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
On the show page on your phone, scroll to the bottom of the episodes. Click on the stars to rate; click on “Write a Review” to tell us what you think! 

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Design and Audio Editing: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Anne Bogel has spent the last six years of her life doing something uncanny: Every week on her hit show, What Should I Read Next, she excavates a guest’s reading life in fine detail. Then she recommends books that always seem to be the perfect choices for that guest, no matter who they are.

It’s not just her unusual ability to pair book with reader that keeps her show at the top of the charts. It’s also the way Anne approaches hosting – as the art of practicing deep hospitality for her guests. That keeps her in listeners’ hearts, year after year. 

It also makes Anne in-demand as public speaker. As intimate as she is with her podcast guests, you might never guess how raucously fun she is in front of a live audience! 

If you dream of moving effortlessly between studio and stage, this episode is for you. 

Anne Bogel is an author, the creator of the blog Modern Mrs Darcy, and host of What Should I Read Next? podcast and Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club. Anne loves talking to readers about their favorite books, reading struggles, and of course what they should read next. Anne lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband, four children, and a yellow lab named Daisy. Follow Anne on Instagram.

What Should I Read Next episodes discussed on today's show: 
Ep 350: “Book mail keeps us together”
Ep 351 “Book Club Favorites: LIVE from Bookmarks!”

Anne Bogel's holiday gift book recommendations for your favorite hosts and producers: 

1. The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker (discussed at 38:54)
2. Out on a Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel with forward by Ira Glass (39:29)
3. I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, due out in February 2023 (40:13)

Scroll down for hosting takeaways from today's show. 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect! Follow Elaine: Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

Say thanks! 

✉️ Email me at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
 

Takeaways

1. We may not think of it this way, but the word “host” comes from the word “hospitality.” Anne takes that literally – she and her team practice hospitality consciously. They do everything they can to make their guests feel welcome and at ease. That hospitality starts with the way they invite guests, to how they prepare them, to the ways in which Anne calms their nerves at the start of an interview. The result of such care shows in the relationships she builds with her guests – and, as a consequence, with devoted listeners. 

2. Anne practices hospitality in the manner that Priya Parker describes in her book The Art of Gathering – and that means understanding and explaining the purpose of that gathering or interview at the very beginning. “It can feel silly at first to name your purpose,” she said. But it helps you and your guests immensely to say: "What is our purpose in being here today, in having this conversation? What do we hope you take away from this?" Don’t let these important guideposts remain unspoken. 

3. You’re not the same host in a quiet studio as you are in front of a live audience. Or at least you shouldn’t be. Before you host an episode – or a live event – visualize how you want the audience to feel. As Anne says, the visual for a conversation with a single guest might be two people at a table leaning over their lattes. But the visual for a panel discussion in a room of hundreds of readers is big! As she put it, “Come on in. The water is warm! Big Momma’s shepherding! There’s room here for all of us, and we’re gonna have a ball.” They’re both positive kinds of energy, but they differ dramatically. 

4. Hosting a great roundtable takes a different kind of expertise than hosting a conversation with a single person. It requires deft moderation, an ability to think like an orchestra conductor and sometimes a tightrope walker – along with the diplomacy to manage several egos. Anne plans ahead to give guests equal time and to ensure a lively flow of conversation. And she also thinks about how to inspire guests to tell stories that they haven’t told before – by artfully asking for specifics…like a memorable experience at a book club. And remember – sometimes that first story sets the tone for all the rest. 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Laura Joyce Davis, Host/Executive Producer, Shelter in Place

Laura Joyce Davis is the host and executive producer of Shelter in Place, which won the “Changing the World One Moment at a Time” award at the International Women’s Podcast Awards. She is a full-time lecturer and managing editor at Stanford University's Storytelling Project, the CEO and co-founder of Narrative Podcasts (an online course), and one of Podcast Magazine's Top 22 Influencers in Podcasting in 2022. Her work has been recognized with a PR News Social Impact Award, a Fulbright scholarship, and occasional praise from her three children.

Her favorite project management tools: Butcher block paper, nice markers, post-its, white boards, and gel roller pens. 

Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show. 

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to producers whenever it’s possible to do so. 

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment: 

March 2022, Season 3, Episode 25: Cloud Cuckoo Land

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Share the show! 
Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment and shower you with gratitude and a decent cup of coffee.

For more information…

on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Takeaways from Laura Joyce Davis, host of Shelter in Place

1. You need a strong hook to entice listeners. And you might have heard that there’s an unwritten 30-second rule – that’s all the time you’ve got. But you can get away with a lot longer lead if you create suspense.
    
2. How can you voice a script naturally, and avoid that awful “readerly” quality? Take a tip from Laura’s Broadway actor brother:  Stop focusing on the words in every sentence. Instead, focus on the whole thought you’re conveying. 
    
3. At some point, you’ll need to grapple with how much of yourself to share with your listeners. This is a big part of finding your voice. There are huge payoffs to sharing parts of yourself…and this is a question that you may need to wrestle with over and over again.

More takeaways coming soon! 

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Stephanie Wittels Wachs is a longtime actor, voice-over artist, theater teacher, author and the co-founder, with Jessica Cordova Cramer, of Lemonada Media. Last Day is only one of Lemonada’s 30-plus podcasts and growing. Wittels Wachs and Cordova Cramer founded Lemonada three years ago. Its tag line matches Stephanie’s personality: Humanity. Unfiltered. 

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers. We will strive to give credit to producers – the true behind-the-scenes talent – whenever it’s possible to do so. 

The episode: A Love Story

Executive Producers: Jessica Cordova Cramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Supervising Producer: Jackie Danziger

Producers: Kagan Zema and Giulia Hjort

Associate Producers: Hannah Boomershine and Erianna Jiles 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Share the show! 
Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production training and studio, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

How to be a great host: Stephanie’s takeaways

1. Be curious. Frame your story around a central question.
   “I'm a central question psychopath… I'm always saying, okay, but what's the question? What are we trying to figure out? What's the point? That's really critical to any storytelling, but I think it [emerges] over time. And it's so baked into the process of revision and collaboration. And you know when you’ve found it… If the episode isn't working, it's typically because you haven't nailed down what that central question is.”
2. To be vulnerable on tape, you need at least one partner who encourages vulnerability. Stephanie relies on her team of skilled and sensitive producers.
   “I am used to collaborating very deeply and closely and trusting one another through that process. I don't know how I would do this with a team I didn't trust and feel safe with. The show is a real team sport.” 
3. To help a host be authentic in front of a mic, give them permission to have feelings.
   “Gloria Rivera [host of No One’s Coming to Save Us and a veteran news broadcaster] was doing tracking…using her broadcast voice. And I was like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, that microphone hates that. Let's shake that off. We're gonna play this tape. Can you just listen to this woman talking about how hard it is for her to juggle a newborn with a toddler with her own job? And I know you've experienced some of that yourself. And can you just close your eyes and then respond to it, just however you feel. And Gloria…she's so full of heart and soul and vulnerability herself. Once she had that permission, she started crying. And she started talking about her own experience having to go to war zones with little kids at home, and how painful that was for her to have to balance. And we kept that as the first moment of the first episode.”
4. Have fun making the show. It shows. 
   “We have fun making the show, and that feels important, because it’s real dark.” (Elaine’s note: If you’re not having fun, it might be time to reevaluate how you’re creating it, what you’re creating, and whether to continue.) 
5. Great storytelling is built on truth, contrast, and unexpected turns — or why Stephanie led an episode about suicide with a scene of her team whooping it up at a shooting range. 
   “I had never understood how hunting could bring somebody joy until I shot a gun that morning. I had a ton of fun. Seven hours later, we were in a living room talking to a family who lost their son. Because he took his life with a hunting rifle. I didn't know how else to tell that story honestly… And I always [pleading with my team] ‘show not tell, show not tell!’ And the way that we showed it was to have fun shooting the guns. And then let's see the pain that this causes. You have to have both of those to understand the issue.” 
6. To make a gripping narrative podcast, use scenes, as often as possible (but only good ones).
   “This is the theater part, right? It's about character and it's about humanity and that's the stuff we try to capture, right? What are the human things about you? And what are the human things about me? And then when we put those things in a room together, human things happen. And that's interesting.”
7. Make choices about the quantity of your narration on a case-by-case basis. 
   “We typically have a lot of tracking in these episodes. And we made a very conscious choice with this one to keep a lot of the conversation intact. They were so honest, and we had this really amazing moment together.  And let's just try to keep a lot of that together. And take me as narrator out as much as we could…A lot of our episodes are seven voices…really woven together and patchworked.”  
8. Find a champion. 
   How do you find people willing to share deeply personal stories? You need what Stephanie calls a “credible messenger,” someone trusted in a community, to show you the ropes and introduce you to people. 
   “We had a lot of trouble tracking down people to talk to us in Montana. To be honest, it took many, many months. We started with this guy named Carl…who heads up mental health for the Department of Health and Human Services in Montana… In our very first call…Carl said you're gonna have to fix your poker face before you come into Montana or no one's going to talk to you. And we kept that in. We wanted to show everyone there's barrier to entry. And if we came in with [the stance that] you shouldn't have guns, we would not get anywhere. So he culturally put us through the wringer. Once he could see that we were down to not come in and tell everyone the way that they should live their lives, he opened the gate, and connected us to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Montana.”

Credits 
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Project Manager: Tina Bassir
Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella
Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Famous & Gravy: Poetic Justice (Maya Angelou).  

Amit Kapoor is co-host and co-creator of the podcast Famous & Gravy.   Amit has spent nearly two decades in management positions for media organizations, both commercial and non-profit, ranging from Match.com to Wikipedia.  He is also a stand-up comic, former Wienermobile driver, video game voice actor, and a certified meditation instructor.  Amit has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in American Studies from The University of Texas.

Michael Osborne is co-host of Famous & Gravy – a conversation about quality of life, one dead celebrity at a time."  Michael has over twelve years of experience as a podcast creator and host. He currently heads 14th Street Studios, a podcast production and marketing firm based in Austin, Texas. Michael started his first podcast, Generation Anthropocene, while he was finishing his PhD in climate science at Stanford. After completing his degree, he spent five years running a podcast incubator for Stanford. During that time he created his second show, Raw Data, which partnered with PRX. In his role at 14th Street Studios, Michael specializes in creative development and podcast marketing for individuals and organizations.

Websites
14th Street Studios

Famous & Gravy

Socials:

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076654703402

LinkedIn links

Famous & Gravy

Michael Osborne

Twitter handles
 

@famousandgravy
@osbornemc

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Mother's Day seems like it should be a Hallmark moment. But for many, reality is far different. Dana Black started her very personal podcast, I Swear on My Mother's Grave, for listeners suffering from complex mother loss — meaning not only people who have lost their mothers to death, but also, in life  by estrangement, illness, addiction, circumstance. 

Sensitivity warning: This conversation touches on alcoholism and addiction. 

Audio storytellers can learn design the tone, writing, and mood of a podcast to foster  intimacy with listeners. They can grapple with the defining the role of the podcast host. They will learn how to make guests, and listeners, feel seen, and to create a sense of belonging. We also discuss the power of scenes to convey memory, character, relationship and feelings. 

At the end of every episode, I give you a few of the many takeaways from these conversations. Here are today’s:  

1. We say podcasts are an intimate medium. But that’s really not the case. What’s true is that podcasts have the capacity to feel intimate – but it takes a clear sound vision to make that happen.  Dana has it. She thinks carefully about how she wants her listeners to feel. “Come here come here come here,” she whispers. She talks to them directly, as if they’re right there. “Sit by the fire with me. Grab a cup of cocoa. Put on warm socks.” She wants them to feel they’re in on a secret and so she writes, voices, and sound designs with that goal in mind. 
    
2. There’s no intimacy without trust. “The only way to gain the trust of someone I’ve never met,” Dana says, “I have to share myself, so that they will share themselves.” 
    
3.  There is so much power in scenes. A 45-second scene – in Dana’s case, about getting American girl dolls for Christmas – we get a distillation of who her mother was. Scenes done well are beautiful shortcuts to both facts and feelings – and inevitably have listeners conjuring up memories from their own lives. 
    
4. One reason listeners are hooked on I Swear on My Mother’s Grave: At the end of every episode, Dana reflects on what that conversation meant to her, often in surprising ways. Listeners can’t wait to find out what she’ll say. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Mother's Grave Retreat, June 8-11, 2023
• I Swear on My Mother's Grave
• Sound Judgment Ep 5: Finding Your Voice with Shelter in Place host Laura Joyce Davis

***

Bring lessons on hosting and producing into your inbox! 

Did you know Sound Judgment is also a free newsletter? Every two weeks, get storytelling, hosting, and journalism strategies taken straight from the on-the-ground experiences of today’s best audio makers, no matter the genre. Newsletters feature examples for you to try in your studio; essays on the challenges and rewards of this craft; and news about fellow audio creatives making the kind of work we all aspire to. Click here to subscribe. 

***

Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!  Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Work with us!

• We make original podcasts for NGOs, purpose-driven brands, and universities
• We also offer podcast strategy and consulting services
• Or contact us about our public media and individual training services for content creators and on-air talent

Visit podcastallies.com or email us at allies@podcastallies.com for more information. 

***
Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

• Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
• Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
• Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella
• Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Weight for It: Episode 2, Shame Spiral. It’s produced by ohitsbigron Studios and distributed by Radiotopia. 

Ronald Young Jr. is a critically acclaimed audio producer, host, and storyteller, based in Alexandria, Va. He is an avid pop-culture enthusiast and the host of the television and film review podcast Leaving the Theater.  He is also a regular contributor to NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour as a guest panelist. He has hosted shows such as Pushkin’s Solvable and HBO Docs Club, from Pineapple Street Studios.  Selected as Vulture Magazine podcaster to watch, 2023 Ronald is currently developing new series, both scripted and narrative, that seek to unpack the human experience. His newest show, Weight For It, tells the vulnerable stories of fat folks and folks everywhere who think about their weight constantly.

Weight for It: Credits
Host/Producer: Ronald Young, Jr. 
Story Editor: Sarah Dealy

Sound Design/Mixing: John Delore

Theme music is The Talk, composed by Jey Redd

Follow Ronald Young, Jr.:

www.ohitsbigron.com
Instagram and Facebook: ohitsbigron

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldyoungjr/

Twitter/X: ohitsbigron

Follow the hashtags #ohitsbigron and #ohitsbigronstudios

If you liked my conversation with Ronald Young, Jr., you’ll love: 
Sound Judgment Season 1/Episode 2: The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth
Sound Judgment Season 3/Episode 1: Classy’s Jonathan Menjivar: The Fine, Awkward Art of the Personal Audio Documentary
Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 9: Best of: Emotional Bravery with Last Day’s Stephanie Wittels Wachs

We need your support! Please give Sound Judgment a five-star rating and a review. Visit our website to easily give us a 5-star rating and a review that’ll go to Apple or Spotify instantly. We’re grateful.
 

The Sound Judgment team is: 
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir

Cover art by Sarah Edgell
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC

Contact Us
To contact us with questions, collaborations, media interviews, speaking engagements, or sponsorships, write to us at allies@podcastallies.com. We encourage your voice memos! Click the microphone icon at soundjudgmentpodcast.com. 

To follow Elaine Appleton Grant and the show: 
Subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling
Sound Judgment website
Elaine's LinkedIn

Elaine's Facebook

Sound Judgment Instagram
http://podcastallies.com  Podcast Allies is a boutique production and consulting company making magical podcasts for NGOs and nonprofits, higher ed, and media organizations. 

Ronald Young, Jr’s takeaways
These are the takeaways from the end of the episode. For more takeaways from all of our guests, subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter and visit our blog. 

1. Learn to draw upon rhythm and music to improve your delivery on the mic. Ronald grew up with the musicality of the storytelling and the singing he heard in church, and that turned him into a storyteller who is enchanting to listen to. But we can all do this by feeling the rhythm and cadence of language: Where are the beats? Where are the breaths? It’s not just storyboarding that makes great stories; it’s how we deliver our stories. 
2. Don’t censor yourself. At the beginning of the scripting process, Ronald’s story editor, Sarah Deeley, had him write down all the ideas he had for each episode. Only then did they narrow those ideas down into a structured narrative. 
3. Build stories in layers. Think about context: what does the listener need to know, right now, to understand this episode? To tell a story about his college girlfriend, Ronald had to first explain some stuff about his childhood. What context do you need to offer to make your story land?

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

[Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show.]

Win prizes! Tell us your favorite Sound Judgment episode
Deadline: 6.30.23

This Sound Judgment season is quickly coming to an end. Our season finale airs Thursday, June 29. We go behind the scenes with the hilarious hosts of Famous & Gravy, the podcast that asks, “Would you like to have had this dead celebrity’s life?” 

To celebrate, we need your help! Please tell us your favorite and/or most useful Sound Judgment episode and why. In return, we’re selecting a winner, at random, to receive merch from their favorite podcaster. If that podcaster doesn’t offer merch, you’ll receive NEW Sound Judgment merch!

To enter, respond to this quick questionnaire   by Friday, June 30, 2023, midnight EST. 

Would you like Sound Judgment listeners to hear your voice on our podcast? Record a brief voice memo and email it to us at allies@podcastallies.com by Friday, June 30. 

If selected, we’ll run your voice memo on a future episode of Sound Judgment. (Be sure to include your name, the name of your podcast or business, your favorite or most useful Sound Judgment episode, and why you chose it.) 

Thank you. We love our listeners!

... 

Julia Barton is the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, following a long career in public radio. She helped develop Revisionist History and Against the Rules, among other chart-topping shows. She’s the editor of Malcolm Gladwell’s audiobook The Bomber Mafia, Michael Specter’s Fauci, and Michael Lewis’s unabridged Liar’s Poker and companion podcast. Her 2019 series for PRX’s Radiotopia, Spacebridge, was called “dazzling” by The New Yorker.

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to producers whenever it’s possible to do so. 
 

Discussed on this Sound Judgment episode: 
The Best Audio Storytelling: 2022
Foreword by David Sedaris
Get 15% off The Best Audio Storytelling: 2022 with the promo code BestAudioSJ15 here.

The anthology features many different podcasts. We examined: 
"I Can Do Anything" by Jason Reynolds, from his Radiotopia podcast, My Mother Made Me

"Armand's Garden" by Erica Heilman, from her podcast, Rumble Strip

"The Tunnel,"  featuring reporter Andrea Bernstein, from Pineapple St. Studios/Wondery's Will Be Wild

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The beautiful voices included in this trailer are: 

John Barth

Former chief content officer, PRX

Current principal, Creative Media  LLC

Stephanie Wittels Wachs
Host, Last Day

Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer

Lemonada Media

The episode Stephanie mentions is A Love Story from Last Day, Season 2

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter
Read it first here. 

Who am I  go behind the scenes to help explain the craft of hosting? 
Read my bio here. 
 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Sharing a personal experience, especially a traumatic one, is a particularly popular scripted podcast form. Memoir done well often shoots to the top of the podcast charts or the bestseller list. It moves us, leaves us breathless, inspires standing ovations and prompts us into conversations and confessions of our own. Sometimes memoir creates change.

But memoir produced without first grappling with why your experience matters to others can sound cheap, sensation-grabbing, and empty. As listeners, readers, and viewers, we are bombarded with confessions.

There is a fine line between transformative and indulgent.
Moreover, stories of heartbreak are hard to choose to listen to these days, because the world is showering us with trauma. 

Given the circumstances, why make memoir?

The decision to make the private public isn’t easy. Nor should it be.
In the first episode of Sound Judgment, Season 4, I explore this question with producer Maribel Quezada Smith, who shares her extraordinary experience with life and death in The Pulso Podcast piece, “The Latino Experience of Fertility: A Story of Pregnancy Loss.”

It took Maribel two years to write and produce this remarkable story about the birth of her son — and the death of her daughter. Her story succeeds, in part, because she identified something fresh: Miscarriage and other forms of pregnancy loss are particularly common in the Latino community, Pulso’s audience. And so is the incredible societal pressure to bear children, setting up an impossible, often hidden, conflict.

That her story succeeds in transforming, not indulging, is evident in the piles of grateful responses she received from listeners who shared her experience, but who had never heard their story reflected out loud. Shame and secrecy had dogged their lives. Maribel’s story brought in the light. 

Along the way, Maribel had to answer several questions for herself about motivation, format, theme, mood, and point of view. Which private moments should she capture on tape? How much could she bear? To whom did she owe privacy? Which scenes and reflections would create momentum — and which pieces would she have to leave out?

Maribel Quezada Smith is a bilingual video and podcast producer and the founder of Diferente Creative. Her video credits include producing TV shows for Discovery Networks, Netflix, TLC and A&E, and digital content for brands like AARP, NBC GolfNow and SquadCast FM. Her podcasting credits include Sacred Scandal (iHeart), Birdies Not BS and Pulso Podcast, to name a few. In 2021, Maribel co-founded BIPOC Podcast Creators, an organization devoted to amplifying the voices and stories of people of color.

Maribel’s passion is creating meaningful, standout content.

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The Six Biggest, Most Surprising or Useful Lessons our Hosts Identified in 2022

1. The host defines the brand of your show.

2. Hosting changes the host—not just as a storyteller and performer, but as a human being. 

3. Great performances are valuable, whether that's a million-dollar signature story in a keynote speech or the captivating storytelling and connection skills of a great host.  

4. We must challenge unconscious bias about the kinds of voices that are perceived as acceptable. 

5. Narrative isn't simply important, it's the way we experience the world, define our identities, and make meaning. Sharing stories builds empathy. When we revise our own stories, we change our lives. 

6. To stand out from the competition, we need to constantly think of how to be "better than good," as Jay Baer puts it. 

BONUS: Podcasting is a team sport—not simply because of the variety of skills and tasks involved in producing a great show, but because collaboration with colleagues who make you feel safe enables courageous, vulnerable creativity. We will almost always do better work in collaboration than we will completely alone. 


The episode(s) discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth, Sound Judgment Ep. 2
A Host on a Mission with Quien tu Eres host Pabel Martinez, Sound Judgment Ep. 6

Finding Your Voice with Shelter in Place Host Laura Joyce Davis, Sound Judgment Ep. 5

A "Yes, And" Approach to Cohosting with Pantsuit Politics, Sound Judgment Ep. 3

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland, Sound Judgment Ep. 4

The podcast Standing Ovation with host Jay Baer: A sneak peek of a Season 2 Sound Judgment episode 

The podcast Snap Judgment with host Glynn Washington: A sneak peek of Season 2, Episode 1, coming January 12, 2023
Sound Judgment Ep. 1, “Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs”

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.

Captivate Your Listeners, Improve Your Hostiness and Grow Your Show in 2023!
What’s it like for you to face the blank page of your script – or that "blank tape" on the mic? As any writer knows, a blank page is intimidating. It can be even harder when we’re using our voice  – because we only have 30 seconds or so to hook new listeners. That’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot that goes into starting your episode with a bang, keeping listeners enthralled throughout, and especially providing enough value that they’ll come back again and again.

Don’t stay stuck! Get a half-price Hook Your Listener Audit now. As a veteran story and program editor, producer and host, I’ll work with you personally to get over the stress of the "blank page" and help you improve your hostiness. You'll send us  a link to one episode ahead of time, and in one 45-minute session, I’ll identify several ways that you can tune up your show fast, painlessly, and without any extra cost – so you can get critical acclaim and, most importantly, grow your show. In just one session, we’ll uncover and build on your unique strengths. You'll tune up the sound and promise of your show. You’ll be more likely to captivate listeners. And most importantly, you’ll quickly feel – and sound – more confident! Now through January 31, you can get a personalized Hook-Your-Listener Audit for half price — only $149. We've only set aside a handful of these packages (we give them a lot of time and attention in addition to our face-to-face 45-minutes session). And because they're so affordable, they’re going fast. 

Click here to purchase your own HYL Audit now. But if you still have questions, no worries! Email us at allies@podcastallies.com for answers. 

Help us grow!

Rate and review the show or your favorite episode on Apple Podcasts 

Connect with Elaine on LinkedIn

Celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Help lift up indie podcast hosts and producers! Bring untold stories to our ears with this worthy cause

We’re delighted to support the Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund. LWC Studios launched the fund to support independent BIPOC, Queer and Trans audio producers in submitting high-quality work to media/journalism awards and receiving production education and training. Diversifying audio storytelling enriches all of us. Please support the fund in whatever way works for you.  

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. For more information on our production, launch and training services for social impact organizations and mission-driven individual creators, visit us at www.podcastallies.com. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

This episode was sponsored by Signal Hill Insights. 

Want to know how your podcast is affecting listeners? Need to plan to share outcomes with a branded client? 

Visit measureyourpodcast.com for a free 4-part email series that will tell you how and why to measure the unique impact of branded podcasts. Go beyond counting downloads. Instead, obtain real responses from real listeners to demonstrate the ROI of branded podcasts. You’ll learn how research generates practical insights to optimize your production and drive renewals. 

More on today's episode:
When Anne Bogel was offered the plum gig of moderating a panel discussion with four famous authors at the Bookmarks NC Festival of Books and Authors, she knew it would be fun. But she had no idea of the turn it would take when her guests — authors TJ Klune, Andrew Sean Greer, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams — began one-upping each other with wild tales from book club experiences like no other. Anne Bogel's been hosting her literary matchmaking show since 2016. This show is always at the top of the charts, in great company with shows like Fresh Air, NPR’s Book of the Day, and The New York Times Book Review. 

There's a reason for that. Anne is purposeful about how she hosts, whether that's holding a deep conversation about a guest's reading life in-studio, or fielding unexpected stories, and a ton of laughs, on stage in front of hundreds.

Anne has spent the last seven years of her life doing something uncanny: Every week on her hit show, What Should I Read Next, she excavates a guest’s reading life in fine detail. Then she recommends books that always seem to be the perfect choices for that guest, no matter who they are.

It’s not just her unusual ability to pair book with reader that keeps her show at the top of the charts. It’s also the way Anne approaches hosting – as the art of practicing deep hospitality. That keeps her in listeners’ hearts, year after year. 

It also makes Anne in demand as a public speaker. As intimate as she is with her podcast guests, you might never guess how raucously fun she is in front of a live audience! 

If you dream of moving effortlessly between studio and stage, you’ll love this episode. 

Anne Bogel is an author, the creator of the blog Modern Mrs Darcy, and host of What Should I Read Next? podcast and Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club. Anne loves talking to readers about their favorite books, reading struggles, and of course what they should read next. Anne lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband, four children, and a yellow lab named Daisy. Follow Anne on Instagram.

What Should I Read Next episode discussed on today's show: 
Ep 351 “Book Club Favorites: LIVE from Bookmarks!”

Anne Bogel's holiday gift book recommendations for your favorite hosts and producers: 

1. The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker 
2. Out on a Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel with forward by Ira Glass 
3. I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

Scroll down for hosting takeaways from today's show. 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect! Follow Elaine:

 Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

Let's talk!

✉️ Email me at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
 

Anne Bogel's Takeaways for Podcasters and Public Speakers

1. Offer radical hospitality. We may not think of it this way, but the word “host” comes from the word “hospitality.” Anne takes that literally – she and her team practice hospitality consciously. They do everything they can to make their guests feel welcome and at ease. That hospitality starts with the way they invite guests, to how they prepare them, to the ways in which Anne calms their nerves at the start of an interview. The result of such care shows in the relationships she builds with her guests – and, as a consequence, with devoted listeners. 

2. State your purpose. Anne practices hospitality in the manner that Priya Parker describes in her book The Art of Gathering. That means understanding and explaining the purpose of that gathering or interview at the very beginning. “It can feel silly at first to name your purpose,” she said. But it helps you and your guests immensely to say: "What is our purpose in being here today, in having this conversation? What do we hope you take away from this?" Don’t let these important guideposts remain unspoken. 

3. Set the emotional stage. You’re not the same host in a quiet studio as you are in front of a live audience. Or at least you shouldn’t be. Before you host an episode or a live event, visualize how you want the audience to feel. As Anne says, the visual for a conversation with a single guest might be two people at a table leaning over their lattes. But the visual for a panel discussion in a room of hundreds of readers is big! As she put it, “Come on in. The water is warm! Big Momma’s shepherding! There’s room here for all of us, and we’re gonna have a ball.” They’re both positive kinds of energy, but they differ dramatically. 

4. Public speaking skills are complementary, not identical. Hosting a great roundtable takes a different kind of expertise than hosting an intimate conversation. It requires deft moderation, an ability to think like an orchestra conductor and sometimes a tightrope walker – along with the diplomacy to manage several egos. Anne plans ahead to give guests equal time and to ensure a lively flow of conversation. And she also thinks about how to inspire guests to tell stories that they haven’t told before by artfully asking for specifics, like she does in this episode by inquiring about a memorable book club experience. And remember – sometimes that first story sets the tone for all the rest. 

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Emma Courtland

Emma Courtland is an award-winning podcast producer and oral historian. In 2020, she created Crime Show, an episodic documentary series "about people -- and sometimes crime." The show peaked at #2 on Spotify's podcast charts. Her work in audio has been recognized by the Podcast Academy (Nominee - Best Host, 2022), the Clue Awards (Nominee - Outstanding Episodic Series, 2022) and the National Council on Public History (Winner - Excellence in New Media).

Emma holds a BA in English from UCLA and a MA in oral history from Columbia University.

We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to producers whenever it’s possible to do so. 

The episode(s) discussed on today’s Sound Judgment: 

September 2021, Paging Dr. Barnes

March 2021: 18 Minutes

Senior producer: Mitch Hansen

Producers: Jade Abdul-Malik, Cat Schuknecht, Jerome Campbell

Editor: Devon Taylor 

Sound: Daniel Ramirez

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Share the show! 
Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Coming soon: Takeaways from Emma Courtland, host of Crime Show

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Improve your storytelling, interviewing, writing, producing, hosting and guesting skills! Sign up for new Sound Judgment workshops today at www.podcastallies.com/workshops. 


On this episode, Emily Silverman and host Elaine Appleton Grant discuss: 

— Why she thought starting a live storytelling event for physicians should be her next step as she was coming to terms with being in the wrong career while also searching for her biological parents and considering becoming a mother.

— How leaving the full-time practice of medicine felt like an "identity death" to Emily — and how journalists and podcasters navigating media in 2024 are also experiencing identity death, and 

— How Emily found her way to a new career through her love of theater and storytelling, and how bringing the arts to medicine is serving the Nocturnists' goal of shattering the myth of the physician God and humanizing medicine. 

Emily and Elaine break down two episodes of The Nocturnists:

"Pass/Fail," Episode 4 of the 10-part documentary series Shame in Medicine: The Lost Forest, takes listeners into the stressful world of medical students taking an exam that has the power to dictate the rest of their lives. Put yourself in the shoes of students wondering if this one test will prevent them from becoming a doctor — or if it will bar them from pursuing their passion for their specialty? Emily gives us some lessons on getting listeners to contribute personal stories — and how her team weaves them together in heart-stopping fashion. 

We also examine the the power of novels to help us deeply understand the harmful consequences of medicine practiced for the wrong reasons, and how art can help us empathize in a way that journalistic accounts of history do not. In "Conversations: Dolen Perkins-Valdez" Emily learns more about the 1973 case of the Relf sisters, who were forcibly sterilized at a Montgomery, Alabama health clinic. We discuss strategies for how to hold intimate, revealing interviews — and when you should break the rules. 

Plus: Emily shares the single most important key to producing sound-rich, highly produced longform audio stories. 

Emily Silverman, MD is an internal medicine physician at UCSF, writer, and creator/host of The Nocturnists, an award-winning medical storytelling organization that has uplifted the voices of 450+ healthcare workers since 2016 through its podcast and sold-out live performances.

The Nocturnists' work has been presented on CBS This Morning and NPR's Morning Edition, and at Pop Up Magazine and South By Southwest (SXSW). In 2020, its "Stories from a Pandemic" documentary podcast series was acquired by the U.S. Library of Congress for historic preservation. The Nocturnists has been honored by the Webby Awards, Anthem Awards, Ambie Awards, and more.

Dr. Silverman's writing has been supported by MacDowell and published in The New York Times, Virginia Quarterly Review, JAMA, CHEST, and McSweeneys. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughter.

Follow the show on Instagram @Thenocturnists
and on Facebook and LinkedIn at The Nocturnists

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

We’re doing something different on this episode. Jodi and I interview each other – and discover some real similarities and big differences between voice acting & hosting. One of the biggest similarities: As hosts and voice actors, we need to communicate emotion authentically. That’s where the joy and the success lies – and where many of the problems do, too. 

Parts 1 and 2 of this conversation with Jodi Krangle are running on Sound Judgment and also on Audio Branding. Thanks to Audio Branding editor Humberto Franco for doing beautiful work in audio and video. 

Follow Audio Branding here.

To learn more about Jodi Krangle and connect with her, visit voiceoversandvocals.com.

To watch shorts from this episode and other Audio Branding episodes, visit Jodi’s Youtube channel, JodiKrangleVO. 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter that will help you make creative choices in audio storytelling. Join subscribers from NPR, PRX, PRPD, Stanford, Spotify and more. 

Share the show! 
Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, your favorite host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our consulting, production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

How to be a great host: Jodi Krangle’s takeaways

1. Sound needs to change as culture changes. 
Remember the old movie trailers with The Voice of God? We don’t hear those much any more, and for a good reason. Younger generations experience sound in a very different way – they want to be shown what’s will be on the movie screen, for instance, not told to. They do not want to be sold to at all. So if we’re not hearing the Voice of God from voice actors any more, we’re also not wanting that newscaster, anchor voice – the Walter Cronkite voice – in journalism and podcasting, either. 

2. Emotional context is what sound does for us.

I was surprised to hear Jodi say, when she’s recording a commercial, for instance – “If I don’t have a movie or play going on in my head, it’s hard for the person listening to understand the emotion that’s coming across.” Storytellers, when you’re using a script, this is key to avoiding sounding like you’re reading. We need to embody what we’re saying. 
 

3. Hosting is strategic. We need to start treating it that way. 
In the advertising industry, directors often make the mistake of tacking on voiceover at the end of a production, rather than thinking about it strategically from the beginning. Many folks in Jodi’s industry mistakenly believe voice acting is just standing at a mic and talking. That’s my pet peeve as well.  We should be thinking about hosting – and creating an intentional sound for our shows – at the beginning of the process, not throwing in a voice at the end. Hosting well is how you engage listeners, and hosting poorly can lose them. 

Tune in next week for Part 2, a bonus episode.  

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Want to work with Elaine Appleton Grant or Podcast Allies? 

Visit the following for information on:
Coaching  and workshops for individuals, public media, nonprofits and universities

Online course

Production

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

This is part 3 of our new Sound Judgment quick-hit series on six storytelling strategies for hooking your audience and keeping them with you. Today, we’re talking about scenes. They’re obviously a staple in longform narrative storytelling, like true crime and documentaries. Don’t ignore them, though, for interview shows; you just have to interview well to elicit good, sensory anecdotes from your guests. Between the lines, you’ll hear how useful they are on the page and the stage as well. As a reminder, all six strategies come from today’s best audio storytellers. But these are storytelling strategies that don’t care what media is yours, so stick around, writers, public speakers, screenwriters and video producers — and of course, podcasters.  With examples featuring Rich Roll, author Charles Duhigg, and Crime Show's Emma Courtland. 

Apply the six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024
By developing skills from story structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

Did you miss Part 1 on Sound Vision? Listen here. 

Be sure to follow Sound Judgment so you don't miss the next bite-sized episodes on: 
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense
Part 6: Specifics

All of these segments — each around 10 minutes or less — will come together soon for a full episode on How to Hook Your Audience and Keep Them Coming Back. 

You won't miss a thing if you sign up for my Sound Judgment newsletter, which includes the popular hands-on segment "Try This in Your Studio," kudos to creators who are lifting up the art and business of audio storytelling, news about the show, and useful resources. 


"Six S" Storytelling Resources

Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 


 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

This is Part 1: Sound Vision. Be sure to follow the show so you don't miss the next bite-sized episodes on: 
Part 2: Structure
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense
Part 6: Specifics

All of these segments — each around 10 minutes or less — will come together soon for a full episode on How to Hook Your Audience and Keep Them Coming Back. 

Apply these six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024
By developing skills from story structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

"Six S" Storytelling Resources

Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 

 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Our fourth S in the 6S framework for hooking your audience and keeping them with you is surprise. It's the left turn when we're expecting a righthand one that makes us listen. It's the twists and turns of an involved, high-stakes plot that we love, or the ending of the movie or the novel that we didn't predict. As New Hampshire Public Radio Senior Podcast Editor Katie Colaneri says, it's the "holy shit" moment. Part 4 features Katie Colaneri, NHPR reporter Sarah Gibson and her This American Life Story, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum," and Kelly Corrigan of the PBS show Tell Me More and the podcast Kelly Corrigan Wonders. 

Apply the six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024
By developing skills from story structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

Did you miss Part 1 on Sound Vision? Listen here. 

Be sure to follow Sound Judgment so you don't miss the next bite-sized episodes on: 
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense
Part 6: Specifics

All of these segments — each around 10 minutes or less — will come together soon for a full episode on How to Hook Your Audience and Keep Them Coming Back. 

You won't miss a thing if you sign up for my Sound Judgment newsletter, which includes the popular hands-on segment "Try This in Your Studio," kudos to creators who are lifting up the art and business of audio storytelling, news about the show, and useful resources. 


"Six S" Storytelling Resources

Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 
 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

This is the sixth and final part of our new Sound Judgment quick-hit series on storytelling strategies for hooking your audience and keeping them with you. Today: specifics. The more specific our language, the more sparkling and memorable it is. In the last 18 months of speaking with incredible storytellers for this podcast, no one has been better at this than Sam Mullins. 

In 2023, Sam won the the Best Podcast of the Year award at the Ambies,  The Podcast Academy's attempt to rival the Oscars. He won it for his documentary series Chameleon: Wild Boys, from Campside Media. 

Learn how Sam's background as a comedy writer informs his approach to writing, and especially to choosing the extraordinarily specific ways he approaches building characters and enticing audiences to enter his world. 

Apply the six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024

By developing skills from story structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

Reading these show notes too late to catch this Hook Your Audience workshop? Check out our other trainings on guesting and curating guests, interviewing, and more, at www.podcastallies.com/workshops. 

Did you miss the rest of the series?  Be sure to follow Sound Judgment and check out the other other five bite-sized episodes: 
Part 1: Sound Vision 
Part 2: Structure
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense

All of these segments — each around 10 minutes or less — will come together soon for a full episode on How to Hook Your Audience and Keep Them Coming Back. 

You won't miss a thing if you sign up for my Sound Judgment newsletter, which includes the popular hands-on segment "Try This in Your Studio," kudos to creators who are lifting up the art and business of audio storytelling, news about the show, and useful resources for content creators of all kinds. 

"Six S" Storytelling Resources

Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show. 

Enter the Sound Judgment Listener Name Contest! 
On Standing Ovation, Jay calls his listeners “clappers.” Glynn Washington of Snap Judgment calls his listeners “snappers.” What Should I Read Next? host Anne Bogel talks to her “readers.” What should we call you? 

Enter our contest, inspired by Jay Baer. Here’s how it works: 
Submit your ideas (as many as you would like) here.

Deadline: Saturday, February 4. 

Prize: We’ll choose the best, most fun name from the entries. Jay Baer,  the second most popular tequila influencer in the world, will send the winner a bottle of tequila from his personal stash. 
We’ll also promote you in our newsletter, on an episode of Sound Judgment, in our show notes and on our social channels. Don’t wait! 

Jay Baer 
Hall of Fame keynote speaker Jay Baer has lost count of the number of podcasts he has produced and hosted. He is also a New York Times bestselling author of six books and founder of five multi-million dollar companies. Filled with real-world case studies, Jay’s programs teach companies how to turn customer experience, customer service, and marketing into their biggest business growth advantage. Jay has advised Caterpillar, Nike, IBM, Allstate, The United Nations, and 32 of the FORTUNE 500. He is the founder of Convince & Convert, a strategy consulting firm that owns the world’s #1 content marketing blog and the world’s top marketing podcast. He is also a tequila sommelier and the second most popular tequila influencer in the world.
Connect with Jay at Jaybaer.com and thebaerfacts.com.

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

Standing Ovation, David Horsager
A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no podcast host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to every podcast producer whenever it’s possible to do so. Jay both produces and hosts Standing Ovation on his own. 
 

Connect 
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Elaine welcomes genuine connections on LinkedIn.

Visit Podcast Allies to learn about our individual and team training; podcast development consulting; podcast production services; podcast host coaching; and podcast producer coaching. 

Speaking: To hire Elaine to speak at your event, email allies@podcastallies.com.

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Share your Sound Judgment dream guest with us. Who’s your favorite podcast host? Drop us an email at allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Say Thank You

Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
On the show page on your phone, scroll to the bottom of the episodes. Click on the stars to rate; click on “Write a Review” to tell us what you think! 

Takeaways from this episode
1. Your story could be worth millions of dollars. Why aren’t you analyzing what makes it good? 
Like the typical podcast host, the typical speaker—no matter how successful— doesn’t know why their material is good. They’re just operating on instinct. Which also means you don’t know how to improve your work. 

As Jay said, a good keynote speaker tells the same story many, many different times a year, often for several years. As he says, that means their “signature story” could be worth millions and millions of dollars. He’s dumbfounded by the lack of insight most speakers have about these extraordinarily valuable stories. “To not know how or why it’s good, or how it’s gotten better over time, is amazing,” he says.

That’s one reason he started Standing Ovation and a big reason why I started Sound Judgment and am on a quest to identify the universal skills of hostiness. While you’re not likely to make millions directly from your podcast, if you use it as the linchpin of your business or your social impact organization, you could count its value in the millions. That’s just one of many superb reasons to keep learning. Dissect your own episodes, on your own or with a guide. Also, deconstruct podcasts you love. You’ll learn a ton and your work will become far more valuable in the process.  

2. Bob Ross had it right. Remember the painting instructor on PBS? Millions of people watched his show, because he instructed while he painted pictures – and made the process understandable through example. Jay Baer loves what I call “living case studies” because they do what Bob Ross did – they entertain while they inform. Everybody tuning into a show like Standing Ovation, or Bob Ross, envisions themselves practicing the craft themselves. It’s vicarious, which is fun, and inspiring. And, as Jay says, if you’re asking someone to invest their very precious time listening to your show, “you darn well better both entertain them and improve them in some way.” That’s especially true for business, personal development, and educational shows of all kinds. 

3. When and why should you tell a personal story, if your podcast isn’t personal? Say you run a podcast for small business owners, fitness enthusiasts, or fly fishermen? There are two tests: Is it relevant to your ideal listener? Can you tie a lesson back to the topic at hand? Two, does it elicit an emotion? As Jay said, if you barrage listeners with one piece of data after another, they won’t remember it. But they will remember how you make them feel, as Maya Angelou so famously said. 

4. Name your listeners! It’s a great way to create a community. When we’re identified by a name we feel good about, we feel like we’ve made it into a special club. It’s a metaphorical shirt we can put on.  Glynn Washington calls Snap Judgment listeners Snappers; Jay calls his Standing Ovation listeners Clappers.

What should I call you? What metaphorical shirt do you want to wear?

We are running a contest, inspired by Jay. Whomever comes up with the best, most fun name for yourself and your fellow listeners will get a bottle of tequila from Jay’s personal stash. That’s really cool, because in addition to being a marketing guru, Jay is the second most popular tequila influencer in the world.

Here's the link again to enter. 

Submit your ideas now. The deadline is Saturday, February 4, 2023. Winners will get a shoutout in our newsletter, on the podcast and in our social channels. 

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Design and Audio Editing: Andrew Parella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Near Death: Death Party. Near Death is a Dying For Media production with sales and distribution by Lemonada Media.

Nikki Boyer's takeaways

These are the takeaways from the end of the episode. For more takeaways from all of our guests, subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter and visit our blog. 
 

1. Nikki loves having uncomfortable conversations. She’ll ask almost anything, and she’ll share herself in order to create a welcoming, inviting environment. The result: healing conversations about the things that matter most. 
2. It takes a lot of character to admit to the obstacles that stand in our way of doing our best, most honest work. For Nikki, the obstacle was her mindset: Before podcasting, she was an actress, a voice-over artist, and a TV personality. And, she says, she  was always seeking attention. Creating Dying for Sex changed all that. Now, she says, “I have this person’s story to tell and I can’t wait to share it with you.” She’s no longer chasing the spotlight, but giving a gift. 
3. One thing Nikki has learned from doing podcasts about death? A lot of people wait to give themselves permission to do the thing they really want to be doing. And in the end, they regret having put it off. If there’s a project you’ve been putting off, don’t wait any longer. Give yourself permission and jump in.

Near Death: Credits
Nikki Boyer: Dying for Media CEO and cofounder and host, Near Death

Kevin Sabbe: Dying For Media cofounder and executive producer, Near Death

Reverend Peggy: cohost and executive producer

Katie Amanda Keane: producer/writer

Tommy Fields: head of audio

Nikki Boyer

Nikki Boyer is the founder and CEO of Dying For Media and a three-time Emmy® award-winning TV host, producer, actress and podcaster. She created, hosted, and is executive producer of the breakout Wondery podcast, “Dying for Sex,” which won the 2021 Ambie Award for Podcast of the Year — and was named one of Apple’s favorite podcasts of 2020.

In the midst of the global pandemic, Nikki hosted nearly 200 episodes of Wondery’s “The Daily Smile,” a podcast about good news, and recently launched “Call Me Curious” via Wondery+, a lighthearted investigative series that delves into offbeat topics. Nikki cohosts the popular weekly podcast, “Straight Talk with Ross Mathews,” which recently recorded its 400th episode. 

Nikki cohosted the 2021 Ambie Awards show and was a regular guest contributor to The Wendy Williams Show for over eight seasons. She has appeared on virtually every major television talk show, most recently as a guest on The Drew Barrymore Show, supporting the launch of “Call Me Curious.” Along with Kevin Sabbe, she co-created and was co-executive producer of Step Girlfriends, a television concept based on her real life, optioned by CBS Studios. 

Nikki made her mark hosting Yahoo!’s ultra-popular Daytime in No Time, where she was the most watched host on the internet during the series' five-year run. 

Follow Nikki Boyer: 

www.dyingformedia.com

www.nikkiboyer.com

Instagram: @nikkiboyer 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-boyer-6873b847/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsnikkiboyer

If you liked this episode, you’ll love: 

Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 10: How to Tell the Truth: The Art of Memoir with Dana Black

Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 2: Standing Ovation Host Jay Baer: How to Craft a Million-Dollar Story

Sound Judgment Season 1/Episode 8: How Top Hosts Hook Listeners in 60 Seconds or Less

We need your support! Please give Sound Judgment a five-star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. We’re grateful.

The Sound Judgment team is: 
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir

Cover art by Sarah Edgell
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC

Contact Us
To contact us with questions, collaborations, media interviews, speaking engagements, or sponsorships, write to us at allies@podcastallies.com. We encourage your voice memos! Click the microphone icon at soundjudgmentpodcast.com. 

To follow Elaine Appleton Grant and the show: 
Subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling
Sound Judgment website
Elaine's LinkedIn

Elaine's Facebook

Sound Judgment Instagram
http://podcastallies.com  Podcast Allies is a boutique production and consulting company making magical podcasts for NGOs and nonprofits, higher ed, and media organizations. 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

At some point, every one of us will reach a point in our professional lives where it's time to change — but the status quo, even when it's not working, is comfortable. Are you ready to say goodbye to your old life in order to find your way to a new, better one? But you don't have a map?  That's what Daily Creative host Todd Henry and his "story architect" producer Josh Gott wrestle with in the episode we deconstruct together, "The Curious Death of Todd Henry." You won't be the same after you listen to this episode — a play in seven acts. 

Follow Sound Judgment on your favorite podcast app, or subscribe to our channel @SoundJudgmentPod
on Youtube. 

Listen to the full  episode deconstructed on today's show: Daily Creative: The Curious Death of Todd Henry

Follow Daily Creative

Join Us for New Sound Judgment Workshops!

Improve your storytelling, interviewing, writing, producing, hosting and guesting skills! Sign up for new Sound Judgment workshops today at www.podcastallies.com/workshops. 

April 5, 2024: Mastering the Art of the Interview. Interviews are the foundation of all good storytelling, but we don’t get much instruction on the art and science of them. In this workshop, you'll get ten proven, transformative strategies that you can apply to your own work right away. 

April 11,2024: Success in Guesting: Be a Great Guest, Get a Great Guest
Learn  how to curate great guests and what it takes to be a phenomenal guest yourself. Learn how NPR producers curate and book guests – and how you can set yourself up for success no matter whether you're making a show — or seeking to be a guest yourself.  

Todd Henry
Positioning himself as an “arms dealer for the creative revolution,” Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of seven books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, Herding Tigers, The Motivation Code, Daily Creative, and The Brave Habit) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work.

He began podcasting in 2005, founding The Accidental Creative. Before transforming it into Daily Creative, The Accidental Creative had been published continuously for 18 years and been downloaded 18 million times. Both podcasts help audiences become brave, focused, and brilliant. 

Joshua Gott
Joshua Gott is a messaging strategist and creative director helping companies simplify their brand message so they can tell a better story.  He's worked with organizations like P&G, Anthem, Nestle, Dropbox, Workday, Trip Advisor, ESPN and many others to make sense out of nonsense.  His approach to crafting clear messaging is encapsulated in the Story Square®, a framework he developed based on many years of finding creative ways to explain complicated ideas.  When he isn't playing pickleball or coaching girls volleyball he's telling stories with Todd Henry on the Daily Creative podcast. 

Connect with Todd
Website: www.toddhenry.com
Instagram and Twitter/X: toddhenry
LinkedIn: toddhenry1
Facebook: toddhenry.ac

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Sound Judgment is about the craft of audio storytelling. Not about the marketing of podcasts. But today, we're bringing you a gift from someone I trust completely when it comes to audience growth: Jeremy Enns of Podcast Marketing Academy, and his co-host, Justin Jackson, cofounder of Transistor.fm. They've teamed up to produce Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, a limited series that extracts proven audience growth techniques from Enns' comprehensive annual survey of podcasters about their marketing methods. 

In this episode, you'll learn: 

— Whether the famed "podcast discoverability problem" actually exists
— The three types of marketing channels at your disposal & what the data shows about their effectiveness
— Whether or not it's worth it (and when) to pay for ads
— How to pick the right marketing channel for you
— Why "owned media" is the low-hanging fruit for many creators
— What most podcasters get wrong about growth through collaborations, and
— How to kickstart word-of-mouth growth. (P.S.: Word-of-mouth growth is my favorite kind of growth, and IMHO, the best kind!) 

About Jeremy Enns
About Justin Jackson
Can't get enough of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained? Follow it now. 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

It's a brave thing to share the outtakes from a tracking session. All the blemishes are right there. But Martine Powers and Rennie Svirnovsky from the audio team at The Washington Post have graciously done just that. They invited  Sound School's Rob Rosenthal into their studio to witness Martine at work voicing an episode of The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop, with assistance from Rennie. Hearing how they work as tracking partners is a real gift for anyone who wants to perform better in the mic booth.

Today on Sound Judgment, we’re excited to share this instructive, hilarious episode of Sound School.  If you’ve spent much time behind a mic yourself, you know that tracking an episode – that is, narrating it – takes time, coaching, practice, a good ear, humility, a good sense of humor— and a great producer.

*Update! Martine Powers won the 2024 Ambie Award for Best Host  at The Podcast Academy's the fourth annual awards for excellence in audio.

You will be a better narrator and a better in-studio producer after listening to this episode. 

Sound School is produced by Rob Rosenthal for PRX and Transom.

Join Us for New Sound Judgment Workshops!

Improve your storytelling, interviewing, writing, producing, hosting and guesting skills! Sign up for new Sound Judgment workshops today at www.podcastallies.com/workshops. 

April 5, 2024: Mastering the Art of the Interview. Interviews are the foundation of all good storytelling, but we don’t get much instruction on the art and science of them. In this workshop, you'll get ten proven, transformative strategies that you can apply to your own work right away. 

April 11,2024: Success in Guesting: Be a Great Guest, Get a Great Guest
Learn  how to curate great guests and what it takes to be a phenomenal guest yourself. Learn how NPR producers curate and book guests – and how you can set yourself up for success no matter whether you're making a show — or seeking to be a guest yourself.  

***

Sound School (formerly HowSound) is a bi-weekly podcast on audio storytelling produced by Rob Rosenthal for PRX and Transom. Listen to more episodes and follow the show at https://transom.org/topics/soundschool/

The episode featured on Sound Judgment: https://transom.org/2024/tracking-partners/

About Rob Rosenthal

Rob Rosenthal is a freelance story editor, podcast producer/reporter, and a teacher. Longform, documentary podcasts are his sweet spot. He offers workshops for podcast companies and public radio stations. He hosts the Sound School Podcast, a joint project of PRX and Transom, on audio storytelling. 

Rob has been interviewing reporters, producers, editors and artists about the craft of audio storytelling since he began making his show in 2008 under the name How Sound. Rob says he still learns something every time he interviews someone.

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.

Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show.

Pabel Martinez is a native New Yorker, storyteller, and former tech executive. 

Throughout his career, Pabel struggled balancing two jobs…tech employee and actor.  As an actor, he would focus on assimilation because he was trained to believe that many parts of his identity were unprofessional. Pabel would dedicate days out of the week to study “white popular American culture” and memorize scripts he would later use for work conversations. He knew that talking about Bad Bunny and shows like Insecure would not make him relatable. Instead, he would binge-watch seasons of Riverdale since it would help him build relationships with colleagues and senior leaders. The assimilation became overwhelming, and it was at the expense of his identity & mental health. As a result, Pabel's mission in life became redefining professionalism by empowering authenticity. In 2020, he launched his company, Plurawl, to bring this mission to life.

Pabel's Takeaways

1. Interrupting is often helpful and we need to learn how to do it deftly. Interrupting is cultural – it’s governed by what we consider polite, which is different everywhere. My husband, from Ohio where everyone is awfully nice, used to be horrified by what I see as my enthusiasm, which means I interrupt far more often than he does. I grew up in Boston and, later, New York. 
   
   The skill of interrupting may seem pretty small, inconsequential, even, but it’s not – it’s about being a host who can create a good flow to a conversation, and stay in control of it so you can serve your listeners. 
    
2. Is there an injustice you see, one that isn’t being addressed? You can use a podcast to fill that need, both by having the courage to share your own difficult story, and by encouraging guests to share their untold stories on your show. Representation matters. We know this, but Pabel is showing it. Listeners tell Pabel that because of quien tu eres, they no longer feel alone. And that gives them strength to make changes they didn’t have the courage to do before.
   
   That response says a lot about the connection a host on a mission can create with their audience. Could you help your audience know they’re not alone? 
    
3. While I believe there are universal qualities and skills to hostiness – I’m on that quest to uncover them – I also believe there is no single definition of a “great” or “best” host. Because, like my mother used to always say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That said, we can certainly know when a host is beloved. Not everyone will love you. But your ideal audience will, if: you understand who you’re talking to. 
   
   Are you serving that person? Do you know what they need to hear, and are you willing to go there? Pabel admitted that it’s hard for him to share episodes like the one he did about his salary, and the one he did about quitting his job at TikTok – but that they were among the most popular of all of his episodes. So get to know your ideal listeners very well. Care for them. Let your work speak to them. And, depending on your goals, speak out FOR them.
4. Who we are as a human has everything to with who we are on the mic. 
   And what I realized is that who we are as human beings has everything to do with who we are on the mic. 
   If we are courageous, it shows. 
   If we know who our listeners are and love them, it shows. 
   If we are ashamed of something in our lives and that holds us back from expressing our full selves as hosts, it shows. 
   If we are making our podcast (or giving our speech or writing our story) solely to support our business and make money – purely for our own ends – it shows. 
   It doesn’t matter if we’re actually sharing personal stories or not: listeners hear and respond to our character in our voices, regardless of the format.
   So Pabel’s question — ¿Quién Tú Eres? — applies to all of us.
   Before you turn on the mic, spend some time with his question.  
   Who are you? 

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Help us on our quest to uncover the universal skills and qualities of hostiness! 
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information…

on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

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✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

This is part 5 of our new Sound Judgment quick-hit series on six storytelling strategies for hooking your audience and keeping them with you. This one can mean the difference between ho-hum content and stories that your audiences will talk about. And I’m betting that you give it hardly any thought, if you think about it at all. What is it? Stick around to find out.  Part 5 features Michael Osborne and Amit Kapoor of the podcast Famous & Gravy, New Hampshire Public Radio senior podcast editor Katie Colaneri, and Sarah Gibson, a New Hampshire Public Radio reporter who produced the segment "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum" for This American Life. 

Apply the six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024
By developing skills from story structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

Did you miss Part 1 on Sound Vision? Listen here. 

Be sure to follow Sound Judgment so you don't miss the next bite-sized episodes on: 
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense
Part 6: Specifics

All of these segments — each around 10 minutes or less — will come together soon for a full episode on How to Hook Your Audience and Keep Them Coming Back. 

You won't miss a thing if you sign up for my Sound Judgment newsletter, which includes the popular hands-on segment "Try This in Your Studio," kudos to creators who are lifting up the art and business of audio storytelling, news about the show, and useful resources. 

"Six S" Storytelling Resources

Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 
 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

In 2020, New Hampshire Public Radio Lauren Chooljian received an email about Eric Spofford, the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network. In it was an allegation that Spofford was sexually abusing female clients and employees. Chooljian set out to learn whether this could be true. Over the next three years, she would go on a journey to learn the truth, not just about this allegation, but about widespread sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry. The result of that journey is The 13th Step, a gripping series that  won a slew of awards, including the duPont, sometimes considered the Pulitzer of broadcasting. 

This is Part 1 of a two-part episode that goes behind-the-scenes of The 13th Step. Along the way, Chooljian, her family, and her news director become targets of retaliation. What started as a reporting task would also become  about another thing: Freedom of the press. And how, why, and for whom to persist with a story in the face of unnerving threats. 

You'll learn how to pursue a tough investigation; how to frame a complex series with many characters and themes; and how to craft  a true, deeply relevant story that serves the public good. And you'll learn what this arduous journey required of everyone involved. 

This episode explores sensitive subjects including addiction and sexual assault. Please listen with care. 

Follow Sound Judgment on your favorite podcast app, or subscribe to our channel @SoundJudgmentPod
on Youtube. 

For more takeaways from this episode on crafting an investigative series and why accountability journalism is so important, visit Current. 

Listen to the series deconstructed on today's show: The 13th Step. 

Starting your own podcast?  Be strategic with our Sound Judgment Show Bible Workbook. 

Want to learn more about how NHPR's Document Team greenlights projects like The 13th Step to begin with? Listen to  "How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life story." 

More about The 13th Step

Read about the team
Check out  the supporting legal documents

Resources on addiction treatment, substance use disorder, sexual misconduct, and more

Follow Lauren Chooljian
LinkedIn
Twitter/X:  @laurenchooljian

Follow Alison MacAdam
LinkedIn
Threads:  @ajmacadam

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

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✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

One day in the summer of 2022, Lemonada Media’s Stephanie Wittels Wachs received a surprise: an invitation to the White House to witness the signing of a gun safety bill. The invitation was sparked by the tremendous emotional impact of their hit show, Last Day, and especially of this episode, "A Love Story." If you strive to make audio documentaries on the toughest problems we face today, this behind-the-scenes conversation is your road map. 

Scroll down for several actionable takeaways from this episode. 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs is a longtime actor, voice-over artist, theater teacher, author and the co-founder, with Jessica Cordova Cramer, of Lemonada Media. Last Day is only one of Lemonada’s 30-plus podcasts, including chart-topping Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Lemonada Media's tag line matches Stephanie’s personality: Humanity. Unfiltered. 

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers. We strive to give credit to producers – the true behind-the-scenes talent – whenever it’s possible to do so. 

The episode: A Love Story

Executive Producers: Jessica Cordova Cramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Supervising Producer: Jackie Danziger

Producers: Kagan Zema and Giulia Hjort

Associate Producers: Hannah Boomershine and Erianna Jiles 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter.  Improve your craft! Read our free, twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in podcasting and radio. Join subscribers from PRX, AIR (Association for Independents in Radio), Hindenburg, PRPD (Public Radio Program Directors Association), Pacific Content, NPR affiliates, and more.  

Help us grow: Please share this episode with a fellow creator. 

Stay in touch!
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Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Work with us! Looking for a production company that understands audiences and puts storytelling first? Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

How to tell sensitive, impactful stories: Stephanie’s takeaways

1. Be curious. Frame your story around a central question.
   “I'm a central question psychopath… I'm always saying, okay, but what's the question? What are we trying to figure out? What's the point? That's really critical to any storytelling, but I think it [emerges] over time. And it's so baked into the process of revision and collaboration. And you know when you’ve found it… If the episode isn't working, it's typically because you haven't nailed down what that central question is.”
    
2. To be vulnerable on tape, you need at least one partner who encourages vulnerability. Stephanie relies on her team of skilled and sensitive producers.
   “I am used to collaborating very deeply and closely and trusting one another through that process. I don't know how I would do this with a team I didn't trust and feel safe with. The show is a real team sport.” 
    
3. To help a host be authentic in front of a mic, give them permission to have feelings.
   “Gloria Rivera [host of No One’s Coming to Save Us and a veteran news broadcaster] was doing tracking…using her broadcast voice. And I was like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, that microphone hates that. Let's shake that off. We're gonna play this tape. Can you just listen to this woman talking about how hard it is for her to juggle a newborn with a toddler with her own job? And I know you've experienced some of that yourself. And can you just close your eyes and then respond to it, just however you feel. And Gloria…she's so full of heart and soul and vulnerability herself. Once she had that permission, she started crying. And she started talking about her own experience having to go to war zones with little kids at home, and how painful that was for her to have to balance. And we kept that as the first moment of the first episode.”
    
4. Have fun making the show. It shows. 
   “We have fun making the show, and that feels important, because it’s real dark.” (Elaine’s note: If you’re not having fun, it might be time to reevaluate how you’re creating it, what you’re creating, and whether to continue.) 
    
5. Great storytelling is built on truth, contrast, and unexpected turns — or why Stephanie led an episode about suicide with a scene of her team whooping it up at a shooting range. 
   “I had never understood how hunting could bring somebody joy until I shot a gun that morning. I had a ton of fun. Seven hours later, we were in a living room talking to a family who lost their son. Because he took his life with a hunting rifle. I didn't know how else to tell that story honestly… And I always [pleading with my team] ‘show not tell, show not tell!’ And the way that we showed it was to have fun shooting the guns. And then let's see the pain that this causes. You have to have both of those to understand the issue.” 
    
6. To make a gripping narrative podcast, use scenes, as often as possible (but only good ones).
   “This is the theater part, right? It's about character and it's about humanity and that's the stuff we try to capture, right? What are the human things about you? And what are the human things about me? And then when we put those things in a room together, human things happen. And that's interesting.”
    
7. Make choices about the quantity of your narration on a case-by-case basis. 
   “We typically have a lot of tracking in these episodes. And we made a very conscious choice with this one to keep a lot of the conversation intact. They were so honest, and we had this really amazing moment together.  And let's just try to keep a lot of that together. And take me as narrator out as much as we could…A lot of our episodes are seven voices…really woven together and patchworked.”  
    
8. Find a champion. 
   How do you find people willing to share deeply personal stories? You need what Stephanie calls a “credible messenger,” someone trusted in a community, to show you the ropes and introduce you to people. 
   “We had a lot of trouble tracking down people to talk to us in Montana. To be honest, it took many, many months. We started with this guy named Carl…who heads up mental health for the Department of Health and Human Services in Montana… In our very first call…Carl said you're gonna have to fix your poker face before you come into Montana or no one's going to talk to you. And we kept that in. We wanted to show everyone there's barrier to entry. And if we came in with [the stance that] you shouldn't have guns, we would not get anywhere. So he culturally put us through the wringer. Once he could see that we were down to not come in and tell everyone the way that they should live their lives, he opened the gate, and connected us to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Montana.”
   
   Credits 
   Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 
   Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
   Project Manager: Tina Bassir
   Sound Designer: Andrew Parella
   Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Death, Sex & Money_—Bells & Bills: The Price You Paid for Your Wedding.

We also discuss Death, Sex & Money — A Headline Stays Static Even as a Life Transforms.

Anna Sale is the creator and host of Death, Sex & Money, the podcast about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” Anna won a Gracie for best podcast host in 2016 and the show won the 2018 Webby and 2021 Ambie for best interview show.  (Jan 2024 update: Slate acquires Death, Sex & Money from WNYC Studios)

Before launching Death, Sex & Money in 2014, Anna covered politics for nearly a decade. She is the author of the book Let's Talk About Hard Things, which The New Yorker wrote "shows us how supportive listening happens." She grew up in West Virginia and now lives in Berkeley, Calif. with her husband and two daughters.

Death, Sex & Money Credits
Host: Anna Sale 
Executive Producer: Liliana Maria Percy Ruiz
Producer: Zoe Azulay
Producer: Amy Pearl
Mix Engineer/Producer: Andrew Dunn

Follow Death, Sex & Money:
@deathsexmoney on Instagram

Subscribe to the DS&M weekly newsletter at deathsexmoney.org/newsletter for listener emails, recommendations from the team and a short essay from Anna Sale.

If you liked my conversation with Anna Sale, you’ll love:
Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 10: How to tell the truth: The art of memoir with Dana Black
and
Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 9: Best of: Emotional Bravery with Last Day’s Stephanie Wittels Wachs  

If you want to support Sound Judgment, please visit our website to easily leave us a 5-star rating and a review that’ll go to Apple or Spotify instantly. We’re grateful.

The Sound Judgment team is:
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir
Cover art by Sarah Edgell
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC, a boutique production and consulting company making magical podcasts for NGOs and nonprofits, higher ed, and media organizations. 

Contact Us
To contact us with questions,  collaborations, media inquiries, speaking engagements, or sponsorships, write to us at allies@podcastallies.com. We encourage listener voice memos! Click the microphone icon at soundjudgmentpodcast.com.

To follow Elaine Appleton Grant and the show:
Subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling
Sound Judgment website
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Sound Judgment Instagram
http://podcastallies.com  Podcast Allies is 

Anna Sale’s takeaways
These are the takeaways from the end of the episode. For more takeaways from all of our guests, subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter and visit our blog.

1. Anna and her team hold two conflicting realities in their heads all the time: The show exists to talk about the things we normally keep private. But podcasts exist online, for all the world to consume and Google to find. So be clear about your show’s values. Practice journalistic ethics, and also the specific principles around how you want to treat your guests. Know that you will deal with these kinds of human conflicts every day.
2. How do you prep a guest? Before an interview, Anna shares how they plan to edit and use the interview. If a guest requests anonymity, she may grant it in order to protect them and their longterm digital record.
3. Fact-checking is always important, especially these days. But if you allow anonymity, it becomes even more critical.
4. Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this conversation is that Death, Sex and Money is one big, warm place, where listeners are invited in and welcomed. Anna is proud that she and her team make listeners feel accompanied, wherever they take them.
5. Finally, your guests expect hard questions. Don’t wimp out.

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

If you like this episode, you’ll also like Episode 3: 
Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show’s Emma Courtland

and Episode 1: Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs. 

Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show. 
 

About the creators
Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker are the team behind Bone Valley, a groundbreaking, 9-episode true crime podcast from Lava For Good. The series explores the case of Leo Schofield, a man convicted of murder in a gross miscarriage of justice. King, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove, and Decker, a producer with a background in sociology and oral history, came together in a four-year quest to peel back the layers of Schofield’s case, uncovering startling new evidence and chilling confessions that are a call to action for long-awaited justice and redemption.

Takeaways from Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

1. Does your idea need to be told in audio? Bone Valley did.  
As storytellers, we have many formats to choose from. So how do you know when your idea is well-suited to audio, versus a book, a film, or a video? As an author, King’s first instinct was to write a longform article about Leo Schofield’s case. But as soon as he and Decker talked with Leo, they realized that the story begged for audio. “The power of their voices made us pivot,” King says. “I don't think they would have been the same in print. I love the way their voices break and crackle and emote.”

2. Start with a sound vision
Second, you may have noticed that King and Decker had a pretty clear “sound vision” for Bone Valley. I always remember producer John Barth saying, in episode 2, “You have to have a distinctive sound vision.” When he develops a new show, he imagines the kind of listener he wants to attract. That determines what the show needs to sound like. In Bone Valley, the two producers made sure to simply lay out fact after fact, so the listener couldn’t escape the conclusion or emotion. They used both sound design and language to create a work of narrative nonfiction and made sure not to sensationalize or cheapen the story. Furthermore, Decker could hear how the narration should sound in her head. She and other  producers directed King to voice the narration to match that sound. And sound designer Britt Spangler attended story conferences – and helped shape the scripts from the start.

3. Podcasts are a team sport
Gilbert King won a Pulitzer for his book Devil in the Grove. So you might imagine he had nothing else to learn as a writer. But he’d never done a podcast before. His early drafts were written for the page, with too much narration, and quotes, which don’t work in audio. When he and Decker hooked up with the production company Lava for Good, he learned from their producers how to write for the ear. 

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter

Want more of this kind of audio storytelling analysis? Sign up for our Sound Judgment newsletter and join subscribers from NPR, PRX, PRPD, Stanford, Spotify and more. 

Connect with Gilbert King

On his website
On Facebook

On Twitter

Connect with Kelsey Decker

On Twitter

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

Bone Valley, Episode 5: Bam Bam
A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no podcast host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to every podcast producer whenever it’s possible to do so. 

Bone Valley’s team is: 

Executive Producer Kevin Wortis

Producers Kara Kornhaber and Britt Spangler

Sound designer Britt Spangler

Story editor Ruxandra Guidi

Bone Valley is produced by Lava for Good. 

Connect with Sound Judgment

Elaine welcomes genuine connections on LinkedIn.

Visit Podcast Allies to learn about our individual and team training; podcast development consulting; podcast production services; podcast host coaching; and podcast producer coaching. 

Speaking: To hire Elaine to speak at your event, email allies@podcastallies.com.

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Share your Sound Judgment dream guest with us. Who’s your favorite podcast host? Drop us an email at allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Say Thank You
Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
On the show page on your phone, scroll to the bottom of the episodes. Click on the stars to rate; click on “Write a Review” to tell us what you think! 

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Design and Audio Editing: Andrew Parrella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

On May 6, 2024, The 13th Step team was honored with a Pulitzer Prize nomination for audio reporting "for their gripping and extensively reported investigation of corruption and sexual abuse within the lucrative recovery industry that sought accountability despite legal pressure.”

Today, we go behind the scenes, once again, with New Hampshire Public Radio Reporter Lauren Chooljian and Story Editor Alison MacAdam to learn their techniques for ensuring journalistic accuracy and fairness as they faced attempts at intimidation. And this close team learned how to create a "trauma-informed workplace" -- and how emotional support techniques helped them to keep going.  

This is Part 2 of "Behind the blockbuster investigative series The 13th Step: The best defense is the truth." 

Listen to Part 1
How to Find the Truth: Behind the Blockbuster Investigative Series The 13th Step

Takeaways from today's episode include: 

1. In today's journalistic and political environment, the best defense is the truth. That means using every reporting strategy you can to make sure all of your reporting is factual, precise, backed up with evidence and well organized.

2.  Corroborate, corroborate, corroborate. In your story or series, explain that you corroborated your facts and how you did.

3. Transparency is key. Paint thorough, fair portraits of your subjects. Human beings are complex and contradictory. This tension makes for fascinating stories and builds credibility.

4. Newsroom or network leadership needs to be as committed to your journalism as you are. Depending on the circumstances, they may need to pay legal fees, tap insurance and even fund security.

5. Chooljian had two huge reasons to continue reporting, even after she, her family, and her newsroom were targeted in a rash of criminal threats.  The first: Her sources had bravely stepped forward to share their stories with her. Doing so put them at risk — as she says, a risk they took without the kinds of organizational, financial and legal resources available to her. Second: Backing down would have sent a signal to others that retaliation works. That's unacceptable.

###

Follow Sound Judgment on your favorite podcast app or subscribe to our channel @SoundJudgmentPod
on Youtube. 

For more takeaways from this episode on crafting an investigative series and why accountability journalism is so important, visit Current. 

Listen to the series deconstructed on today's show: The 13th Step. 

Starting your own podcast?  Be strategic with our Sound Judgment Show Bible Workbook. 

Want to learn more about how NHPR's Document Team greenlights projects like The 13th Step to begin with? Listen to  "How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life story." 

More about The 13th Step

Read about the team
Check out  the supporting legal documents

Resources on addiction treatment, substance use disorder, sexual misconduct, and more

Follow Lauren Chooljian
LinkedIn
Twitter/X:  @laurenchooljian

Follow Alison MacAdam
LinkedIn
Threads:  @ajmacadam

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Scroll down for takeaways about co-hosting well from Sarah and Beth

About the guests: Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers host the popular podcast Pantsuit Politics, which was named one of 2021’s best shows by Apple Podcasts and has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Good Morning America 3, The Guardian, Elle Magazine, and Parents Magazine. They are also the authors of Now What? How to Move Forward When We’re Divided (About Basically Everything) (2022) and  I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversation (2019), which was featured on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Sarah and Beth met in college before going their separate ways for law school. Sarah pursued a career in politics as a congressional staffer and campaign aide and Beth practiced law before serving as a human resources executive. Sarah lives in Paducah, KY, with her spouse, Nicholas, and children Griffin, Amos, and Felix. Beth lives in Union, KY, with her spouse, Chad, and children Jane and Ellen. Sarah’s dog, Cookie, and Beth’s dog, Lucy, are beloved (and involuntary) contributors to their work.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

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How to be a great podcast co-host: Takeaways from Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers

1. Respond from a place of humanity.
     As co-hosts of a news and politics show, Sarah and Beth are driven by what’s happening in the world. 
     “A lot of the news media and a lot of the political podcasters are in that same reactive posture. We just try to take a very different approach. We try to react from a place of humanity, instead of a place of expertise; a place of lived experience, instead of a place of … ‘decided-upon’ perspective. We really just try to show up as our whole selves.” 

2. Don’t try to be a brand. Be yourself. 
     “We are here to be Sarah and Beth. And so our honest reactions after the [2016] election, I hope are the kinds of honest reflections that you get anytime you listen to our show.”

3. Take your listeners on your journey, no matter where it takes you. 
     Accepting and being transparent about her own evolution was particularly important for Beth. In 2015, when they launched Pantsuit Politics, their premise was that although they came from opposite sides of the political spectrum — Beth was a Republican, Sarah a Democrat — they could hold nuanced, “grace-filled conversations.” That changed after the 2016 election, Beth says — a change that easily could have threatened the show.
     “Trump was the beginning of the end for me as anything that someone in 2022 would identify as conservative,” Beth says. “And I've tried to be really honest with our audience about that. We didn’t get stuck in a brand.” Instead, the podcast evolved as they evolved. 
     “What we're doing is changing all the time,” Sarah says. “That's what’s so life-giving about it. That's why we like to do it. That's why I think our audience is so invested. The work at Pantsuit Politics — it's an invitation to just take a journey with us.”

4. Their secret to producing Pantsuit Politics for more than seven years
     “We know that we can continue to do this at the rate that we do because it's always met a need for us. And it continues to meet the need… We really wanted to sit down and have this conversation that we weren't hearing somewhere else.... And when it stops feeling like that, we check in with each other and say, 'Do we need to take a break? Do we need to shift the topics?' If we started down a path, we [may] need to ditch that path because we want to come back to meeting this need that we have.
     “And so that's our guiding light: If it doesn't feel helpful to us as individuals, it’s not going to be good content for the audience. And we need to take a step back.” — Beth

5. Differences are essential for a good co-hosting partnership. Lean in.
     It’s not just OK to look at the world through different lenses. It’s a fundamental reason to have a co-host in the first place.  
     “Our general thesis from the beginning of the show [has been that] personality is a huge part of politics. And our personalities are different… you hear that a lot in the show. And I think our strength is that we allow both things to be true. We allow both perspectives to live and thrive and trust that the audience will gain something from each of them, because we absolutely gain something from each of them.” — Sarah
     How are you similar to and different from your co-host? When you’re different, like Sarah and Beth, the sum of your parts is greater than the whole. As Beth says, “I can't imagine doing this with someone who was just like me, or really with anyone else. I think it is the contrast that is interesting to listen to.”

6. Who are you? What do you value? Who do you want to be to your listeners? 
     Beth can sound professorial — wise and a bit distant. Sarah is more emotional and expressive. As she says, “It’s not unusual for me to cry on the show.” These two personalities, both naturally who they are, complement each other like interlocking puzzle pieces.

7. Resist the temptation to sacrifice deep thinking for speed. 
     Being first with a scoop may feel crucial. But often the more valuable content is not that which we can publish immediately. Thoughtfully unpacking the news, a cultural phenomenon, or a feeling, is often far more valuable to listeners.
     “Honestly, just can we slow down for a second? Not compete for the hottest take or the correct take? For the one-liner that's quotable… but instead really figure out what are we talking about? Why is [that headline] so captivating to everybody? What is it touching that we aren’t naming, [the real reason] that makes us fascinated by it?” — Beth

8. When you know your listeners well, you can meet their needs.
“Sometimes, we have a really in-depth look at an issue planned. And we realize our audience is worn out right now. We're just hearing it in emails, they're tired. They need something… people need some delight. How can we serve up some delight right now? Maybe we need it too.” — Beth

9. A simple way to understand what your audience wants: real-life avatars
     “We have an amazing community manager, Maggie Penton, who just reads the room. She’s really good at [knowing] this is where people are at right now; this is what we're struggling with. She's also just an excellent listener avatar. She’s been listening to our show for a really long time.” — Sarah

10. Listen to your audience — and your heart
     “We're not going to produce a show that we feel everyone's consumed with if we don't want to talk about it ourselves.” — Sarah

11. How to avoid perfectionism
     “I just tell myself, we're gonna make another one. We can get that wrong. There are two a week, you know, we will have another chance if we feel like we missed the mark.” – Sarah

12. Set yourself apart from the competition
     “We’re constantly pushing ourselves to say, ‘what could we add?’ Because every conversation is so saturated. When we started Pantsuit Politics, there weren't a million…news and politics podcasts, it was a totally different time…. Quiet quitting is a good example. When we discussed having this as a topic, [we asked] what could we possibly say about this that hasn't been said? We are challenging ourselves all the time to ask, what's new? Or what could we say differently? Or how are we thinking about this that we haven't heard somewhere else or read somewhere else?” — Beth

13. The value of premium channels goes far beyond revenue
     Rather than reporting on and analyzing every headline, Sarah and Beth confine themselves to a few well-chosen topics each week. The freedom they feel to be selective comes in part from having “escape valves” — premium feeds that satisfy the needs of different listeners. 
     “In the beginning, we felt like we had to…report on every news story. We don't do that anymore. Because there's lots of new summary podcasts. We produce one every day, so if you’re into that, you can get it on our premium channel…. Our premium content that we produce has…freed us up to approach the show differently, because we know there's other places where if that's what the listener is looking for, they can find it.” — Sarah

14. Emotional intimacy builds devoted communities.
     “I didn’t understand how deeply people connect with a voice that they listen to. Sarah says, all the time, ‘You can't skim a podcast.’ People do connect, because you're in their ears and they are paying attention. And there's something really powerful about spending almost two hours a week with the two of us just in your headphones, as you're buzzing about doing other things — when we are a part of dog walks and laundry and dinner preparation and commutes.” — Beth

15. Stop overthinking.
     What Beth wishes she’d known about hosting when they started: “Understanding the entire premise of your show — that it is about the host. I am not trying to make something. I'm just being and letting people into the experience of me being. Developing that trust in myself is a journey that I'm still on…. If I could go back, I would say to myself, ‘Don't overthink this. Just trust that you can just be you and that's what people are here for.’”

Credits

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

If you liked this bonus episode introducing Podcast Perspectives with host Jeff Umbro and guest Jessica Cordova Kramer of Lemonada Media, you'll love: 

SJ S1/E1: Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs. Not only is she an amazing, evocative storyteller who knows how to get the best out of her team and guests, but she's cofounder and chief creative officer of Lemonada Media. 

We love hearing from you and getting your support! Please give Sound Judgment a five-star rating and a review. Visit our website to easily give us a 5-star rating and a review that’ll go to Apple or Spotify instantly. We’re grateful. And please share Sound Judgment with a friend. 

The Sound Judgment team is: 
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC, a boutique production and consulting company serving chief creative officers and content directors in the media and at nonprofits, higher ed, and social impact businesses.

Contact Us
To contact us with collaborations, media interviews, speaking engagements, or sponsorships, email allies@podcastallies.com. We encourage your voice memos! Click the microphone icon at soundjudgmentpodcast.com. 

To follow Elaine Appleton Grant and the show: 
Subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter, about creative choices in audio storytelling
Sound Judgment website
Elaine's LinkedIn

Elaine's Facebook

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

This episode was sponsored by Signal Hill Insights. 

Want to know how your podcast is affecting listeners? Need to plan to share outcomes with a branded client? 

Visit measureyourpodcast.com for a free 4-part email series that will tell you how and why to measure the unique impact of branded podcasts. Go beyond counting downloads. Instead, obtain real responses from real listeners to demonstrate the ROI of branded podcasts. You’ll learn how research generates practical insights to optimize your production and drive renewals. 

Takeaways from my conversation with Kelly: 

1. The thing we  are asking for when we put our podcast, our book, or our speech out there is attention. And there is no more exquisite currency than attention. So how can we reveal something, or elicit something from our guest, that will make the listener feel like the time they spent with us was worth it? That’s Kelly’s guiding principle.  

2. Carefully time the three questions you’re a little afraid to ask. Don’t ask your toughest ones first – and feel for the opening, like Kelly did with Samantha Power. 

3. The purest motivation to start a podcast is to follow your curiosity. When it’s there, it’s evident to the listener. And it’s evident when it’s not there. 

4: Kelly knows when an interview is going great when she’s saying something she hasn’t said before or when she knows that her guest is saying something they haven't said before.

Visit Kelly online:

www.kellycorrigan.com

Instagram: @kellycorrigan

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kellycorrigan

Facebook: kellycorriganauthor

Twitter/X: @corrigankelly

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The six storytelling strategies you're about to learn are drawn from the patterns I've seen across more than 150 behind-the-scenes lessons — lessons learned from some of the best hosts, producers, writers and editors I've had on Sound Judgment. You can put these techniques to use right away in your studio or at your writing desk. This episode pulls together examples from compelling shows and award winners. In almost every case, the creators who use these strategies are multi-talented. They produce podcasts, they're writers and journalists, they speak on stages, they act, perform, and do live storytelling shows at places like The Moth. These days, we're all creating on multiple platforms — so take a journey with me to learn how sound vision, structure, scenes, surprise, suspense and specifics and take your storytelling to the next level. 

Apply the six storytelling strategies for creating unforgettable content to your own work!  
Sign up for our interactive, virtual Hook Your Audience & Keep Them Coming Back workshop
Thursday, March 14, 2024

By developing storytelling skills from structure to scene-making, suspense to specifics, you'll learn to create or improve the show, story, article or speech that expresses what you want to express, captivates the people you want to reach, and achieves quality and depth you can be proud of. You'll move from likes and follows to building trusted, engaged relationships with your audience. 

These practices work separately and together to ratchet up both the substance and the "wow factor" of your content, no matter the platform.

Reading these show notes too late to catch this Hook Your Audience workshop? Check out our other trainings on guesting and curating guests, interviewing, and more, at www.podcastallies.com/workshops. 

Want to listen to this series in digestible bites? Follow Sound Judgment and check out these six short episodes: 
Part 1: Sound Vision 
Part 2: Structure
Part 3: Scenes
Part 4: Surprise
Part 5: Suspense
Part 6: Specifics

Don't miss a thing about the craft of audio storytelling: sign up for my Sound Judgment newsletter, which includes the popular hands-on segment "Try This in Your Studio," kudos to creators who are lifting up the art and business of audio storytelling, news about the show, and useful resources for content creators of all kinds. 

"Six S" Storytelling Resources
Shows and storytellers mentioned in this series: 

Bone Valley

Cohosts: Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker

Marketplace
John Barth, Creative Media LLC

The 13th Step, an award-winning documentary series on sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment 

Reporter: Lauren Chooljian
Story Editor: Alison Macadam
New Hampshire Public Radio

Daily Creative 

Host: Todd Henry
Producer: Joshua Gott

Famous & Gravy
Cohosts: Amit Kapoor & Michael Osborne

The Rich Roll Podcast
Host: Rich Roll
Guest: Charles Duhigg
Book: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

Crime Show
"Paging Dr. Barnes"
Host & Executive Producer: Emma Courtland

Katie Colaneri
Senior Podcast Editor
New Hampshire Public Radio

Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan
"Bryan Stevenson"
"Samantha Power" 
Host: Kelly Corrigan

This American Life
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Quorum"
Reporter: Sarah Gibson

Chameleon: Wild Boys
Host: Sam Mullins

Full Sound Judgment episodes featuring these storytellers

Bone Valley: How to Make a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference (Gilbert King, Kelsey Decker)

The Host Defines the Brand with John Barth

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the Hosts of Famous & Gravy (Amit Kapoor, Michael Osborne)

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story (Katie Colaneri)

The Art of True Curiosity with Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders

How to Make Listeners Breathless for More with Wild Boys' Sam Mullins 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

About Sam Mullins

Sam Mullins is a writer, comedian and journalist based in Toronto, and is the host of the critically acclaimed podcast series “Chameleon: Wild Boys” and “Chameleon: Dr Dante” from Campside Media and Sony Music. For the past decade, he's been writing comedy for TV + radio, and performing his award-winning solo shows all over North America. His stories have been featured on This American Life, The Moth, and CBC's The Doc Project.

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

Chameleon: Wild Boys  Episode 1. Arrival

We believe that no podcast host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, editors, and engineers -- the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to every podcast team whenever it’s possible to do so. 

Wild Boys Credits: Host: Sam Mullins; Producer: Abukar Adan; Senior Producer: Ashleyanne Krigbaum; Executive Producer: Matt Shaer; Editor: Karen Duffin; Sound Design and Mixing: Hannis Brown and Garrett Tiedemann

At the end of every episode, I give you a few of the many takeaways from these conversations. Here are today’s:  

1. As storytellers, we already know that curiosity is critical. But are you as curious as you can be? When Sam first started looking into this old story, he discovered that reporters had only skimmed the surface. Sam was driven by a need to understand how this situation could have happened. He began asking questions like what was their childhood like? What would drive two young men to do something like this?
2. Trust your instincts. If you think there’s more to a story than meets the eye, you’re probably right. Sam trusted his when he said, “There has to be much more here than they were just jerks messing with us.” And there was.
3. Working with a good editor is a godsend -  it can mean the difference between a memorable story or series and one that falls flat. But, as Sam says, the relationship with an editor is a scary one, because it’s so intimate. You have to earn each other’s trust and be completely honest with each other.
4. The creative work you do without recognition or outward signs of success is never wasted. I’m a sucker for an overnight success story – which is what Sam’s story initially sounded like. But I’m also a sucker for most people’s real overnight success stories – which is that good fortune isn’t sudden at all; it’s the outcome of years of building skills.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Sound Judgment Ep 14:  Bone Valley: How to Create a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference

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Bring lessons on hosting and producing into your inbox! 

Did you know Sound Judgment is also a free newsletter? Every two weeks, get storytelling, hosting, and journalism strategies taken straight from the on-the-ground experiences of today’s best audio makers, no matter the genre. Newsletters feature examples for you to try in your studio; essays on the challenges and rewards of this craft; and news about fellow audio creatives making the kind of work we all aspire to. Click here to subscribe. 

***

Work with us!

• We make original podcasts for NGOs, purpose-driven brands, and universities
• We also offer podcast strategy and consulting services
• Or contact us about our public media and individual training services for content creators and on-air talent

Visit podcastallies.com or email us at allies@podcastallies.com for more information. 

***

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

The episode discussed on today’s Sound Judgment: 

• The Heist: https://apps.publicintegrity.org/theheist/
• Episode 2: Mnuchin's World was reported and hosted by Sally Herships. Our editor was Curtis Fox, with help from consulting editor Alison MacAdam and Center for Public Integrity’s Tax Project editor Allan Holmes. Production help from Lucas Brady Woods, Brett Forrest, Camille Petersen, and Ali Swenson. Theme music and original score by composer Nina Perry and performed by musicians Danny Keane, Dawne Adams, and Oli Langford. Engineer is Peregrine Andrews. The Heist is executive produced by Sally Herships and the Center for Public Integrity’s Mei Fong. 

Sound Judgment episodes mentioned in today’s episode:

• Snap Judgment's Glynn Washington: Lessons from a Master Storyteller
• Bone Valley: How to Create a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference
• How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life Story with Katie Colaneri
• Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs

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About Sally Herships:

Sally Herships is an award-winning freelance audio journalist and Director of the Audio Program at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Recently she covered the pandemic and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for NPR’s National Desk. She's a frequent contributor to the “Indicator," a daily economics podcast from NPR's Planet Money Team. 

Her reporting has been included in multiple shows and outlets including the BBC, The New York Times, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, WNYC and Studio 360. 

The Heist, an investigative series examining President Trump’s 2017 tax bill, which Sally hosted and co-Executive Produced, was honored as a finalist for the 2022 DuPont awards. The judges wrote: “A forensic review of the 2017 Tax bill, The Heist managed to be both an informative and wildly entertaining”

Connect with Sally on LinkedIn or Twitter or at https://www.sallyherships.com/

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Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

***

Work with us!

• We make original podcasts for NGOs, purpose-driven brands, and universities
• We also offer podcast strategy and consulting services
• Or contact us about our public media and individual training services for content creators and on-air talent

Visit podcastallies.com or email us at allies@podcastallies.com for more information. 

***
Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

• Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
• Project Manager: Tina Bassir
• Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella
• Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

How to be a great host: John Barth’s takeaways

1. What is “hostiness?” 
This is where John shines as both a talent recruiter and a content developer. As he says, he’s always looking for ‘the blue M&M” — “that special voice.” 

“It’s a combination of very different factors. There’s a likability in someone's voice or style. There's this innate sense that I’d really like to spend more time with them. There’s also this range of curiosity and joy and versatility that comes across when you encounter hostiness. But it’s that compelling nature, that if you saw them live on stage, you’d never want the show to end.” 

2. Consistent sound matters, and improves with a good host-producer partnership.
“Anybody who uses their voice professionally, you want to get to a consistent sound. If a good host can hear what makes them sound good in front of an audience, you want to implant that sound in their head. [As a host], after a while, you know your own range — and even on an off day, you can pull that out.” John’s job as an executive producer? “Helping talent be the very best talent they could be behind a mic.”

3. For a more natural and dynamic sound, talk about your passions before taping.  
John coached a reporter who’d never before had voice coaching. 
“First, I let her talk about the story, about her passions. When people talk about their passions, they automatically get a bigger range. You hear more color in their voice. So then, when it came to reading a script, we would do it again and again. And I would listen for moments of passion…and hold up the mirror. After a while, you hear the joy come out.” And then, John says, they would rehearse that script again and again, going over the most difficult and most promising parts. Often, he would direct her, saying, “Take me back to that scene that you're describing and feel that in the sentence.” When they finished, she couldn’t believe how great she sounded. “Sometimes, we just don't know what our own voice can do. And you need a coach, another pair of ears to say, ‘Ooh, that really did work.’”

4. “We’re not enthralled by copies. We’re enthralled by originals.” 
“The goal is certainly to read the script, but your voice and style is loose enough that you can really bring some expression of life to it. There's nothing worse than sounding like Walter Cronkite with the forced intonation and forced pattern. That doesn't mean credibility.”

5. A host defines the brand of the show. 
“When you're hiring a host, the host really does imprint their own sound, voice, and style on the show. So it actually begins to define the brand that you're creating. [On Marketplace] it took me a while to get to a host who embodied the sound that I heard from the show… There was an editorial vision, but there was also a sound vision. And it needed to be distinctive. I always imagined how the audience was listening to the show and the kind of listener I wanted to attract. So that had to be a certain sound.”

6. How to prep before taping. 

“Our goal (at Marketplace)  was to laugh uproariously before we went into the studio to do the live show. So we would tell a funny joke or dirty joke; we would be really snarky in his (David Brancaccio’s) office. My job was to get [David Brancaccio], as a host, not only loosened up, but comfortable with a real range of emotion. So by the time that mic went on, he could really bring his full self to whatever he had to do in those 30 minutes. I mean, it was so much fun.”

7. What producers do 

“It's sort of like directing theater and being a writer and being a cat herder. And, you know, everything all at once. People have no idea what producers really do.” (Elaine) 

8. Choose to learn storytelling from the very best — The Moth

When John first saw The Moth on stage, he went back to his boss at PRX, Jake Shapiro, and said, “We have just found our first hit.” He then became a key member of the team that developed The Moth Radio Hour. 
“The Moth knows probably more about hostiness than anyone. So if you think that storytelling is just getting somebody on a stage to tell their story into a mic, you don't appreciate what The Moth does to get to The Moth sound. Their  process is so respectful of finding not only the true story of the storyteller, but the voice of the storyteller and the hostiness of the storyteller.” 

9. Just because we are accustomed to a conventional broadcast voice does not mean it remains relevant today. Experiment. 
[About the search for a host of Reveal and the choice to hire Al Letson]

“What we needed for that show was a voice and a host who would help us redefine what investigative reporting would sound like. And that's why Al  was a natural choice for that job.”

10. Bring your identity to your story, and be transparent about it. 
In Mississippi Goddamn, Al Letson and producer Jonathan Jones (J.J.), tell the listener where they were born, what their races are (Black and white) and where they have lived. 
“Most journalists are trained to remove themselves from the story,” John says. ‘But that’s a false construct; you never really do.” Of course, he says, there are objective facts. “[And] it’s your eyes, your ears, your notes… And then it's also layered by all the experiences that help you see what you see or what you notice or what you miss…It's a false neutrality [to remove oneself from the story], because we're all individuals…It's rare to hear this acknowledged so plainly, but it really does need to happen that way, especially in a story like this.”

More about John Barth

Today, John Barth runs his own firm, Creative Media LLC. He does talent recruitment and content development for clients in public media, news and social impact. He also coaches people in their media careers. For 16 years, John was the Chief Content Officer of PRX, named by Fast Company magazine as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative media companies. He led the design and launch of Reveal with The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Moth Radio Hour, both Peabody Award winners. He was the founding producer of Marketplace and worked at Audible as director of original content.

A note about Sound Judgment: We believe that no host does good work alone. All hosts rely on their producers, the hidden hands that enable a host to shine. We strive to give credit to producers when it’s possible to do so. 
 

The episodes and shows discussed on today’s Sound Judgment:

Reveal: Mississippi Goddamn,

Host: Al Letson

Executive Producers: Kevin Sullivan

Series producer: Michael I Schiller

Producers: Al Letson and Jonathan Jones

Production manager: Amy Mostafa

Bunga Bunga
Network: Wondery

Host: Whitney Cummings

The episode: Trailer

The Daily
Network: New York Times
Host: Sabrina Tavernise
The episode: Utah’s ‘Environmental Nuclear Bomb’

Marketplace

The Moth Radio Hour

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Share the show! 
Follow Elaine on LinkedIn

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information…

on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Project Manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Designer: Andrew Parrella

Illustrator: Sarah Edgell

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson

Before creating the Snap Judgment radio show, Glynn worked as an educator, diplomat, community activist, actor, political strategist, fist-shaker, mountain-hollerer, and foot stomper. 
Snap Judgment is heard on about 500 public radio stations in the U.S. and on podcasts everywhere. 

Scroll down for takeaways you can use from today’s show.

The episode discussed on today's show

"Zoo Nebraska," a Snap Classic, Season 13, Episode 18.

The story of a chimpanzee and a man whose dream brought disaster to a small American town.

This story details violence against animals. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

Read more about Zoo Nebraska in Carson’s book, Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream.

Additional thanks to Patti Ragan from the Center for Great Apes.

Produced by John Fecile and Carson Vaughan, original score by Renzo Gorrio

Additional production by Jesse Dukes and Pat Mesiti-Miller

Artwork by Teo Ducot

Interested in protecting Great Apes? Learn more at the Center for Great Apes

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our once- or twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Share the show! 
Follow Elaine on  Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts!
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Share them with us! Write us: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

For more information on Sound Judgment and Podcast Allies, our production and training company, visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Takeaways from today's show: 

1. What you’re doing is taking the listener on a journey with you. That takes intention. 

From the very beginning of any episode, Glynn is thinking about how to persuade the listener to go on a journey with him. He’s taking you into a different world, introducing you to the interior lives of the characters in these stories. He wants you to be curious, surprised, to feel things. He asks this question: “What piece of myself can act as an avatar for this journey I want to take people on? What piece of me can do that? That’s the hostiness of it all.” 

2. To have hostiness is to be animated by a question – and the question that lights you up will be different than the one that lights me up. Snap Judgment is all about empathy - how to evoke, how to get listeners to walk in someone else’s shoes for  a little while. But Jad Abumrad of RadioLab’s animating force was curiosity. What animates you? Stay true to that. 

3. To Glynn, the best characters are not the famous and successful.  They’re the people who’ve made mistakes; who don’t want to face the ramifications of their actions, who’ve had some hard knocks – like Dick, the zookeeper in Zoo Nebraska who didn’t want his story told. Rarely – if ever – are people villains on purpose. 

4. You don’t have to be Batman to have a good story to tell. In fact, you may be able to tell an amazing story about walking across the street, if we learn what it took for you to get from one side of the street to the other, and how high the stakes are. 

5. And five…Don’t leave out the washing machine. It’s the ordinary details of life – even when they happen in the middle of a chimp escape – that make stories real for listeners. 

 

Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more. 

Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more. 

Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.

Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling. 

Connect:

Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram

✉️ Email Elaine at allies@podcastallies.com

💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify 

🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials

Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: allies@podcastallies.com. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.

Credits 

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC. 

Host: Elaine Appleton Grant

Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir

Production Manager: Andrew Parrella

Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline

Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson