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Servant of Pod with Nick Quah
In the world of podcasts, anyone can tell their story. From major media institutions to mom and pop shops starting from scratch. Let Nick Quah guide you through this ever-changing world, as he speaks with the producers, hosts, and executives that are shaping the culture of podcasting.
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Episodes
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ListenEpisode 42Servant of Pod is coming to an end, and since this is the final episode, we figured we’d close out the show the same way we began: in a pandemic. (Kidding, but not really.) To send off the podcast, Nick is joined by The Verge’s Ashley Carman to build a (very) brief picture of where the podcast world is at the outset of 2021. -
ListenEpisode 41Some call it “guilty pleasure,” some call it trash, but whatever description you use, you can’t deny that reality television is now firmly baked into the firmament of American reality. The relationship between the genre and podcasting is also increasingly felt, as more reality stars are starting their own shows — and more podcasts are affecting what’s happening on the screen. This week, Nick speaks with Mariah Smith, a reality TV expert and the host of Spectacle, a new series about the history of reality television and what it all means.
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ListenEpisode 40True crime podcasts are some of the most popular and profitable shows being made, despite (or perhaps because of) its occasional ethical queasiness. This week: a roundtable discussion with Crime Writers On…’s Rebecca Lavoie and WAMU’s Jonquilyn Hill about the appeal, pitfalls, and opportunities of the genre. They also talk about Hill’s new project, Through the Cracks, which both draws from — and challenges — the fundamental true crime mechanics.
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ListenEpisode 39The Podcast Producer: by and large, it is the atomic unit of labor in the podcast business, and it’s a role that means and involves many, many things depending on the specific situation. This week: a roundtable discussion with Chiquita Channel Paschal and Emmanuel Dzotsi about what it means to be a producer, the path to becoming a full-time producer these days, and the changes they’d make if they ruled the industry.
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ListenEpisode 38The Brothers McElroy — Travis, Justin, Griffin — are among the most prolific creators you’ll find in this community. Since launching the wildly popular My Brother, My Brother, and Me in 2010, the brothers have gone on to create an entire universe of McElroy-affiliated podcasts: The Adventure Zone, Schmanners, ‘Til Death Do Us Blart, and Sawbones, among them. This week, Nick talks to just one of them, Travis, about the nature of their popularity, what it’s like to do business as brothers, and their new book, “Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You).”
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ListenEpisode 37It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders always feels as much of a surprise as it does a gift. Originally developed as a replacement for the time slot previously occupied by Car Talk, the podcast has emerged to become an endlessly interesting take on the generalist news magazine show, seamlessly tying together a blend of news, interviews, and cultural analysis that are routed through Sanders’ own universe of interests. This week, Nick talks to Sanders about his path to the mic, how he thinks about the show and his relationship to his listeners, and the whiteness of public radio.
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ListenEpisode 36It’s been a little more than six years since Serial made its debut and became one of the most successful and influential podcasts in the history of the medium. Since then, so much has been said and written about that first season, which continues to carry a deep legacy not just for the nature of its phenomenon, but for how many people in podcasting feel about that phenomenon. This week, Nick is joined by the New Yorker’s Sarah Larson to unpack the long tail of Serial, and how it continues to shape podcasting today.
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ListenEpisode 35Selena Quintanilla is a cultural icon for many, but for Maria Garcia, she's much more than that. For Maria, who was raised in El Paso, Texas, and lived and worked on the border for years, Selena was a figure that helped her — and many other young girls and women like her — find a place in a world where they didn't feel like they belonged. This week, Nick speaks with Maria about Anything for Selena, her new series from WBUR and Futuro Studios, which revisits the legacy of Selena, with an ear to trying to unpack how, exactly, she changed culture.
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ListenEpisode 34Why did the mullet become a thing? Why did everybody go crazy over Cabbage Patch dolls? And why would anybody ever go on a reality TV show? These are the typical questions you'd find asked in Slate's Decoder Ring, one for the smartest podcasts out there and one that more people should be checking out. In each episode, host Willa Paskin, usually the TV critic for Slate, picks up a different cultural object — a word, a phenomenon, a moment, a device — and subjects it to a simple question: why? This week, Nick talks to Willa about how she and her producer go about choosing the topics of their deep-dives, what makes her so interested in cultural histories and how they pulled together their epic two-part series on Jane Fonda.
This program is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people. -
ListenEpisode 33Crooked Media was founded by a group of former Obama staffers in the wake of Trump’s surprise win in the 2016 presidential election. Over the next four years, the media company built a strong listenership by essentially serving as a focal point for a certain kind of progressive voter that stands in opposition to the Trump presidency. Now that the United States is due to be led by Democrats, the obvious question abounds: what does this mean for Crooked Media? Nick talks to Tanya Somanader, Crooked Media’s Chief Content Officer, about what comes next.
Episodes
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Listen 28:40Writer, podcaster, and cultural critic Sarah Marshall has a distinct expertise: diving deep into the messy backstories of widely known subjects that are often overlooked in their elemental details. This week, Nick speaks with Marshall about the way she approaches her topics, her various projects, and the larger enterprise of sitting, listening, and forging an emotional connection with larger than life figures.
Writer, podcaster, and cultural critic Sarah Marshall has a distinct expertise: diving deep into the messy backstories of widely known subjects that are often overlooked in their elemental details. This week, Nick speaks with Marshall about the way she approaches her topics, her various projects, and the larger enterprise of sitting, listening, and forging an emotional connection with larger than life figures. -
ListenWelcome to Servant of Pod. To kick things off, Nick tries to build a (very) brief picture of where the podcast world is right now with the help of Team Coco’s Adam Sachs and Earios co-founder Priyanka Mattoo. He also gets advice on how to be a decent podcast host from a great podcast host: Death Sex and Money’s Anna Sale.
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ListenThe Hilarious World of Depression, hosted by public radio veteran John Moe, was built around a kind of provocation: is depression funny? It takes the question to some of the most talented comedians, musicians, and performers in the world, going lengths to illustrate the universality of depression. Tragically, the show was cancelled earlier this week, but we’re airing this conversation because we believe in its mission and how it tried to de-stigmatize discussions around mental health. In this episode, Nick talks with Moe about his work, the origins of the show, and how the subject of mental health has now become central to his life.
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ListenAvery Trufelman’s Articles of Interest is a show that explores fundamental ideas about fashion: What is its significance? Why do we give it value? How does it materially impact the world? In this episode, Nick talks with Avery about her work, which combines storytelling with a strong and evolving worldview. He also pulls apart the latest news with Ashley Carman, senior reporter for The Verge.
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ListenComposers Ramtin Arablouei of NPR and Gimlet’s Haley Shaw join Nick to talk about scoring podcasts, their favorite podcast music, and how they got where they are in this relatively new field. And to go over the week’s big news stories, Nick calls up Caroline Crampton, Hot Pod’s UK writer.
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ListenLast night, we learned that Stitcher is being sold to SiriusXM in what is now the largest podcast deal to date. Hot Pod’s UK writer Caroline Crampton joins Nick to talk through the ramifications of that news, plus what’s been going on at WNYC.
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ListenAs a veteran YouTuber, Hank Green is familiar with what happens when a quirky community starts seeing serious money, and grows up to become something else. This week, Nick talks to Green, who also makes podcasts, about whether he sees the same thing happening to podcasting.
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ListenThe numbers for kid’s podcasts have risen noticeably during lockdown. Nick talks to Molly Bloom, of American Public Media’s Brains On and its spin-off Smash Boom Best, and Lindsay Patterson, co-creator of Tumble Media and co-chair of Kids Listen, about the genre’s appeal, history, and power. Plus, Kameel Stanley joins Nick to dive deeper into the recent industry conversations involving creators of color and intellectual property.
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ListenSlate's Slow Burn is one of the best podcast documentary series around, with each season driven forward by a simple framework: what was it like to live through a prominent historical event? For its fourth season, the team examines the rise of David Duke in the late '80s and early '90s, centering its attention on a major recent effort by a white supremacist to gain formal political power. Nick talks with Josh Levin, who hosts the season, and for whom the story of David Duke is a personal one.
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ListenThe 2016 presidential election cycle left a deep mark on the podcast world. Few know this better than Jody Avirgan, who produced the popular FiveThirtyEight podcast through that cycle. Though he’s sitting the 2020 cycle out, opting instead to make This Day In Esoteric Political History with the Radiotopia network, Avirgan still has a lot to say about the way podcasts cover the elections. In this episode, Nick and Jody look back on the 2016 politics podcast explosion.
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ListenThe job of a podcast editor can be hard to efficiently explain, because they do many little things in the service of one big thing: to make the show better for more people. They think about structure, emphasize tension, tighten language, and consider how the presentation of the story comes across to different types of people. Podcast editors — particularly for narrative nonfiction shows — used to be really hard to find, but this has changed a little bit over the past few years as the podcast industry grew in complexity. Nick talks with Catherine Saint Louis, who works at Neon Hum Media, about the role of the podcast editor, how she became one, and its increasing importance to the business.
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ListenHere’s something a little different. There’s this somewhat parodic but also very real assertion that pornography tends to be at the forefront of new technologies: high-speed internet video, virtual reality, that kind of thing. Podcasting isn’t a new technology at all, of course, but we were interested in the question: how does pornography — and erotica, which is different but related — intersect with the current boom in on-demand audio? This week, Nick spoke with three guests who come at this question from different angles: Caroline Spiegel, the CEO of Quinn, an audio erotica startup; Alex Klein, a representative from Pornhub, and Girl on the Net, an independent creator.
Meet The Team
