From lackluster questions to frequent interruptions, most podcasts are unwatchable
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I’ve never been a fan of popular shows on streaming networks. Till this day I couldn’t name any main character on most of them. In a sense, podcasts have saved and satiated my appetite for entertainment on downtime.
Growing up in the 90’s, music artists, actors, and athletes were media tied to brief tv show segments and magazine spreads. My generation never got the real “juice” or “tea”. Now is a different time. Social media allows anyone a peak into their lifestyle if we choose. Podcasts are the new, uncensored long form media, where guests can speak freely. Or can they?
Drink Champs, hosted by rapper NORE and DJ EFN, was the first podcast I gravitated toward. Imagine the excitement seeing hip hop legends I grew up on in the thumbnail. I’d finally get to hear untold stories of past beefs, their origins, and answers to questions I’d been curious to know.
Unfortunately what would ensue after clicking was a two hour long show of poorly framed questions and constant interruptions from the hosts. Not to mention the background hoots and hollers, and debilitating horn sounds from others off camera.
Viewers flooded the comments pleading for the host to allow the guest to speak. I held out hope that someone in production would alert the host to the comments. And each week, with every episode it was more of the same.
Drink Champs wasn’t the only culprit. As new podcasts popped up they too suffered from similar infractions. Distracting “mmm’s” and “mmhmm’s” while the guest speaks sound terrible in AirPods. Hosts that spin a guests answer into their own commentary or story time is equally annoying. Respectfully, we didn’t ask you.
Everything a guest says isn’t a mic drop or worthy of the dropped bomb effect. Every sentence doesn’t need to end with the word, “Period!” As viewers we get it. We know a complete thought when we hear one.
Podcast hosts and producers should realize the show is not the barbershop or beauty salon with everyone speaking loudly out of turn. There is a viewer, listener on the other end vested into what the guest is saying. Good journalist and hosts of shows ask well thought out, researched questions and allow the guest to answer them.
A production crew and guests doesn’t make one a journalist. There is an etiquette. Journalism is a layered process that includes preparation, research, and a level of professionalism. Unfortunately, this is what technology has afforded us. Wannabe’s creating podcasts with no proper training, education, or real respect for the craft, because they can.
On a positive note, there are plenty of professionally hosted podcasts out there. And those are the only ones I’ll continue to watch.