Episodes

June 14, 2024

How to transform your interviews from "fine" to fantastic

Are your interviews falling flat? Are the podcasts and stories you're creating on the foundation of those interviews just skimming the surface? Let's face it: Desiring candor from the human in front of you is one thing, but a...

May 8, 2024

Behind The 13th Step, Part 2: The best defense is the truth

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 be…

May 1, 2024

How to find the truth: Behind the blockbuster investigative series The 13th Step

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 t…

April 17, 2024

How to Grow Your Show — Without Social Media

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 Marke...

April 3, 2024

Courage vs comfort: Is it finally time to pursue your dreams?

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 wha…

March 27, 2024

[Bonus] Introducing Sound School Podcast: Tracking Partners

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 inv...

March 13, 2024

Storytelling Strategies to Hook and Keep Your Audience

Marketing might get you new listeners, new readers — new audiences for whatever kind of content you create. But to hook those new people and keep them coming back? To create a relationship with them? That's a whole other thing. Today on the show: six storytelling techniques for making unforgettable…

March 13, 2024

Storytelling Secrets, Part 6: Specifics

When award-winning podcast producer, host, actor and The Moth storyteller Sam Mullins describes a place, a character, or a situation, you'll never see him simply say: "John Doe was of average height, with brown hair, a sad face, and a slight paunch." Not for him are conventional descriptions. Sam, …

March 12, 2024

Storytelling Strategies, Part 5: The Missing Ingredient

Today's episode dives into critical storytelling technique that you may not be thinking about — but you should.

March 11, 2024

Storytelling Strategies, Part 4: Surprise!

There is no story without a left turn. As you write a feature, produce a podcast, construct a speech or make a video, always be thinking: What's the new information here? What's the new angle? Have I uncovered a fresh, personal story no one has heard?

March 11, 2024

Storytelling Strategies, Part 3: Scenes

Does your content come to life or lie there flat on the page, uninspiring on the stage, or dull in people's ears? Take a cue from filmmakers and be intentional by using scenes wisely to make your content come alive.

March 10, 2024

Storytelling Strategies to Grow Your Audience: Part 2, Structure

Welcome to Part 2 of our new series on six storytelling strategies for making your content unforgettable, no matter whether it's for the ear, the page, the stage, or the screen. In this bite-sized episode, learn how to use structure to make idea generation and production easier and faster, while in…

March 9, 2024

New Series: Storytelling Strategies to Hook & Keep Your Audience, Part 1

Over the last 18 months, storytelling patterns have emerged from the on-the-ground experiences shared with us by today's best audio storytellers. Welcome to Part 1 of our new series on six strategies for making your content unforgettable, no matter whether it's for the ear, the page, the stage, or …

Feb. 28, 2024

How Storytelling Can Heal Your Life

Did you ever work brutally hard to achieve your goal — but when you got there, it didn't feel like what you'd imagined? The Nocturnists host Emily Silverman did. She'd wanted to become a doctor since she was a little girl. But when she finally got through medical school and into a residency, she wa…

Feb. 14, 2024

Drama! Characters! Conflict! History podcasts have them all, with American History Tellers' Lindsay Graham

Podcasts may be the best thing to happen to history class since we stopped teaching history as a list of battles. After all, what could be more dramatic than stories about the people who changed society, for good and ill? But producing history is harder than it appears — and going under the covers …

Jan. 31, 2024

Should you tell your own story? Navigating the tricky art of memoir

In Season 4, we're examining the roles of bravery, fear and authenticity in storytelling. This episode explores the kind of story you may have written or reported yourself — or thought about, and maybe even chickened out on telling: a deeply personal, emotional experience. Perhaps you want to use …

Dec. 14, 2023

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

Kelly Corrigan is blunt but compassionate, serious and funny, a straight shooter with heart and soul who is deeply curious about how we can tackle the world’s biggest problems — while also noticing the smallest of details and delights. For this last episode before our holiday break, I’m delighted t…

Dec. 7, 2023

Introducing Podcast Perspectives: Audience Growth Lessons from Lemonada

How did Lemonada grow from one podcast in 2019 to a network of nearly 50 shows in 2023? Today on the podcast, we’re excited to feature a conversation from Podcast Perspectives, produced by our friends at The Podglomerate (the podcast firm specialized in producing, distributing, and monetizing p…

Nov. 30, 2023

Secrets of Hosting In-Studio and Live from the Queen of Book Podcasts, Anne Bogel (Best-of Show)

Do you speak publicly or moderate discussions live on stage? Or do you dream about spending more time speaking to live audiences? If so, this episode is for you. Anne Bogel of What Should I Read Next is one of the original book podcasters. She’s so beloved that she is frequently asked to host conve…

Nov. 16, 2023

How to Track a Liar with Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story Showrunner Karen Given

If you’ve ever worked on a serialized narrative podcast, at some point you may have gotten all tangled up. Did Miss Plum find the gun in the library in episode 1? Then why is that same dialogue here again in episode 4? Why was the victim found dead in episode 2 but somehow you forgot and he's alive…

Nov. 2, 2023

How to Capture an Audience with Near Death’s Nikki Boyer

It's another stop on my quest to answer the question: What does it take to become a beloved audio storyteller? This time, the answer is that magical, almost impossible-to-define-quality: presence. My journey takes me to Nikki Boyer, the celebrated creator of Wondery's Dying for Sex and now, the co-…

Oct. 19, 2023

Weight for It’s Ronald Young Jr.: Unlocking the Key to Storytelling Success

Some scientists say we think 70,000 thoughts a day. And a lot of those aren’t all that great. This episode is about how to make a narrative podcast about the thoughts we obsess about, and the thoughts that sometimes run our lives. Weight for It’s Ronald Young, Jr. shows us how to bring our inner li…

Oct. 12, 2023

How Anna Sale invites listeners in

There's this thing people say about podcasts. As if saying the earth is round, they say, "Podcasts are intimate." Because we listen to them by ourselves. In our ears. But we do that with a lot of things. How intimate is the ad you hear on hold? In truth, podcasts are only as intimate as we—the prod…

Sept. 28, 2023

Classy's Jonathan Menjivar: The Fine, Awkward Art of the Personal Audio Documentary

Did you ever have something that troubled you for years — something so intense that it affected your entire life? That describes the issue of class for host and senior producer Jonathan Menjivar of Audacy’s Pineapple St. Studios. Jonathan, the son of immigrants, grew up in a working-class home. His…