Episodes - Page 2 | Sound Judgment

Sept. 14, 2023

Introducing Season 3: Inside the Minds of Today's Top Storytellers

Wish you could be in the studio with your favorite audio storytellers — journalists like Anna Sale of Death, Sex and Money and Classy's Jonathan Menjivar, a Fresh Air and This American Life alum? Sit around editorial meetings with their teams, learning how they're making ambitious, engaging, and o…

Sept. 13, 2023

Oh, Something Great is On the Way

Here's a little warmup for Season 3...coming soon, and better than ever!

June 29, 2023

How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the hosts of Famous & Gravy

Famous & Gravy is hilarious and philosophical, funny and thought-provoking. It’s about dead celebrities, but really it's about life’s biggest questions. Cohosts Michael Osborne and Amit Kapoor reflect on aspects of a dead celebrity ranging from love and work to their inner lives. That leads them to…

June 22, 2023

Pushkin's Julia Barton on The Best Audio Storytelling of the Year

Pushkin Industries VP and Executive Editor Julia Barton had a dream: To create the first-ever anthology of the best audio storytelling. Fittingly, it would be in audiobook form, and it would call out the most powerful and innovative stories of the year. Barton had already been shaping Pushkin's cat…

June 8, 2023

The Art of the Interview with Conversation Expert Celeste Headlee

Do high-stakes interviews make you nervous? Do you want to communicate better across partisan, racial, or gender divides? Or do you want to make any interview you conduct more compelling? You couldn't ask for a better teacher than Celeste Headlee. A best-selling author and global speaker, this vete…

May 25, 2023

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

When Sam Mullins was growing up in a small, almost utopian Canadian town, two boys appeared one summer as if from nowhere. They said they'd been raised in the woods, which accounted for why they were so...strange. And skinny. And would only eat fruit, and seemed to have only the ragged clothes on t…

May 11, 2023

How to Tell the Truth: The Art of Memoir with Dana Black

Actor Dana Black started her memoir and conversation show “I Swear on My Mother’s Grave” on the fourth anniversary of her mother’s death. She was grieving her loss, but she’d been grieving for years, long before her mother died. She started her show as so many podcasters do – as a way to express th…

May 4, 2023

Best Of: Emotional Bravery with Last Day's Stephanie Wittels Wachs

As writers, journalists, podcasters, we often deal with hard subjects – topics that are painful to explore and to tell. So why do we do it? Because, done well, telling the hard stories lead to change. They can lead to help and healing. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. We could think of no b…

April 20, 2023

The Heist: How to Produce an Award-Winning Investigative Series with Sally Herships

When the Center for Public Integrity decided to look into who was pulling the strings behind Trump's 2017 tax bill — one reporters would ultimately call a swindle that benefited only the wealthiest Americans — they turned to award-winning reporter Sally Herships. In this episode, Herships pulls bac…

April 6, 2023

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

How do you successfully pitch a narrative story or series to podcast network or a public radio station? If you dream about making an audio documentary or a limited series, this episode is for you. Katie Colaneri is the thoughtful, fast-rising editor at the head of New Hampshire Public Radio’s audio…

March 30, 2023

Why Should Audiences Trust You? with Audio Branding Host Jodi Krangle, Part 2

Why do we trust one voice over another? Why do we find one voice trustworthy — and a different host or producer, perhaps with equal knowledge, not? In Part 2 of my conversation with voice actor and Audio Branding host Jodi Krangle, we explore what it takes for audiences to trust us. We explore: …

March 23, 2023

Grow Your Audience with Voiceover Talent Jodi Krangle

Audio — whether used in podcast, radio, or marketing — is great at storytelling and conveying emotion. We know this intuitively. It’s how we react to a scene or an idea that often prompts us to share with others and generate word of mouth. We say, “This spoke to me, you have to hear it.” But why a…

March 9, 2023

Bone Valley: How to Create a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference

Go behind the scenes with me as I talk with Bone Valley co-hosts Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker about their award-winning audio documentary series. The podcast has been called "one of the best of 2022" and "the best true crime podcast ever" by outlets ranging from The New Yorker to Slate to The Atl…

Feb. 23, 2023

Juleyka Lantigua: What if all of your editorial choices were to serve one person?

Whether you’re building a new show or developing a single story, the first question you should ask yourself is always, “Who is my listener?” The second: “Why do they care about this story or show right now?” Spend time with LWC Studios founder and CEO Juleyka Lantigua, and you’ll come away knowi…

Feb. 9, 2023

The Dinner Sisters: Navigating a Breakout Opportunity—and Devastating Grief

When I invited Dinner Sisters Co-Host Betsy Wallace on the show, it was with a couple of aims in mind. First, with Valentine’s Day approaching, I wanted to speak with a cooking show host to find out what she'd learned—over 200 episodes and the growth of a wildly devoted Facebook community—about the…

Jan. 26, 2023

Standing Ovation Host Jay Baer: How to Craft a Million-Dollar Story

Jay Baer’s binge-worthy podcast, Standing Ovation, does for public speakers what Sound Judgment does for podcast hosts – but he did it first. On every episode, Baer, a member of the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame, and another famous speaker unpack a story from a guest’s keynote speech. …

Jan. 12, 2023

Snap Judgment's Glynn Washington: Lessons from a Master Storyteller

To a lot of listeners, Glynn Washington is a legend. His show, Snap Judgment, has been on the air across the country and in our ears continuously since 2010. It’s snapped up two million times a month by people who love his particular, recognizable brand of storytelling—as he calls it, storytelling …

Dec. 29, 2022

Six Unexpected (Life) Lessons from Great Hosts to Prepare You for 2023

What are the biggest questions you have about becoming the best podcast host you can be? And how podcasting affects not just your work, but your life? We're answering your deepest questions on today's episode, a look back at Season 1 and the surprising things we learned in 2022. And our hosts shar…

Dec. 15, 2022

How Top Hosts Hook Listeners in 60 Seconds or Less

As hosts, we have very little time to hook new listeners. We know this, because as listeners ourselves, we make decisions to listen to a new show—or abandon it—almost instantly. Likewise, we may have only half a minute for someone new to decide our show isn’t for them. So how do the best hosts hook…

Dec. 1, 2022

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

On Sound Judgment, today's best hosts unpack their magic. 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 -…

Nov. 17, 2022

A host on a mission with ¿Quién Tú Eres? host Pabel Martinez

Sound Judgment has become a quest to identify the universal qualities and skills of "hostiness." If I’m on a quest, Pabel Martinez is on a mission—in his case, to redefine professionalism and to empower members of Latinx community to be their authentic selves 100% of the time. He’s sharing stories …

Nov. 10, 2022

Finding your voice with Shelter in Place host Laura Joyce Davis

How do you know who, exactly, you ARE behind the mic? What you sound like versus what you wish you sounded like? How to stand out as a host while being your unique self? Not to mention telling a gripping story or weaving a conversation listeners won't stop talking about tomorrow? Laura Joyce Davis,…

Oct. 27, 2022

Cinematic Storytelling with Crime Show's Emma Courtland

Last year, Crime Show's Emma Courtland was nominated for a Podcast Academy Ambie Award for best host -- most likely because of her measured, engaging delivery; her vivid, cinematic storytelling; and the humanity, nuance, and suspense of the stories she and her team uncovered. We dissect "Paging Dr.…

Oct. 13, 2022

Master the Secrets of Successful Cohosting with Pantsuit Politics

Research shows that young podcast listeners seek two specific things: a fresh, unique perspective and a sense of belonging. At Pantsuit Politics, co-hosts Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland have been bringing fresh perspectives and a sense of belonging to their listeners — who now number in the…