Sound Judgment
Sound Judgment takes listeners into the studios — and the minds — of your favorite audio storytellers. In each episode, journalist Elaine Appleton Grant and a top audio creator deconstruct one of their episodes. It’s not just a revealing conversation about the art and craft of audio storytelling, it’s a sound-rich narrative interview: Elaine plays back clips from her guest’s podcast. Together, they explore the storyteller’s creative choices in a “living learning lab.”
Recent Episodes
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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 achieving it is another. Here's a transformative, counter-intuitive solution that will help you go to the heart of anyone's story. To read this issue of the newsletter on Substack and subcribe, visit "Interviews are the foundation of great storytelling. Are yours falling fla
7
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 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
6
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 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 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 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 marke