PodBlog #6 - Remembering What's Truly Important
It has been tough to write about and listen to Podcasts these last few weeks. Our intention at Podboard is to turn you onto new Pods as well as great old ones, and to celebrate the medium we love so much...
Yet I find myself consuming Covid content or news about the racist, violent right-wing extremism that is so prevalent today. I also watched yesterday's hopeful inauguration of Joseph R. Biden as the 46th POTUS. Regular readers of the PodBlog know that we love to practice and believe in hope here at Podboard, but the aforementioned dark and scary forces often overshadow hopeful moments like yesterday's coronation. They also can seem to invalidate the hope that we all want to feel. Maybe some heavy doses of realism is exactly what we need. We'll always practice hope, but not to the point of being blind to malevolence and virulence. In that spirit, here's what I have for you this week:
Let's keep wearing our masks and in that act, caring for one another.
While I don't typically recommend anything but Pods, let's also all read Astead Herndon's 1/21/2021 piece in the New York Times: nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/charlottesville-attack-biden.html. He tells it like it is way better than I can.
In keeping with PodBlog #6's uncharted territory theme, I have a podcast recommendation this week that doesn't appear on any previous Podboards, nor the current one (see below).
Featured Podcast for PodBlog #6 is the Kerning Cultures Podcast
Originally mentioned in PodBlog #5 during our blurb on RadioLab's "Lebanon USA," episode of the year for 2020, we have been devouring this Pod since featuring their collaboration with RadioLab. A new season of Kerning Cultures is coming soon and I'm super excited. Until then, they've got a backlog of transportive and culturally rich episodes for us to listen to at kerningcultures.com
It's rare for a show that has never appeared on Podboard to be featured in the PodBlog, however, considering the climate in today's worldwide community and all that we've addressed in this and in recent PodBlogs, this show is exactly what we need right now. Learning about cultures that are foreign to our own, while also being so incredibly interesting, feels like a manner of fighting back against nativism. And Kerning Cultures is just a damn great podcast; it's damn great storytelling, plain and simple. It opens the listener up to the richness of Arab cultures and feels, to me personally, like an invigorating journey through space and history. I get the same feeling listening to KC as I do when waking up in a foreign country on my first morning abroad.
In addition to "Lebanon, USA" (released 8/21/2020), check out KC's "Tracing with the Zars" episode from July 17th 2020 or "Jerusalem Calling" from October 1st of last year. Kerning Cultures is a network of shows in addition to their flagship Pod. Check out all of their shows and listen to the Kerning Cultures podcast today. Then go vote for it at podboard.org to help it reach next month's definitive list of the 100-best shows in Podcasting. Because it's one of the best narrative podcasts out there.
Calling all Independent Podcast Creators!!!
We've made a few public call-outs on social media and in PodBlogs to Indie producers and have been thrilled to hear back from some of you intrepid creators and producers out there in PodLand! Today we want to highlight a relationship that we've built with an independent show that we hope can be a blueprint for future collaborations with other great indie pods that are looking to increase their listenership. The great sports (and spirits) podcast, Scotch N' Sports (@scotch_sports on Twitter and on the web at linktr.ee/ScotchnSports) has been a huge supporter of Podboard and we are ever so grateful, thanks boys! They received enough votes last month to reach the January 2021 Podboard and we can't thank them enough for asking their dedicated fans to vote for the show on Podboard. Reaching Podboard has, in turn, exposed SNS to new listeners who were looking for new podcast recommendations. And we were also thrilled to Tweet about them, and hopefully drive a few new fans their way, just as they drove traffic our way by asking for their listeners to vote. It's a tried and true blueprint for growing our traffic and their listenership.
So, thanks again to Scotch N' Sports for believing in us as we believe in them!!! Please reach out if you're a Podcast producer that's reading this PodBlog so that we can continue to build this flourishing community, grow our Crowdsourced Podcasts Database and drive new listeners to your Podcast! Why reach out? Because Everything I Know I Learned from Podcasts.