Audie Cornish & Ari Shapiro’s journey from radio to podcasts — and what amateurs can learn from pros

0:10Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore Media, where we are talking to all of the most important and interesting people shaping our new media age. I'm Max Taney. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore. And with me, as always, is Semaphore's editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. Ben, you're broadcasting from an unusual place today. Looks like a hotel room. In fact, I know it's a hotel room. Where are you?

0:36Max:Out in Mountain View, California. Just interviewed the guy who runs search at Google. It's up on our YouTube page. A lot changing in media at the moment, not least the search box. What's going on with search? What did he have to say? Oh, there's a new technology you may be familiar with called artificial intelligence. and they've made the search box just like bigger so that you can type your very, very long and kind of soul-searching queries in. Well, two people who many of our listeners will not have to search or look up or use artificial intelligence to discover are our guests on today's show.

1:08That's Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro. Audie and Ari were formerly the hosts of All Things Considered on National Public Radio and now are doing something very different at CNN. They are hosting a new podcast called Engagement Party. The first episode is actually out today, Friday, when our episode is dropping. That's a little bit of competition in the podcast space, Ben. I'm not threatened by it. But the show is a lot different than what they were doing at NPR. It's looser. It's about pop culture. It's in some ways racier. I listened to the pilot episode. In the first three minutes, they're talking about gay sex on television.

1:45It's a little bit shocking and different for two people who used to be pretty buttoned up for many years in their official jobs. Ben, you knew Audie. You guys kind of go back. Is it surprising to you that they're doing this kind of racy, loose, different type of show? What's that about?

2:01Max:Yeah, I think there are some people in these big legacy jobs who just sort of become part of the chair that they're sitting in. And I think these two were never that. They were both always kind of restless and looking out from the Olympian peak of NPR at this very radically changing landscape and trying to figure out how to be part of it. Well, we want to talk to them about that. We want to ask them their perspective on some of the challenges that NPR is facing right now from the reduction in public funding from the federal government to the kind of aging listenership and some of the challenges that come along with that.

2:37And of course, I also want to ask Ari a very specific question about reality television and his connection to the traders, which I think many of our listeners might want to know about. But we have to take a short break. We'll be right back with Ari and Adi after this.

3:00Max:Hi, I'm Joshua Spania, VP of Marketing at Google. And you might assume I have all the answers when it comes to marketing. The truth, I'm just as curious to learn, discover the answers to everything as everyone else. We are living through a total reset of our marketing industry. The old maps don't work, which means we get to chart a new path forward. It's dynamic, it's fast-paced, and honestly, there's never been a more exciting time to be in marketing. That is why we've started a new podcast, Frontier CMO. It's from Think With Google, and I promise it's not just a bunch of corporate waffle. I'm sitting down with people who really know what's going on.

3:44Max:CMOs, creators, technologists, the lot. And we're having a proper, unfiltered chat about what's working, and quite frankly, what isn't. These are your notes from the frontier. So do me a favor, search for Frontier CMO wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us and subscribe on YouTube.

4:10Ari and Adi, I don't know if you guys are familiar with how we set up the show, but we'll have a whole intro setting this up beforehand. So we're just going to jump right into the questions here. I kind of want to hear this intro, though. What's in there? What's in there, Max? As someone who's a reader, I can't imagine. Maybe this is a good place to start because we were going to ask this question later, but I think maybe it's more relevant now, which is, you know, You guys are pros in the audio production and broadcasting format. Now, every single person who is in media, such as us, thinks that they can produce essentially a radio quality interview show or podcast.

4:50Is there stuff that you guys know that you think that a lot of podcasters and people who are doing imitation radio programs kind of don't? Like, and is it offensive? Ari, do you mind if I start? Hit it. Go for it. Yeah. I just want to take issue with the premise. Everyone is a pro now. That's the point. Everyone can do it. Everyone has the technical means to do it. So that's not relevant in the way it might have been a very long time ago. And even then, I'd argue, wasn't that true, which is why public media in particular has so many interesting personalities in it. It has always been a kind of democratic, to the point where our video on demand chief here calls our department the, what does he call it?

5:38He calls it the like audio democracy or something because it's not hierarchical. You know, the way ideas are generated, the technological stuff, the people who are rolling on tape way back in the way, they're just as good editorially as the people on camera. Same thing with the producers. So I just want to say that we are not we come to this space like everyone else, which is this is interesting. How can I do it differently? And how can I connect? We actually don't come to it like we just came off Radio Mount Olympus and expect there to be people there. Because if you did that, nobody would be there.

6:17You know what I mean? Like that's a parade of what? It's not the way you're saying where we're kind of like, oh, look at what all these young people are doing. hello fellow teens, you know, in podcasting land. I don't look at it that way. I agree with you, Audie, but I also have one thing that I do think is a pearl of wisdom, which is that everybody, and I mean everybody, benefits from an editor. Whether that means having someone before the taping saying, hey, have you thought about this aspect of it? Or having someone after the taping saying, those five minutes were kind of boring, maybe we can lose them.

6:58Everyone benefits from an editor. Fair, fair. I'm a super snob about that. Like, I didn't understand why people listened to things on one and a half speed until I listened to some of the podcasts out there. And I was like, and rabbit icon. Yeah, yeah. Editors are not, they're a luxury, but they're not, to me, embrace it. You know, embrace a critical ear. embrace somebody from the outside saying, actually, is this all that looks interesting to listen to? That's not like the worst thing. And frankly, that applies beyond journalism, beyond podcasting. Every one of us can sometimes use a reality check from a friend or somebody on the outside saying, you might want to rethink this.

7:42Look, even when Audie and I were in the highly edited and produced context of four-minute interviews on All Things Considered, we both had the experience of, after a taping, going to the producer and saying, that awkward moment, that big pause and the sigh and the wait, wait, wait, you got it wrong. Keep that in. Like, you have to know that often the messy stuff is the best stuff. The goal isn't to make it the most polished version of itself. It's to make it the most engaging, authentic version of itself. Yeah, that's a great point. See, this is why we like doing these types of interviews is that we do actually learn a few of these things.

8:19I feel a little bit with our podcast, And I think our producer, Manny, does a great job of this, of like, whenever there's this kind of weird moment, I'm like, ah, we got to get rid of this. You know, I don't want to seem too strange or awkward or whatever with the guests. But we should we should experiment maybe with going a little bit looser. No, it's OK. First of all, they already know. They already know that about you. So they've they bought the ticket. I mean, that's another difference, right? Like radio was tune in dials discovery. That's not what this business is. This business is, I'm coming to spend time with you.

8:53I already like you. Even if I'm giving it a shot, it's because I'm inclined to try it. And frankly, that's one of the things that I think appealed to us most about creating this show. Engagement party for CNN is that it gives us a chance to be the kind of people with each other that we used to be in the All Things Considered studio when our mics were off. Yeah. You know, the mics would turn on and we would be these very kind of polished, curious, erudite versions of ourselves. and then the mics would turn off and we would cackle and finish each other's sentences and swear. We would kinky our way through the show.

9:25We would kinky our way through the show. And that's what we want to bring to this new show. Which made my sense because when the mics were off and I was sitting next to Robert Siegel, he was doing the like London Telegraph. Times of London crossword puzzle. Yeah, Times of London crossword puzzle in pen. Like that was him, you know what I mean? But that wasn't me. And Ben, I mean, I think you know this. When you're coming up, especially in Washington politics, you are rewarded for cosplaying as an adult because it's the best of both worlds for editors you're cheap you have no family you'll work all hours but if we tart you up in enough lipstick you know what i mean and dangle enough looks great in front of you rose color like you'll you'll leap for anything right like it's a great thing but then at a certain point it's like wait a second what are we doing you know what i mean what like i can't cosplay as a 60 year old forever?

10:15What am I going to do when I am 60? Like, I actually have to be myself. And strangely, TV has opened that up for me in a way that was really unexpected. And having Ari come back around, like, there is something extremely full circle about this moment that neither of us can get over. We keep being like, are we really doing this? I said to Adi, I feel like CNN, gave us the keys to the car and they don't quite realize how we drive. People know that we hosted All Things Considered together for years. They might not know that we've been friends since the very beginning of our journalism career. In the early 2000s, we met in Boston and we really kind of grew up together.

10:58And long, long before we were in the studio together, we were buddies who would hang out and compare notes and talk about our lives. And so this is trying to bring that energy along with the experience and credibility and news chops that everybody knows we both have. You guys are doing a very different show with Engagement Party than you did at NPR with All Things Considered. Audie, maybe I should start with you. What's your pitch for why people, particularly fans of what you were doing at NPR, should listen to this very different type of show that you guys are doing? Oh, that's interesting. It's funny.

11:36I don't think of people having fans at NPR. I think of people being fans of NPR, right? It's like working for Marvel. You know, I'm not Captain America. They're not fans of me. They're fans of Captain America. Um, you know, I think part of it is there was a kind of analysis and lens that that is the approach to news at NPR. And the running joke about it is that that lens was also applied to lots of different things of varying levels of seriousness. And I think it was satire when it was like sweaters and meatballs, you know, or maple syrup and autumn leaves. But then later on, when you had something like pop culture happy hour, the NPR politics podcast, those things took that approach to other areas.

12:21And if you're from newspapers, this is very familiar. You have the arts section, you have the food section, you have international. And I think for a time, especially once I left NPR, people were like, oh, she is a news person, sentence caps, Times New Roman. So we've got to make her do news things. And I was kind of looking around at the landscape and being like, that doesn't matter anymore. And I'll be really short with this, but it's really important to mention. I met Ben on a story my first year as host of All Things Considered. It was the first story I did with producers on my own as an anchor.

12:58And I go to New York and I go to this newsroom and there's Kate Natopoulos and Stapara and all these news people who we now know as sort of viral gurus who were standing up a newsroom. Like Ben, it was like one of your first news meetings you were at. And everybody was like, is this going to be, is BuzzFeed going to be a news organization?

13:18Max:Yeah, you were very persuasive. I really thought that you were a seasoned professional, by the way. I didn't realize. Well, it got my gears turning because the arguments— It was a huge deal for us, this big shout reporter from NPR. It was. It was a huge deal for you. It was a huge deal for me because I even had to sell the story to NPR. They were like, why do we care about some random website? And I was like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. This is the news now. And that stuck with me for a really long time. The idea that your feed, as much as I hate that word, is your uncle's wedding, the war in Gaza, a joke about Colbert and something that's not safe for work.

13:56That is by definition the for you page, the feed, the algorithm. And that is not a newspaper beat system. And I think that this, after all these years later, Ben, it's been a minute. here we are having a conversation where I'm doing the thing you were selling you know what I mean which is like no no no all these things can be on the same page like is this dress blue or silver but also like here's the midterm elections and I still have a lot of like respect for that ethos so sorry to go on a tangent but like I get to say this to Ben you know if I can pick up that tangent

14:33Max:because you know obviously I you know enjoyed those conversations and then in I guess it must It's been, what, 2017, 2018. We did a Facebook Watch. We sort of recruited you to host a Facebook Watch show during the original pivot to video when Facebook was throwing money around. I have a memory of you interviewing Omarosa. For some reason, that's the one that sticks with me. I did. I did. Scaramucci. Yeah. Oh, my God. What a time capsule. Yeah, and it was an interview show. It was a pop culture interview show, some news, some cultural figures. But even then, I think we were simpatico about the idea that there was a younger audience that really, they treat these things with equal seriousness and equal levity.

15:15And there was no reason for the news business not to.

15:18Max:In some sense, you've been like pivoting to video for a while. Do you feel like... I've had so many pivots. It's so sad. But what is a career in journalism if not one pivot after another? One pivot after another. That'll be the season two. People in this conversation began before social media existed. So you can't have a long-term career in journalism unless you're constantly pivoting. And I think the dismissiveness that some people view that kind of constant adaptation is misguided. Because audiences change, platforms change, the way people absorb information changes. and if you're not meeting them where they are, you're missing the point.

16:06And the business changes. If I had said, whoa, this BuzzFeed thing didn't work out, I'm never doing that again, where would I be? Do you know what I mean? Or when people ask me about CNN Plus and they're like, oh my God, and the comps people are like, don't talk about that. But to me, I'm like, what? If you don't try stuff, you are dust. You are left in the smoke of people who are innovating. So I would much rather try and not necessarily become Oprah if I'm learning things and connecting with new audiences along the way. Like, it's only been upside for me, even as it's been a roller coaster itself.

16:43And there's something so satisfying about, in midlife, when you think you know what you're good at, starting out at something that you've never done before and might not be good at to start, and experiencing the learning curve that everybody experiences early in their career, even after you feel like you've more or less figured out where your strengths and weaknesses are. It's exciting to build new muscles. Yeah. Can you just explain the show to people who, again, are familiar with... No, no, he's better than that. What you're doing is Ari answered the question Adi blew by with her storytelling earlier.

17:17I was listening to this and I was like, this is a very engaging conversation. And also, we have explained nothing to the audience about what this show is. There are a few key components. First of all, the title Engagement Party gives you a clue that we're talking about the things that we're obsessed with, that we're engaged with, that we need to process with a friend. And the friendship is another really big part of it. I want people to feel like they're in on a private conversation between the two of us. And we're talking about things that people may have heard of, may also be obsessed with, or may not be on their radar.

17:47Because as Audie likes to say, the then diagram of what she and I are interested in is not a circle. And I hope we also bring to it the kind of rigor and context and analysis and history that people are accustomed to based on what they know of us from NPR. So we want to give people a laugh. We want to give people insight. We want to give people to talk about something to talk about at the dinner party over the weekend. Episodes are deliberately dropping on Fridays because it should be a fun listen that people can enjoy while they're doing other things. A fun listen and a fun watch because it's also on video.

18:19And the party part is really important because it's not, I think a lot of podcasts that are hang type shows, it's a little bit closed. Like you get to be a fly on the wall of these cool and interesting people. And sometimes that is great. You know what I mean? That's fun to do. But I've been joking that, you know, in public media, we were called hosts, not anchors, because Susan had told me that you're host of a party. Susan Stamberg, founding mother, yes. Yeah, it was like, oh, you have something interesting to say. Oh, you're like a business person. you know, oh, that's funny. Wait, you're an athlete?

18:56Here, you come over and talk as well. And our natural inclination is to draw people in. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's not an accident. I'm doing a panel show now. I think it's not an accident that Ari and his post-NPR life is like moderating every interview and talk with every interesting person who sets foot on a stage right now is because we still like, we're like, come into the party, come into the party. So it's something that we expect the audience to participate in, and we're going to have, like, ways for them to do that. Did you guys feel like when you were at NPR, like, you were limited in, in that, in some ways, this connection that you had off the mic was something that you kind of couldn't do on the NPR broadcast, and that was, in some ways, kind of limiting, and that the listeners were kind of missing out on something special?

19:46The way you describe it sounds negative, And I think that any journalism platform is going to ask you to bring a certain part of yourself that's not necessarily 100 % of yourself. That is the nature of being a journalist in any context, in any way, shape, or form. I mean, I would say the kind of anchor that Audie is at 6 a.m. every weekday morning on CNN is not going to be the same as what you get from Engagement Party. And so, sure, when we were together hosting All Things Considered, we weren't cracking jokes and dropping F-bombs, but that would have been wildly inappropriate. Neither of us was angsting about the fact that we weren't able to do that because we were the inheritors of this incredible heirloom that we both really prized and valued and loved.

20:34and what we were able to bring to All Things Considered was special and necessary and essential and also true to who we are in a way that didn't include cracking jokes and dropping F-bombs. And so that felt right for that platform. And this feels right for this platform. Well, we have a lot more that we want to get to with Ari and Adi, but we have to take a short break. So we'll be right back after this.

21:04Max:In this week's Branded segment from Think with Google, I talked with Google's VP of Marketing, Josh Spanier, about the importance of venturing outside of your bubble. So Josh, it's getting into kind of event season, and we had a little trouble scheduling this call because you have been constantly on the road. What are you picking up? Well, I have been on the road a lot. Last week, I was at the possible event, a marketing conference in Miami. The week before that, I was at Google Cloud Next, our big developer conference for Google Cloud. I learn a lot on the road. And I think one of of challenges for us marketers is that we spend too much time in the office, too much time heads down looking at our devices versus getting out into the real world.

21:42Max:And I've always found that really when I get out, I get ahead. What do you mean by getting out to get ahead? Getting out in the world is all about education for me. At Google Cloud Next, I saw incredible new technologies. I saw AI-powered robotics from Google's deep mind. I saw conversations and listen to conversations about cryptography. Most of this goes above my head, but it makes me a better marketer knowing it's there and picking up on the cues and the conversations around AI beyond straight marketing. So that education is super helpful. I also find just that real talk happens in the real world.

22:17Max:At a possible event in Miami, I met with a lot of our customers. I meet with a lot of CMOs and they tell me things that they're just not going to tell me over email or over a video conference call. Getting out helps me get ahead. It's also important that I let my team get ahead as well. So one of the things I love to do is to think about my insights, collect them all, and write them on the plane or on the bus or on the train going back to home, back to the office. You do it immediately. That gives you a real-time signal on what your boss really cares about, what they're interested in, and what they're learning about.

22:49Max:All this stuff just helps make me a richer, better marketer, and that helps lift the team as well. Where can people find out more about what you've been learning? You can watch the Google Cloud Next keynote on YouTube right now. And watch out for Brandcast, GML, I.O., these major Google events, which will all be live streamed over the next couple of weeks.

23:16Max:How do you think about, there's a very different kind of connection online. Like I think on NPR, everybody knows you, everybody likes you. People are like curious about your name, but often it doesn't go like... Oh, not everybody likes you. No, absolutely not. Okay. One of the very first things you learn when you become a host is that everybody hates some of the hosts. Really? Some people are going to hate you. Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Huh. I did not know that because I think of online celebrity as being fundamentally kind of polarizing. Like people who are successful on the internet are often very, very polarizing.