We're gonna do something a little bit different here today. We are taking you to Southern France where we are chatting with host and producer of the constable confidential, Simon Constable. He's a veteran of The Wall Street Journal where he hosted 2 daily TV shows for their live brand and filled in at WSJ Radio. And separately, he also, works with legendary broadcaster here in the States, John Bachelor. Simon, it is a pleasure to talk to you today. It's like a blast
from the past. Thank you for thank you for having me on the show. It's great. It's been way too long since I've seen you and talked to you. Well, and as Simon just alluded to, we do know each other. We worked together at the journal for many years overlapping, and and helping each other out with our various projects. So first of all, tell me why did you start the Constable Confidential, and and what is the show all about? It's a it's a very good question. Well, as you've mentioned, I'd done
broadcast at at the journal. I know even before that at at, thestreet.com, and then and that was on TV or video, whatever you wanna call it. And then also a bit of radio with with WSJ and a bit radio with John Bachelor when he was at WABC and now at CBS. And I'd taken a break from doing that. And then there was the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7th. And I thought, I've just got to be there. I've got to not be
in Israel, but I've got to be covering this. This is a monumental event, and I had contacts in Jerusalem and in other places who had good insights or I knew would have good insights on this. And I just started doing it. And I thought, okay. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna get this on tape or whatever we call it now on on pixels, I guess. And and and make some shows and then put them out, not really promote Mathew, think of them as pilots, and I did a few of them.
And I got to learn the software, the Hindenburg, or the Gutenberg software to put together things with an intro and outro and then just leave the rest in the middle. So it was just getting myself back into the groove with this without being under the pressure of having to support mark marketing goals.
And that's been a lot of fun. It's obviously a lot of work. I had to relearn a lot of stuff, get to to know the software, get to know my voice and how it was and and what worked and what didn't in this medium because it was long for most of the the segments I've done are about 25 minutes long, which is a a very big difference from what I was doing in TV at the journal WSJ live where most of the segments were 3 minutes long. So a bit of difference, but it was really that
moment when Israel was invaded. This was news, and it was news that needed to be covered, and I wanted to cover it. So you said you haven't really been promoting it or marketing it really. Are you seeing any traction with it? Is it is it finding an audience? It is finding an audience, and it's very interesting. It's finding an audience primarily, and I and I don't really quite understand this, in the UK and a little bit in the in the US, but
also France as well. And that's interesting in France because France is a French speaking country as as 1 might imagine. And there are some English speakers here, and and it's getting some traction here and some traction across Europe and then some spots all over the world. So Japan, Mongolia, and Africa, there was, I think, was Ghana. There was somebody somebody there looking at it. So it's getting traction around the
world and that that's pleasing to me. And the feedback I'm getting, which is what I was really looking for by not promoting is getting feedback from friends who would tell me what was terrible, which is which is what you want from your friends. You you don't want your friends to tell you you're great. You want your friends to say, okay. This was good, but this bit doesn't work and this bit doesn't work. Feedback's been generally good, and that's that's that's a
nice feeling. And I had some feedback about things not to do. What is fascinating and normally with these studio tours, what we're doing is we're trying to look at people's complicated setup. You do not have a complicated setup. You're basically working off of your MacBook Pro MacBook Air, pair of the Apple headphones, right, that you just plug into your computer. And for so many people, they would think, you know, this isn't a a good
enough setup. I can't launch a show. I need to spend a lot of money on a mic. I need to spend a lot of money on a mixer. I need to, you know, invest all this money before I get started because no one's gonna take me seriously. But you are just out there doing it, and you are being taken very seriously as indicated by many of the guests who appear on your show. Yes. And and it's all it's as you know, from from your podcast work and your radio work, the guests are what the show is all
about. It's about the host helping the guests tell their story and sometimes challenging them and, you know, getting people to explain stuff that that might not be obvious to listeners. And so I'm the voice of the listeners. So, yes, they do take it seriously. And, I mean, as I've said to some people when when talking about sort of, you know, stories that I've written, it doesn't really matter if they're written or not. I'm offering credibility
when I do an interview, and that's what the guests are there for. And then the credibility of me asking them the tough questions, the necessary questions that might be uncomfortable for them. I'm not offering cleavage, which is a completely different thing. And I know it might sound a bit racy, but you understand where I'm coming from. There's something that's titillating. I'm not offering that. I'm offering something quite serious, but in a very simple
way is what I'm I'm trying to offer anyway. And it's the audience who will decide whether I'm actually achieving that in the right way. Something that a lot of Podcasting are struggling with is how to attract and how to actually get guests to come on their show. What's been your strategy for connecting with and, you know, getting folks to agree to to appear on the constable confidential? Believe it or not, emailing people, just emailing them directly and saying, would you come on the show? This
is what I'm doing. This is what I'm looking for. And I've I've found a a very interesting man. Tech good example of it is Robin Horsfall, who was a former SAS operative. He was part of the the crew that rescued the hostages in the Iranian Passy in
1980 in London. And he's 1 of those guys who went in there very brave, very skilled, and he had his army career long, long gone, but still a very interesting and vibrant personality who had turned to writing books as well as commenting on what's going on in Ukraine. And I had him on the show, and I just wrote to him. The only thing he said was, would you would you mention my book? And I was like, sure. Of course. That was that was I mean, that's pretty easy. That's a
pretty easy guess. I wrote to him. Ben Habib. I I got an introduction to him from a friend. But other people I just wrote to and said, would you be on the show? And this is what I wanna talk about, and they came back to me. So that that was it. And I know that sounds ridiculously simple, but writing a short an emphasis on the short email, just a a few lines saying, I do this show. Would you care to come join me? I think it's actually
really important that people understand that. So many podcasters get intimidated by the concept of reaching out to guests. And, again, they're they're worried, they're afraid, they're anxious about, a, just reaching in a general, but also, b, reaching out thinking that they're not big enough or they won't be taken serious enough. And as you're kinda showing, it doesn't take NPR type studio and, you
know, a team of 20 people. There are plenty of great folks out there who wanna talk to regular people and and share their perspective on what is going on in the world. I wonder because of your background, because of all your work in broadcasting and and working at The Journal and The Street, how do you prepare for these episodes? What what is your preshow routine to get ready for an episode? Well, my preshow routine happens every day. So and this is not the same. I'm broadcasting every day.
But every day I wake up, I turn on BBC Radio 4's Today program to see what's in the news. So I stay constantly up to date with what the major news is that's going on. And you pretty much know within 5 minutes whether there is any news. And this is a a 3 hour show that I listen to. And if if within 5 minutes, if there's actually no news going on, you know, nobody's died and it's just waffly stuff, then I turn it off. But I stay up to date with the news and
specifically with the news I'm interested in. And 1 of 1 of the areas I'm very interested in is geopolitics. So that's Ukraine and Russia and, obviously, Belarus, which is involved there, and what the European Union's doing about defense and what's going on in in Gaza, what's going on in Israel, what's going on in Yemen and the Red Sea and all those other places. So I stay up to date with that. That means that when I see an interesting story that I want to interview somebody about, I can slot
that into the context. So when you have a US, I don't know, a a US destroyer in the Red Sea firing bombs, I already have the context of what's going on because we know that the Houthis have been firing rockets at commercial vessels in the Red Sea. So I can I can put that in Tech, and all I really have to do is to skim through the maybe the written piece? And obviously, it's very good to find a written piece by a guest because writing forces
the writer to get their thoughts in order. So when you have a guest who's written something, that's really useful, and you'll know that from producing. And when you have the guest on, you say, can you send me 3 bullet points? That's not for the by the way, that's not for the producer. That's for the guest themselves. They don't maybe don't realize that the guest themselves orders their thoughts by getting 3 bullet points
down. And then I and then I just, you know, I email them, set up a time, you know, get them on the get them get them on the Zoom connection and go click. And, you know, 321, go. And we go. And do do do it right through, and I end it usually with, this is constable confidential. I'm Simon constable, and that's it. And then the segment's over. He's out easy. Yeah. Easy peasy. But, I mean, you knew know as well as I do. When you're doing current affairs, you have to stay up to date pretty much
every day. And there's no it's a it's a relentless thing. There is news every day. And the question is, can you distinguish it from what's important and what's just something that's happened? So, you know, you know that about America and quite a lot of what's on some news channels, and I won't name them because I don't wanna embarrass them, is not really relevant in the long Tech, whereas other news is. It is hard to
tell the difference these days. I wonder also because I mean, you obviously with the background that you have, it it might be a little bit easier. But for a lot of folks who are doing podcasts, especially in the news world, it's helpful to grow their audience to get their names out there by submitting their work to other publications. And, you know, I know it says here that you've written for, obviously, the journal and Barron's, both Dow Jones property, but also Time, Forbes,
Fortune, New York Post, New York's on the South China Morning Post. How is it getting your work into other publications, or or what's that process like for a podcaster who's thinking about this as a route to raise their profile? Well, the the the profile for podcasting, I think that the the I mean, from what I've heard, from what I hear, because I listen to a lot of of radio and podcasts and things, is those ads, at the very beginning of somebody else's
show. So if it's a Matthew Passy show, there might be an ad in the front of it. You know, I don't know, 15 seconds, maybe 30 seconds. So if they're big big spenders, it's saying, you know, check out this new podcast by ex Samson, John Smith. It's really cool, and it covers this sort of thing. You know, I probably said more eloquently than that because that's where the the authors
come from. I'm not sure that any of my work in my written work does anything except help me help me define myself as credible when I'm getting guests. I'm not sure that an audience really thinks that much about that. Maybe I'm wrong. I've I write for any publication that will pay a decent rate, but and that doesn't have AAA bias towards hate of any sort. So I avoid any organizations that that have a a streak of hatred in in their editorial policy, which is relatively few, but I'm just saying
that. So if if you've got the money, alright. So that that that makes that very good. And I don't know that there's a there's that closer connection between what I write and what podcast listeners want. Maybe I'm wrong, and and I'm sure you'll tell me that based on other people's experience. Well, no. I mean I mean,
in your case, it might not be. But I think for folks who are who don't have the kind of background that you do, you know, they just might be interesting for them to be able to get those bylines, get that credibility. You know, even in some of those cases when people read, you know, who wrote this article, say, you know, written by Matthew Passy, they could even say host of blah blah blah podcast, which just gives them exposure
they don't have access to. So is there, like, a a direct route or is there a strategy for submitting work to places? Absolutely. And a lot of organizations really need people who are technical experts in a an area. Right? So if you if you're a sports writer or you know a lot about sports, then you have an advantage over me. For example, I I don't write about sports because I know nothing about it. I know how to play them badly, but that's, you know, the badly
bit tells you everything. But if you do know that, that's great because there are plenty of local papers and plenty of national papers who might want you to go and look at a game and do a quick a quick piece about it. And if it if it looks like journalism and you have some quotes in it and and some action in in the way that you've written it. And so, you know, then then they'll be
interested. So what the first thing they're gonna wanna do is see what your previous work was like, and so you have to make that step into it, into writing something for someone probably for free once or twice. And you have 2 clips, 3 clips, and you that's what they call the the the clips in the paper, but they'll really be printouts from a website. And then you take them to the bigger companies that have money and say, this is what I've written
in the past. I'd like to write these stories for you. Are you interested? And initially, there will be a lot of no's. We've already got that covered. But, you know, you you you you've got to keep going. You know, you've got to keep going and say, me, sir, me madam, please. It's me next, me next, me next. You Tech gotta keep saying it and just let it bounce off. It's it's, you know, think of it like you're going into Hollywood to be an actor.
Of course, you're gonna get rejected a lot of the time. That's gonna happen, and then you'll get credibility. Ring people up. Ask to talk to them about what it's like to be in journalism and what what journalist editors are looking for and who, you know, what it's like in the business, what they what they want and Tech to that. I had a guy ring me up and say he wanted to be a journalist. And I said to him, Okay, well, who who, you know, who do you want to write for and what do you want to
write? And he said politics and sports. And I said, Well, I don't know anything about politics, and I know anything about sports, about geopolitics. So I put him in contact with 2 of the best people in their industry, and I'm not going to embarrass everybody else by naming those 2 people. And that gentleman, young man, I think he was about 22, he wrote to both of them, and 1 of them replied, and he had a great conversation. And now he writes sports.
You know? Not not for the biggest publications in the world, but he's got in there. And he's 22, and he's having a great time. And I wish him really well. So ring ring up Samson again, it comes down to emailing somebody, and you'd be surprised how many people will, you know, respond. And they will. Amazing. Alright. Well, before we let you go, we have a couple of questions that we ask everybody. And as a reminder, people, you can check out the constable confidential.
We'll have a link to it here in the show notes, and you can check out the work that Simon is doing on the world news front here, today. So, Simon, is there a place where you'd like to see some improvement in the podcasting space? Is there something that, you know, you find challenging or you think would make your life easier as a
podcaster? It would be really nice if the the podcast platforms when when you just say say Spotify, and I'm I'm picking that 1 because that it's a very easy 1 to use, could have ways to give more feedback, you know, comments, a comment section from some people. Now I realize that could be very dangerous because it could end up being, you know, hate hate speech or whatever, which, of course, III don't like, but it could be
nice to get feedback. And 1 of the things that you'll you know, from radio and and from any journalism is you produce the content and you put it out there. And in many ways, you you don't get much feedback externally. You might get it from your editor, from your producer, whatever that is. For instance, I had a column at The Wall Street Journal for 10 years once a month. Right? As well as other work. I didn't get any feedback externally for the 1st 5 years.
Samson and and then people were saying, oh, I've been loving reading that for the last 5 years. Thanks for telling me, I think. But you know what? It's nice to get the good the good feedback. But having some feedback or something 2 way some 2 way thing or some mechanism to get a 2 way thing going with an audience without having it be a phone in show, which doesn't really work in the podcast world. That I think could be very useful. And also sometimes people are gonna tell
you things like, do you know you do this? And it's really annoying me. That would be kinda useful to know. Well, we will make sure to send you a link to a platform called Fanlist. We spoke to their founder, previously on the show, and that actually has some tools that might be helpful for you in this case. It's not the same as getting it directly on Spotify, but at least it might give you, you know, 1 way to get that external feedback. Is there any tech
on your wish list? Is there something a device that you would like to get your hands on or something that you wish was invented that would make your life easier? I think some some equipment that would allow me to record outdoors. So in in a coffee shop, maybe on a on a terrace in the summer where I could interview someone, you know, in the afternoon where it's reasonably quiet, but
you still have the ambient noise. That's what I'm looking for next because I think that really takes you somewhere else from from a studio sound. And the studio sound can be sound a bit sterile. It can also be very nice, but it's also nice to have that that sound in the background. There's a there's a show on the BBC Radio 4 channel, which is which is very interesting called Ramblings as a a woman who goes out and meets people on country walks and talks to
them and has her microphone with her. And that works out very well because you have the background noise and you hear her and her interviewee talking, and you hear the the brushing of their coat in the winter or the rain or the wind. And that actually works in many, many, many ways. Obviously, she's very skilled at it. I'm not, and she has a probably has a bigger budget than me. Alright. And, and, just so the listeners already know, I've
already sent Simon a little shopping list ahead of this. So he he's he's gonna work on that. Lastly, what's your what's the podcast that you're listening to right now that you just can't miss? As soon as an episode drops, you are, you know, switching over and turning that 1 on. There's a a lovely podcast. It's based in Britain, and it's called Dark Histories. It's by a young man who lives in Brighton, who's a hairdresser, and he does this. And he's
been doing this for a while, and he's just charming. And he he tells stories of of of terrible things that have happened to people in the Passy, in long, long past. And he he writes them up, and he tells you about it, about sort of the various people usually in the UK who've done heinous things. He's just very, very good at it, and he talks about his situation. He also talks about he gets emails from people and talks about those and and really
interacts. I think he's very, very good and very, very funny. But somebody complained did Tech complain, sent to him. I'm really sorry. I keep falling asleep when I listen to your podcast. And he said, I, you know, I did I first did the podcast to get control of my anxiety, and it worked. And if it's working for you as well and you're going to sleep and getting a good night's sleep, that's great. I'm really happy for you. So I really really like him. He's called Ben. It's a great it's a great
podcast show. It's not news, but remember when I'm listening to a Podcasting, that's not that's my relaxation, not my job. Fair enough. Alright. Well, once again, we've been chatting with Simon Constable. He's the host and producer of the Constable Confidential, which we will have a link to so you can find it right here in the show notes, and you can also check out some of his writings and various papers all around the world. Simon, it has been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us, and good to
see you, sir. Good to see you too, and thank you for having me.