Hi. This is Timothy Kim O'Brien, and this is Kyle Bondo. And you're listening to Podrect, the podcast about how to survive, the podcast industry. Hey, Kyle. So I wanna welcome everybody back to the show here. Today's episode. It kind of brings me back to to the seventies, Kyle. When there was a lot of investigations going on about our president at that time. And the wonderful movie all the president's men came out. We're talking about investigative journalism.
Oh. And when that was an actual thing. Yeah. When it was an actual thing. It was. It used to be. Actual what happened to investigative journalism. It's almost as did that die. Where did it go? I'll tell you earlier when. It went to podcasting. That's where it went, and that's kind of today's show. And that's a good thing though, Kyle, because think about it. You know, it's the the days of Gerardo Rivera, you know, in the eighties,
late eighties and nineties, really killed that investigative journalism that we had way back in the seventies, the sixties, the Edward Marrow days, and all that kind of good stuff. When you could, you know, you could pop on the TV. You had the big 3 networks. You only had 3 networks. Some of us had 4, but you only had 3 networks. And you know, the new the newscasts really put money into it, really put thought into it, and now it's come to podcasting.
And, yeah, Kyle, why do you think it's come to podcasting? What what makes podcasting different from all these networks that have all this money, all this ad revenue where they could do it? But here it is in podcasting where people don't have money. Well, I think it has a lot to do with the format. And here's here's here's my 2 cents of this because you think about true crime and thrillers and I was doing these call it, like, you know, the crime horror, the psychological pieces of that.
And realistically, these are the kind of these the investigative journalists are the kind of reporters at the newsroom that are gone for months at a time. They're compiling, they're they're finding sources, they're uncovering clues, they're digging through documents and other at the archives finding the the reports and the smoking guns and all that kind of thing. That takes a ton of work I mean, you really have to to invest and and not we're talking invest not only just in time, but money
too to build up these kind of stories. And what happens when an investigative journalist gets done with this story, well, it gets published? And it gets published in what what really 1 or 2 ways. It is published as a giant article inside a newspaper or a series article of newspaper. Or becomes a book. So an investigative journalist really when it comes to podcasting, the long form format within podcasting gives it that episodic feel to it. You can literally take your writing
all your content, all the stuff that would necessarily make it into the story. And you can stretch that out among 10 episodes and tell a story about something with sound effects, with emotional drama, with
9 1 1 phone calls, you'd really when you read it doesn't get the same drama as the person screaming on the phone about the murder that just happened. You can get police or you get the the police on the newspaper talking about and, like, so and so and so and so. But when you get the recording of the police officer talking. You're like, oh my gosh. That guy doesn't sound like he cares at all. You get all this kind of
very small little details. You do not get in a written piece or even even in a a TV show that you have to sit and watch is something you can put in your ears and you can take it on the train with you or in the car with you, and it's like you're investigating
with them. That's what I think the appeal is. I think that's why they're what we we pulled up an article on this 1 from medium. The medium courses, sometimes some people write some great stuff in medium. But in in this particular article, they talk about the golden age, the new golden age, investigative journalism. And podcasting is that Spark and cereal
was, I think, with the first wanted to kick the door in that that this is where investigative journalism has come back to life. What do you think about that? Yeah. I I think the whole thing was cereal. It was it was a brand new thing. It was a brand new way of bringing in this this style of journalism into a new a new ish technology. Okay? It's been going on for 14, 15 years. What have you?
But and serial really brought it brought it to light. And there's other ones like ear hustle that's out there right now. That is doing some great work. And there's there's other all over the globe. I mean, we read an article about some guy down in Australia. Getting put in jail because of a podcast, because of an investigation. And and I I think this is a really cool thing I agree with, Nicole, where you have the newspaper, you are limited to the space.
You know, every inch costs so much money and you have to generate so much income to make that happen. But for a podcaster that's doing investigative journalism, they it's whatever money that they have whatever Patreon support they can get for it. My I I I have a bit of an issue. Fantastic article. I think it can do fantastic things. Okay. Here's my issue, Kyle. Yeah. The investigative journalism in podcasting.
And you know and everyone out there knows me. I'm a little bit of a naysayer here because I said podcasting isn't gonna take off in 20 19. Is that gonna be mainstream in 20 19? You double down on this. This is your double down now. But I'm I'm gonna double down on this. This is the issue that I have. Okay. Okay. Sure. So the Dan Rathers of the world. And not even the Dan Rathers. Ed Murrow. We'll we'll do Ed Murrow because Dan Rathers kind of tamed. Kind of tamed. You you he is.
I think he's a good journalist, but I use tainted. He's definitely tainted. Like the big 3 in the eighties and nineties, Broker, Dan Rather, and Donaldson are all kind of tainted. They're all kind of they they have their own personal agenda. But the issue that I have with podcasters doing it is you don't know them as well and you really have to dive deep you have to listen to what they're saying and the information that they're putting out. And then you have to
take the time and to kinda go around it and get all the other information about it. So you have to be your own investigative journalism, do your own investigative journalism on it to make sure that that person, if they have an agenda, it is truly to investigate something not to slander somebody or anything like that because It's a little bit of wild west right now. I mean, what are the rules
for somebody to go out there stick a microphone in your face and go, hi. This is the Tim Bryant, an investigative journal podcast, and I wanna ask you a bunch of questions, and then I edit it. To make these folks sound like idiots or lying or however I want them to sound. Not saying that anyone is doing that, but in my twisted brain, I can see somebody wanting to do that. So you're seeing you're saying the trust issue.
You're saying the validity of these podcasters you have to you have you have a barrier or a you have to you have a bar in which the trust that you are saying that they should have. You don't have because you don't know who they are. Yeah. They're they're They did not see maybe it's a better word. I I like I like what you're seeing there. I I do have a trust issue with them. And, you know, maybe I need to go through some therapy on that. And that's okay. We can do that.
Next week, we'll do a therapy pod guests. No. But seriously, I have that niche because these folks, if they're gonna do it, I don't want them to just do because I I I see folks doing just 1 issue, 1 case, 1 and done, and they're honor there. I'd like to see them do a lot of, you know, a lot of different cases to develop a resume, to develop a whole catalog. There we go. That's the word I'm looking for. A whole catalog of journalism in there.
And and that takes time and that takes building relationships. And that's take that takes getting the trust of the audience. And with podcasting, we know that you know, the your average listener can, you know, they can hit that the skip button so many times. And they can blow by your stuff so quickly because there's 600000
podcasts out there. Well, this is I I see I see your trust thing, and I wanna I wanna I wanna raise you a counterpoint here. And the counterpoint I have about about that is that I see these true crime podcasts, these investigative journal podcasts, there's really kind of the 2 2 really 2 camps, if you would. You have an amateur investigators These are in amateur investigators, the people who have, you know, they're the they're the sleuths, the people who are gonna we're gonna solve the crime.
The gum shoe people that are doing this on their their spare time and think that they have the answer. There's a whole lot of web this is really started
with with a there's a lot of websites out there trying to solve different crimes, thinking that they have the answer, trying to solve the zodiac killer murders. Where they were going into trying to figure out the codes and what of all the the different pieces of the evidence meant and what did the police overlook and listening can really kind of eliciting all these different kinds of different clues, if you would, to solve this case.
So this has really been around for a while. Investigators, you know, amateur investigators are all over the place. So this is the Scooby Doo gang of of online media, if you would. Then there's the career investigative reporters. These are the guys who work for New York Times, Washington Post, they're the ones who are invested in discovering the secret or the true story or the the scandal behind the scenes.
And we used to have a term for this in journalism called mudraking. They're looking for that, you know, they wanna find the gossip and the dirty little details because a lot of times, as it used to say in the military, a rumor is just a premature fact. So they would go and find these rumors that would lead them to sources that would tell them stories that would then lead them other sources, that would uncover things that you normally would not be able to find otherwise. Those are those 2
2 groups of people, if you would, are coming together in podcasting's true crime thriller genre. And the category is exploding. And it's exploding, I think, for you know, there's a couple reasons that we already talked about a minute ago. Serial being 1 of them ever wants to be the next serial. So there's a lot of, you know, 1 upisms, me tooisms kind of thing going on there. I think the other thing is is there's so many cases out there
that are unsolved. There's so many cold cases. There's so many things that people have a personal interest in. It happened in my hometown. It happened to someone in my family. It happened I remember it from a child or
My parents talked about this or something impacted their life. You listen to some of these investigators. They talk about how there's something about these cases that has stuck with them forever and now they're just they just gotta they just have to take it to the next level. So there's some, like, I want to do good. My purpose is to do good and to bring light onto something that everyone has forgotten about. I think that's an advantage. But what you say also rings true. Is, okay.
So they bring light to it. Did they do harm? Did they, you know, are they do they swayed the case 1 way or another? Do they trample on evidence? Or maybe they they maybe actually find new evidence? Only they don't know what the heck they're doing, and they they ruin that evidence, and the guy actually get away or gal. Mhmm. There is there is, you know, they have they have they don't know what they're doing. The amateurism can impact some of these cases.
I think there is an element to that that rings true. But to say that you have to be a network affiliated or have a journalism degree to be a good investigative journalist. I think that I think I think that ship has sailed. I think the day of the Internet is here where, you know, the elitism of a journalism degree you know, really
it's not as powerful it used to be. And there are a lot of really good investigators out there who did not go to University of New York or in why you to get their journalism degree. And now you have a threats being formed by these amateurs. Okay. That's my counterpoint. Would Let's let's Yeah. What do you think about that?
Alright. So we're gonna we're gonna think about that. We're gonna think about that. I was like, I was like, what what do you think about that? You know, this is as the edge of the educator. I mean, I have a I mean, I have a degree. You have a degree. We both know that degree is what you make of it and what you do with it. And there are plenty of people out there who have done great things, have no degrees, but that amateur level in law enforcement really gets people weird.
And I think that's I think I wanna say that I think that's where some of your trust issues come from. Is we trust law enforcement to do their jobs. But what these amateur investigators are pointing out that some of these law enforcement people are just as, you know, not to not to slam the the the thin blue line, but some of these guys are doorknobs. Just as much as some of these criminals,
who got away with murder, they when when some of these people go back and look at some of these cases, they're like, how did you not see this this 1 thing that shows that this guy totally killed his wife. And they're like, oh, we missed it. And then you go, well, then you start to unravel what is I we missed it mean, you know, well, they've got no funding. You know, half their cops are part time. They have no resources.
You know, there was a lot of political involvement there. There was other murders at the time. You know, it was crazy time. You mean, you there's people don't look at the big picture. So some of these cops and some of that get a hard time in some of these podcasts. I see some of these podcasts as very they're very law enforcement. They're not very friendly to law enforcement. Let's put it that way. Because of that, you missed it kind of thing.
But I also see some of these podcasts as an advantage to a case that got cold. And for the first time, it's back and it's back. And there was that 1 person who knew that 1 thing, who didn't know they were investigating, listens to the podcast and goes, oh, wait a minute. I I I was there. I totally saw him at that place. And that's the 1 piece they needed, and bang. He's going to prison. Well and that sounds like a great Sunday nights lifetime.
Not lifetime. The hallmark channel murder mysteries from the the library in there that my wife watches. And you know what? I you know, Bigger. That does happen. That is fantastic. That is great. I support that cool beans. My issue is there is no I like since I started working for the army, they always talk about left and right limits. Alright? And with this new crop of journalism coming up in podcasting, now you're right. These have been on websites for a while now.
And even before the websites, they were doing stuff through the newspaper and and and all that jazz. But there's it just it seems a little too wild west. It seems like you can have a vendetta against somebody too easily.
Or you could have somebody think, oh, hey, he killed my uncle Fred. I'm sure of it. I don't have any proof, but I'm gonna do a podcast on it. And screw this guy's life up, we're gonna come up with some evidence that, you know, the the corruption of its is tough and or somebody is not doesn't have a vendetta, but
they poisoned the jury pool. Because let's say these folks hear about it and they hear about the case and they decide against the guy because they heard the pod but then we find out years later, I'll wait that evidence that the podcast presented was incorrect. Well, that guy's in jail now. Those are actually I mean, I think you're you're really I think Okay. That I agree with. You're talking on journalistic ethics.
Something that an amateur who didn't go to journalism school understand ethics. Now, I regret that people should have ethics to begin with, but you paint a very interesting picture about how damaging a podcast about the guy who killed my uncle, you know, alleged they don't fuckitiously, you don't know my uncle's still alive. But to to say that, you know, that that they could use it to slander a a potential defendant.
Almost like what they call it, that trying it in the newspapers, I think was once a a lawyer statement once with the, like, the OJ Simpson was the case where they released all the evidence out there. Now we're granted what you think about you know, doesn't matter what you think about OJ if he did it or not, the fact that it was all over the media constantly. Everyone had a theory about it. All the all the all the jury knew what was going on. Could you if you were that person,
could you get a fair trial? And if you have a podcast, I mean, cereal got, what, 27000000 downloads or something that are they were talking like, you know, could you realistically get a fair trial based upon an amateur investigative podcast about you and the alleged things you may or may not have done. I don't know. That's a I mean, we're talking about this is a 20 first century problem. And how do you differentiate
between that? Now, I I would love to think that everyone has good ethics. You and I live in the real world, and we know that not everyone does. No. They do not. Yeah. You know, I my ethics can be called into question, you know, I I'm thinking back from 19 94 to 97, and I'm still paying for that, but we won't get into that on this episode. But you know, if there was a a tier level that we can go alright. So these are the top tier folks. These are the top 10 or 50 podcasts that
we can reliably count on. Now we have we can have the amateur stuff and and they do what they want. And I'm not necessarily talking, you know, with the the top tier, the the top 50 podcasts, they have to be related to a network. But they need to be held accountable for their reporting somehow. Right now, there's nothing holding them accountable.
So we apart from, you know, slander you know, apart from going for slander in the public, but then in order to liable or slander somebody, you have to prove intent to harm that person's reputation. And that's hard to do. So what would you say is a way that you could I mean, obviously, there's there's laws already on the books. Slander or liable or definitely you don't think was it was it liable. It's
things you write something. Is that right? Mhmm. If you write about somebody that that's incorrect, that's liable. And if you talk about somebody and you lie about them, that's slander. Right? So you there's there's those 2 laws on the books right there. You have the the the gag orders and then the the deal. The the legal malpractice of lawyers talking out of school releasing evidence that they're not allowed to release
you know, poisoning the jury pool based upon evidence that is not being, you know, not allowed in the courtroom. Inadmissible evidence. I mean, we can really we can really put our lawyer hats on here. So there's already laws in the books that prevent this. I would almost say that based upon what you're saying with with kind of thinking about those journal of ethics, This is really the fine line between podcasting and reporting. Is a podcaster a reporter? Are they a member of the media?
Or are they someone who is simply enjoying a hobby on the Internet? And at what point does that cross align to where now? They're a member of the media where they can be held accountable as a member of the media for journalistic ethics or even better, we could flip it around.
Where someone comes after them for their sources, and they can protect sources based upon their first amendment rights and the rights they have to to report with their reporting, and they claim they have evidence, but they, you know, they don't wanna reveal their sources. So they do all the things that journalists get The party doesn't go from hobby to profession. That, I think, is a very blurry area. And I think the true crime people have definitely
I mean, right now, we're celebrating it. The golden age of true crime. Oh, it's everywhere. Yay. You know? We're retelling gruesome tales and psychological trauma of the past of these overlooked crimes, and we're going through it. And although it's expensive to make these and time consuming, it's very difficult to produce. These are not something easy to produce.
They go through all this effort in there. What we're not seeing quite yet but I suspect we will, is the first podcaster who is sued or held in some kind of contempt based upon that that journalistic ethics. Or they get moved off their platform, which we we actually have talked about. Podcasters get moved off their platform for what they're saying. De platform via bad ethics. Mhmm. Interesting point. I mean, I think
well, that's you really you really kind of open the the can there. So let's explore that a little more. What do you think? So is it is it will there come a time? Should there be standards? What do you think? There needs to be some sort of like if you're gonna be a true crime reporter or true true crime podcasters, should you have the same kind of credentials as as the as the media at large? Well, when we go let's go to our newsstand.
There was a time and there was a day that you could go to your local newsstand. And you would get your, you know, your regular paper that you could trust, your daily paper, your post, your tribune, your times, what have you, and you could also pick up a national enquirer. And you can also pick up a daily caller. Okay. You know, something along those lines.
But you knew that, hey. Okay. If I'm gonna pick up the inquirer or if I'm gonna pick up the onion, I could I remember a day and time that I could go to my new stand. And I can grab the onion. I could grab a hundred dollars from the onion, please. Thank you. Mhmm. They require the times I would pick up the Tribune, you know, Baltimore sun, all that kind of jazz, all the same spot, but I knew when I walked up there, okay, the onion is, you know, farceicle. The national enquirer is a bunch of
you know, aluminum wearing, you know, hat guys that are conspiracy crazy and all that jazz. And I know okay. So the Tribute leans a little bit left, and then this paper, the Republic leans a little bit right. I I I could go and I I I was knowledgeable enough to do that. I would like to see something along those lines for podcasting. So that way, Alright. So, Kyle, we've got 600000 podcasts out there. And we've got, let's say, 10000
True Crime Podcasts out there. I would like there to be some sort of way for us to go in there and go. Alright. So these guys And and I think some podcasts do a really good job of it. Like, the 1 a, and there's 1 the the daily out of New York Times. You know, they do their investigative journalism. They they they do their note news pieces as a podcast and on the radio. Okay. So I can go, okay. Boom. I got that. But then there's the Tim Brian crazy
conspiracy podcast show that sounds like a legitimate podcast. It sounds like a legitimate show. But I don't know unless, you know, Tim Brian says, oh, this is a you know, it puts a little blurb in there. Oh, by the way, this is a farce. I'm gonna think this is the real real deal if I don't know any better. And it it's gonna freak me out and go, whoa, wait a minute. You know?
Maybe we didn't land on the moon, which we didn't, but maybe we didn't land on the moon. This guy's got some evidence for it. I've got nothing to bounce that against because I'm looking at the 1 a, I'm looking at this, I'm looking and I'm listening to infoworks, which I'm not listening to anymore because it's the platformed It's on some other platform now. You have to dig for that 1. Yeah. You gotta you gotta really dig for that 1 now. But, I mean,
you know, if well, it let's compare the 2. I mean, in 4 wars versus the 1 a. Which one's right? Well, I like that too. But you're really kind of you're you're stumbling onto something that I don't think has happened yet, but is going to happen. That's why -- The first -- everyone who's podcasting our podcast.
Exactly. We're the trend centers. Oh, so you're here to hear first folks. Is you're gonna you're there is going to come a time that 1 of these true crime podcasts is going to get a class you know, a not a class action lawsuit, but going to be sued for lot for for slander. And I think it's it's It's a matter if if they claim to be as accurate and journalisticly
authentic as as they wanna be taken. Because some a lot of these true crime people who are who are coming to the up and comers claim that what you're they're telling you are, you know, they have, you know, they have researched this, they have come along this. And here's here's a perfect example. Another 1 of the the the links we have that we'll have in the show notes comes from an Australian podcast.
And the Australian podcast was called the teacher's pet. And the teacher's pet talked about a 37 year old case and that 37 year old case of a man whose wife disappeared. In the research of that podcast,
They found new witnesses and new evidence that finally convinced the police that this guy did it, even though they don't have a body. Now they're hoping to have I guess, they're gonna hoping to have a body soon. I haven't really seen an update on whether or not he finally revealed the body. But it was enough to indict him and take him to trial on this serial style True Crime Podcast.
Now, that carries a lot of weight. When people hear about this, they're like, well, maybe I can be the 1 that crack the case too. But at what point do you cross the line? And if you cross the line, what are the the repercussions of crossing that line? And I think the answer to that is the same as anybody, any newspaper. If I write a story in The Washington Times, that is totally BS. And because of that,
I get sued, I'm probably gonna lose. And a lot of times you find out that the National Acquire writes garbage all the time. They get suit, like, every month. They're sued all the time for that. And they retract it, and they pay. They have they pay. I mean, their their publication makes, you know, I don't know if they make a ton of money. Newspapers don't exactly make any money these days, but they make enough to obviously pay people off if they lose their lawsuits.
But that just that goes to show you that a podcaster who, what, buys a hundred dollar microphone, has some software, does some research on their own on their own dime has basically, you know, a house or a car, and a family to their name, and a day job, and that's all they have. And then they go on a podcast that gets so popular that a million people downloaded and it leads to a conviction of somebody, and it turns out they made everything up, they're going to jail. I think that's really what's gonna happen. And that will set the journalistic exethics
for True Crime Podcasts right there. The first podcaster to either be in the papers for banking it up and go or go into jail for making it up. And I mean, right now, what prevents me from making it up? I have a microphone, I have a medium, people listen to it, and those people are gonna talk. I can make anything up. And that's really kind of the danger.
If I can make anything up, just like I make in a paper, if I make it up, there's a financial you know, financial problem behind it because the Washington Post has a reputation. They have investors. They have, you know, they have employees. They have you know, capital resources, they have a lot invested in making sure they tell things the truth. Now whether or not you believe the Washington Post or Slant you know, land for this or a land for that doesn't matter. They don't make it up
most times because if they do, they're gonna be held accountable and lawsuits hurt So when they find reporters who make it up and they have, Washington Post has in the past, had reporters who made stuff up. And when they found them, not only did they fire them, They said, oh, yeah, by the way, all the stuff that you wrote,
we're gonna have to retract all that. And, oh, by the way, the lawsuit coming, yeah, that you're gonna pay for that, not us. Because we're gonna sue you for the amount of money we get sued for. So you're ruined, which kinda puts on that the very heavy handed version of yeah, I really don't wanna bake it up because I'm gonna get hammered. But where's the line? What's an audio drama? What's a true crime podcast? What's fictional? What's not? What HD Wells wore the world? Was it 19 38, whatever?
What they don't tell you is The radio station got sued by a lot of people. It was almost like a million dollars of the lawsuits that took place after the World of World because people drove their cars off the road, people went to the hospital, people ran into their basement screaming, and then they were pain and suffering, they got sued from all that, for that stuff. Mhmm. And they had to they had to pay some money.
So, yeah, it was fictional and they scared a couple of people and it was great drama, but there was a cost And the funny thing about that, Kyle, is they even said in the it's or it it's a story based on h 2 wells. But it was awesome wells in the radio Orson wells. Yeah. That's right. Orson wells, my bad. Sorry. No. No. You had it right. You you it was based on that novel. That's why they even said in the broadcast, hey, this is, you know, an audio drama. This is
they even put it out there. That's true. And but they still got sued. Still got sued. Mhmm. And and state and was it CBS? They settled. They settled, like, almost a million dollars with the lawsuits. And it's 1 of those kind of things where where he never gotta do that again. It was a it was a risk, and it was an amazing risk. And, of course, it created a bit of of radio history in doing that. But at the the consequence that he got the actions that he took had consequences.
A podcaster that is a true crime podcast today that does not get their facts right. And does not say this is what I think versus this is what I know or this is a fact needs to be careful. I mean, they were talking about advice to podcasters doing this. You better be rights
when it comes to some of your speculations. And you better so what is it? The the the colon panel thing he used to say all the time is the joint Jesus staff member. Tell me what you know. Tell me what you don't know. Tell me what you just think. Tell me what's the difference. Mhmm. He wants so that's the that's the whole thing of of of really identifying to your to your target audience that this is your theory versus this is the fact.
And you and you, of course, you put your neck out online? I mean, you can. If you've got the evidence to back it up, you could put your neck out on the line. There's that too. You could really kind of, you know, you could you could make a name for yourself, but put in your neck out there if you've got the evidence. But if you're making it up, you better tell people this is an audio drama or this is what I think this is my opinion. And be very careful because slander lawsuit is no joke.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, I guess, for for me, Kyle, I I I what I would like to see is some sort of loose organization, loose fraternity, loose guilt, whatever we wanna call it. Mhmm. Loose loose concrete iron plated. What have you? Okay. What are we gonna like a very safe structure you just created there. It's very floppy.
A lot of holes. It's leaking water. I don't know if I wanna -- Yeah. -- screw it. On both sides, it looks good on my side. But some sort of loose association where, you know, they say, okay, this is we're going to adopt journalistic ethics as taught by this school or this accepted thing in the school, you know, in the journalism circles, professional journalism circles.
And then if you want to say, hey, I am a I I am a member of the media, then you pay a little fee to them to keep the thing going and say, yes, I will adopt these principles. And you can put a little badge on your podcast. You can say, hey, as approved by the Tim Bryant School of Journalism, Nationwide, and then that way, as a listener to podcast, I can go Alright. This guy has adopted these principles. Here they are on his website. Here's the website for the organization. That I can go to.
And it doesn't have to be extremely black and white. It doesn't have to be 500 pages of text that nobody's gonna read but just a general and I'm copy writing this idea. So if somebody actually does it well, there's my hundred dollars. Funny that you would say that because the NYU school, the Arthur's El Chart Carter journalism Institute, which I believe is their school for journalism. Has something called audio reportage. An audio reportage does talk about journalistic
journalistic. The journalistic ethics. Ethics in journalism. There we go. Where they talk about in the digital medium, that there is the same requirement as you has as a as a reporter in a newspaper or on TV. Or on cable, you should have in any kind of audio format that if you're a podcaster and you're claiming to be a reporter, You're acting as a member of the media in which you're building, a non fiction style podcast about true events, then you have some part to play in these ethics.
And it's 1 of those kind of things where yeah, they have it if you're an alumbness of NYU. And, yeah, they have it if maybe if you want to adopt you know, self, you wanna self
correct or self standardize yourself or what -- Mhmm. -- you wanna apply those yourself. It's a it's a voluntary. There we go. It's voluntary. Yeah. It's voluntary. Yeah. But I think what you're talking about is is if you you could almost get that that seal of approval in a sense for your podcast based upon that you took a class And I see the difficulty with that is
the what's in it for me? So if as a podcaster, if I'm doing true crime or doing some non fiction, what's in it for me to wanna get this standard if I just say, you know, well, you know, I'm gonna take the risk. I think what I'm doing is correct.
I've read some stuff, so I know where the lines are. Why am I gonna do this? Because obviously, a standard is gonna cost some money. You're gonna take a class or something or you're gonna, you know, check some boxes that someone's gonna, you know, thumbs up, thumbs down, your state this your your certificate, if you would. Mhmm. What's in it for me? And
where's the teeth, I guess, you could say on that. What do you think what do you think that looks like? Well, I I I think what that looks like is mainly for the audience. It's not for the podcaster. It's for the audience. And that's we listen to a lot of podcasts about podcasting. And 1 thing that I've noticed is, you know, you gotta think about that audience. You gotta talk to that 1 person that's that's listening to you.
And and we gotta we gotta have them in mind. And a a standard like that is gonna help the audience set that at, you know, look at it and go, okay, this isn't a national enquirer. Okay. This isn't an onion. This is you know, a Bloomberg. This is a New York Times. This is a New Republic. This is a you know, what do whatever brain a a brain name a brand name newspaper is out there no matter which way it slants, you know, right or left,
there you go. This is your Fox News. You know, of of of what have you. That way, that that that listener can differentiate between professional, journalist, and then hobbyist and amateur, and and, you know, you you really need to have those different levels. Because as a listener, I have a certain amount of time. Every day that I'm gonna be listening to podcasts.
And I wanna and I wanna know that I'm spending my time if I'm really into the genre, if I'm really into it, or if I wanna get into it, let's say I'm reading the newspaper and I wanna get into these podcasts. These these newfangled things called podcasts.
I wanna know that I'm listening to the right stuff. I don't wanna have to go hunt and pack because I don't have the time. As a father of, you know, of of of 4 year olds, I ain't got the time. I work a 40 hour a week job. Sometimes it's 60 hours a week. And I have the time to go look and all add all this stuff. I want something that says, hey, this is legitimate, you know. And then this is your this is your national enquirer, and this is your your onion.
And I wanna know that ahead of time before I invest my time in it. And we gotta think about the audience in that term and in those terms. Versus what we think is a legit as a podcaster. I I think I like that. And I think this is the reason why there are networks There are the CBS, the NBC, the ABC, the Fox. I think that's the reason why they form networks. Networks form because they establish a a standard of journalistic ex ethics around their employees
to give them self credibility. And I think what's gonna happen. In fact, in fact, I'm gonna make a prediction. Oh, I was making the prediction this time. I predict, and I've and I've already seen this. So I'm kind of already you know, I've seen the tea leaves and the chicken bones on this 1. I think there is going to be true crime networks form around this type of reporting.
And I think and I've already seen the big networks already kind of dabble themselves into it back to MSNBC. I think even Rachel Old Madau has a new podcast out about the presidential like, with the vice president's, it's called a it's called BAGMAN. And Batman talks about a a bunch of of really scandal of stuff that happened back in the the seventies and eighties about a political scandal. And it's only about 8 episodes long or whatever.
But that's m s m b c, which is m b c universal, creating a podcast that talks about in historical events that's really kind of a crime. Now not all true crime has to be murders. This happens to be, you know, corruption and scandal.
Where where now you have the journalistic x the journalistic ethics of NBC, NBC Universal, MSNBC, and whatever standards are applied to Rachel Madau and her show and her crew and what they research and all the interviewees they company brought onto the show, that this is true accounts or remittances or historical facts that they remember at the time when they were there because a lot of these people were in the administration at the time
talking about these kind of things. And the networks give them that umbrella of credibility. I see the smaller podcast, the little podcast teaming up. And then there there's already a couple doing that. Wonderry is already kind of this true crime style, if you look most, a lot of podcasts are true crime. So wonder he's already kind of doing this, but I also see that these type of podcasts are starting are going to jump they're gonna jump the line from being amateur to having media credentials.
I think that's it's like almost a 2 parter. I see the true crime people getting together, forming networks more and more this year. And I see for I don't think this is the first time, but I think it's gonna be in a growth of media credential for podcasters. Mark my words, I expect to see At some point, in 20 19, a podcaster asked the president a question. I'm talking like, White House press core podcaster.
And if there isn't 1 already, and maybe there is. And if there is 1, please, pod rack at gmail dot com. Let me know. But I see as, you know, the the the serial podcast or the this American Life podcast media rep at a press conference.
Now obviously not those shows, but shows like that as the Well, let's talk to Kyle Bondo there in the audience with with GagglePod. Yeah. You can't model the GagglePod. Now, what's your question? Yes. There's a president. Tell me about X. And now it's like, well, a podcaster. What the heck do you see doing there? And I'll hold up my credentials and be like, hey, look at me. I'm a media. I'm not a podcaster. I'm a audio Reported. Anyway, that's my What do you think about that? That's
I I I see that. I have a vision. Well, Kyle, we've been at a lot of the same conventions and I don't know if it was it was DC Podfast. It was my first year DC Podfast when I had neck surgery and I was under a lot of drugs. But I remember somebody there talking about getting your media credentials. Oh, yes. They they broadcaster. That's right. They were they were already talking about that, and that was back in 20 17. Yeah. 20 17, November 20 17. And so
we're already getting our media credentials. We can we we can go for our media credentials on that. So, PodRIC, we can go out and report on stuff and and bring it back to you listeners and and tell you about it. And, you know, we will do that when we do conventions, you know. We'll have special stuff like that, obviously. But, you know, we can already go out and do that My worry is what makes what I say legitimate versus what makes My good friend Kyle over here say, legitimate.
I think the answer is it is our reputations. I mean, what makes what makes Rachel Madau, what she says, or Sean Hannity, what he says, what makes them a lot of those people are are not reporters. Their editorialists or their commentators. So they're not technically reporters. Right? They're not technically reporters. So they can talk whatever they want. Because they're just they're giving them everyone their opinion versus a a Tom Brokaw or I don't watch the
the TV's awful. Sam Delson. Yeah. Sam Delson. Okay. There we go. Yeah. But but those guys who are technically porters are supposed to be reporting the facts where what they say something wrong or they make something up. Now that's very different than if if a Rachel Matt hour or Sean Hannity give their opinion about something and what they think. They don't there's no really there's no real liability or slamber in what they say an opinion. Because that's just their opinion.
Right. That's there's Well, they're they're they're giving their opinion. They're commenting on their comment. They're not The not reporting. Not reporting. So we're commenting on the podcast industry. We started reporting about the podcast industry. I think I think there's a I think that's a nuanced line. That's so there's like a gray again, this is a funny place. This is a gray area right there. Yeah. We we comment on the reporting that we see in the podcast industry.
And, you know, it it helps to have that opinion from 2 podcasters that have been podcasting for a number of years. Just allow some credibility. Especially if you're a brand new podcaster and you're like, hey, listen. This is great big, wonderful world. I'm intimidated by all, you know, by all heck by it. It it's nice to hear, you know, a couple of guys sitting back and talking with you and going, hey, listen. Watch out for this. Pay attention to this. You might wanna do this. You know,
where you're uncle Bob? And I think the journalistic standards of true crime or of of non fiction podcast in general, are going to start taking shape. And I think the shape right now, it's kind of it's just it's it's voluntary. The standards of voluntary. There's no rural school of of standards for podcast journalism unless you're a member of the bit the big networks. And maybe you're notation is what you need to build if you want to become a member of the journalists of
that group of networks. And you use podcasting as your resume. So obviously, you don't want to be, you know, slinging total garbage on on on a podcast. Unless you unless that's your genre and, you know, it's an audio drama, but you say so, you you self censor. You tell ever you tell your audience before and after that this was in in audio drama
based upon real events, you know, kinda like the way the movies do it, you know, based on a true story. And some of those true stories are. There was this guy and there was this girl. What you're about to see none of it happen, but these 2 people didn't exist. That's the part of the true story. There's a lot of movies out there like that. But if you think about the the the voluntary standards, the first podcaster that gets sued And publicly, I mean, like, really publicly sued.
That's when there'll be some groupings of people say, hey, why don't you hook up with the wondery true crime standards. And here's our standards class that you we give away for free or, you know, here's a small fee. And then you could put the wondery stamp of true crime, as an example, is totally hypothetical.
You know, stamp of approval that Wandery agrees that we'll check-in on you from time to time and check your podcast to see you know, do some fact checking to see whether or not you're you're you're you're true or not. Additionally, your audience will do some of the research I think this is where the other shoe drops is if you start down this road of doing true crime and you're full of baloney, your audience is gonna call you out.
And that's going to ruin you worse, I think, than your embellishment of the facts. So -- Mhmm. -- there's a danger there. And I think if you're gonna be true crime, you need to be very careful about how you play Lucy Gucci with the truth. Because your audience will sniff it out in a New York minute and you are done because the Internet writes an ink And if you want to be a journalist and you go on a podcast and you say everything's true and you are full baloney,
you will never work in that industry. I guarantee you. Yep. WOWLOV. Those are some fantastic words there. That that was it it kind of scares me to be a true crime podcast. But I don't think that's what we're trying to do here. But I guess, kinda my my final thought for everybody on this is is simply this, you know. If if you're gonna go out and do a True Crime podcast, don't get me wrong. I'm not against you. I just
I'm gonna question your motives. I'm gonna if I'm gonna invest that time, I'm gonna research you unless I see the stamp of approval is, you know, some sort of industry standard,
I'm gonna, you know, invest my time if I if I like what I'm hearing, if I like the production value, if I like the content value, I will invest the time to invest to get you myself and go by all means, go do it. If you're listening to this kind of stuff, if you're listening to these True Crime Podcast, they can do a lot of good they can, you know, get people out of jail that are in jail, you know, falsely
under false imprisonment, and they can put people in jail that need to be put in jail. It's a wonderful, you know, it's a wonderful medium. I just I see the abuse that can happen with it. It still seems a little too wild west for me right now. Fair enough. By raising by raising that up, raising that balloon up in the sky, I can go, hey, listen, Everybody pay attention to it. Let's figure out something to make it happen. And how do I monetize that? And I'll figure that out. Next episode.
But Kyle, what's say you on this? Well, I I like to go to my favorite commentator. My favoritecommentator course is mister Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain. And Mister Twain has 2 great notes on this subject. And the first 1 is truth is stranger than fiction. It has to be, fiction has to be possible, and truth doesn't. And I think that's 1 thing when you talk about, sometimes telling the truth can be more thrilling and more riveting than making it up.
So if you're not finding the real in what you're talking about a true crime podcast. You're not looking hard enough. There is so much weird weird wacky stuff out there to make an interesting podcast you don't have to make it up. Stick to the truth people like the truth. Why? Because it has to make sense. And when it doesn't make sense, when it's all strange and wacky, that makes a better drama.
That's what I think. The second 1 is get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. That is another excellent quote for Mark Twain, where he talks about if you get all facts right, the opinions you jump to can be whatever you want. But get the facts straight first, know your subject. So when it comes to these true crime podcasts, know your subject, tell the truth
And then you can jump to conclusions at the end if you want to. Or as you're telling the story, you know, say that here are some possible theories and do the whole thing like from CSI.
You know, the grissom from CSI was a great character where he says, well, we go where the evidence takes us. And no matter how weird it gets, they would follow these bits of evidence, you know, of course, in 45 minutes, you knew that, you know, all the killers are gonna be this guy. Right? Because they're gonna tie it up TV show. Right? But
follow the facts, follow the evidence, and the evidence will lead you to where you wanna go. I think by doing that first, doing your due diligence in this type of this type of medium will get you the audience you're looking for. People wanna hear the weird stuff that's true. Because they go tell their friends and their friends tell their friends and that's how you make a million downloads. Excellent points, Kyle. Excellent point.
Well, folks, what do you have to say about it? Why don't you go ahead and get on that little laptop of yours? There or get on your cell phone and email us at pod rackgmail dot com. And let us know what you think. If you have true crime podcast that you're doing right now. Shoot us a line. Tell us how you're doing that. What journalistic
ethics are you following, and we'd love to us and talk with you about this further on down the road. I mean, Kyle, we we talked about this last episode. We've gotta hit 50 episodes before the end of this year. Right? That's right. We're on episode 2 of 20 19, and we're, you know, we're kicking butt and taking this. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Hey, Kyle. Where else can they follow us on the grand old inner inter webs? Well, of course, they can go over and find all our podcasts
at Podrec dot com. And the podrec dot com has not only the links to the existing shows, but we're really trying to spruce up the website, so we have links for if you're an Apple user, a Android user.
We have, of course, our show is on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, tune in, radio public. I heart radio. We're everywhere you find podcasts just about. We're really trying to get ourselves out there. And additionally, if you're if you wanna support the show, You'd like what Tim and I are doing? We have a Patreon button out there too by all means. We'd love for you to become a Patreon subscriber. But if just anything, send us an email. At pod rack at gmail dot com. And let's know. What do you think? Give us some feedback. Do you like this kind of format of the show? Does Kyle talk too much? Does Tim not talk enough? Very true facts.
Unfortunately, Kyle has, like, 17 cups of coffee. So, yeah, you know, and and Tim drinks kabuchy kaboukie or whatever that's called. What's it called? That's what it's called. A bach. A bach. Yeah. Whatever bach. It's it's gross. It's not coffee. Definitely reach out with email. We'd love to hear from you. And ideas for the show. If you see some podcast news, you think we just ran against the rocks, you let us know. We'd love to hear from you. Again, that is pod rack at gmail dot com.
You've been listening to PodRecht, where we explore the ebb and flow of the podcast industry to help navigate the wasteland of failure to safe farmers. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next episode. You've been listening to podcasts. Now, when we explore the ebb and flow Oh, you gotta do that over. You gotta do that over. Yeah. I gotta do that over. That sounds like a script page churn if I ever heard 1. You've been listening to a pod a pod practice. What am I working on? Line?
Where's my line? What's my motivation? This podcast is part of the Gagapod network. Find more podcasts like this at gagapod dot com.