Sound Judgment
Elaine Appleton Grant
Recent Episodes
Are your interviews falling flat? Are the podcasts and stories you're creating on the foundation of those interviews just skimming the surface? Let's face it: Desiring candor from the human in front of you is one thing, but achieving it is another. Here's a transformative, counter-intuitive solution that will help you go to the heart of anyone's story.
To read this issue of the newsletter on Substack and subcribe, visit "Interviews are the foundation of great storytelling. Are yours falling flat?"
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This is an audio introduction to Sound Judgment, the newsletter. Let me know whether you want to hear more audio newsletters! Please email me at [email protected] or click Contact on soundjudgmentpodcast.com.
Rate Sound Judgment and write a review
If you appreciate Sound Judgment, please give it a rating and a review.
Visit Apple Podcasts, pull up the Sound Judgment show page and scroll to the bottom of the screen. Below the trailers, you'll find Ratings and Reviews. Click on a star rating. Scroll down past the highlighted review and click on "Write a Review." You'll make my day.
Apply by July 12, 2024 to the Medicine in the Media fellowship at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Learn more about this incredible opportunity here.
Read the newsletter The Marginalian by Maria Popova. Thanks to the Marginalian for introducing me to Simone Weil's essay on attention.
Your homework: Listen to the following episodes to learn directly from interviewers who have a lot to teach about creating true intimacy and connection.
How to Capture an Audience with Near Death’s Nikki Boyer
How to Tell the Truth: The Art of Memoir with Dana Black
How Anna Sale Invites Listeners In
Emotional Bravery on Last Day with Stephanie Wittels Wachs
Finding Your Voice with Shelter in Place Host Laura Joyce Davis
Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more.
Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more.
Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.
Connect:
Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
✉️ Email Elaine at [email protected]
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: [email protected]. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.
Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
Production Manager: Andrew Parrella
Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
On May 6, 2024, The 13th Step team was honored with a Pulitzer Prize nomination for audio reporting "for their gripping and extensively reported investigation of corruption and sexual abuse within the lucrative recovery industry that sought accountability despite legal pressure.”
Today, we go behind the scenes, once again, with New Hampshire Public Radio Reporter Lauren Chooljian and Story Editor Alison MacAdam to learn their techniques for ensuring journalistic accuracy and fairness as they faced attempts at intimidation. And this close team learned how to create a "trauma-informed workplace" -- and how emotional support techniques helped them to keep going.
This is Part 2 of "Behind the blockbuster investigative series The 13th Step: The best defense is the truth."
Listen to Part 1
How to Find the Truth: Behind the Blockbuster Investigative Series The 13th Step
Takeaways from today's episode include:
1. In today's journalistic and political environment, the best defense is the truth. That means using every reporting strategy you can to make sure all of your reporting is factual, precise, backed up with evidence and well organized.
2. Corroborate, corroborate, corroborate. In your story or series, explain that you corroborated your facts and how you did.
3. Transparency is key. Paint thorough, fair portraits of your subjects. Human beings are complex and contradictory. This tension makes for fascinating stories and builds credibility.
4. Newsroom or network leadership needs to be as committed to your journalism as you are. Depending on the circumstances, they may need to pay legal fees, tap insurance and even fund security.
5. Chooljian had two huge reasons to continue reporting, even after she, her family, and her newsroom were targeted in a rash of criminal threats. The first: Her sources had bravely stepped forward to share their stories with her. Doing so put them at risk — as she says, a risk they took without the kinds of organizational, financial and legal resources available to her. Second: Backing down would have sent a signal to others that retaliation works. That's unacceptable.
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Follow Sound Judgment on your favorite podcast app or subscribe to our channel @SoundJudgmentPod
on Youtube.
For more takeaways from this episode on crafting an investigative series and why accountability journalism is so important, visit Current.
Listen to the series deconstructed on today's show: The 13th Step.
Starting your own podcast? Be strategic with our Sound Judgment Show Bible Workbook.
Want to learn more about how NHPR's Document Team greenlights projects like The 13th Step to begin with? Listen to "How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life story."
More about The 13th Step
Read about the team
Check out the supporting legal documents
Resources on addiction treatment, substance use disorder, sexual misconduct, and more
Follow Lauren Chooljian
LinkedIn
Twitter/X: @laurenchooljian
Follow Alison MacAdam
LinkedIn
Threads: @ajmacadam
Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more.
Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more.
Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.
Connect:
Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
✉️ Email Elaine at [email protected]
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: [email protected]. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.
Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
Production Manager: Andrew Parrella
Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
In 2020, New Hampshire Public Radio Lauren Chooljian received an email about Eric Spofford, the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network. In it was an allegation that Spofford was sexually abusing female clients and employees. Chooljian set out to learn whether this could be true. Over the next three years, she would go on a journey to learn the truth, not just about this allegation, but about widespread sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry. The result of that journey is The 13th Step, a gripping series that won a slew of awards, including the duPont, sometimes considered the Pulitzer of broadcasting.
This is Part 1 of a two-part episode that goes behind-the-scenes of The 13th Step. Along the way, Chooljian, her family, and her news director become targets of retaliation. What started as a reporting task would also become about another thing: Freedom of the press. And how, why, and for whom to persist with a story in the face of unnerving threats.
You'll learn how to pursue a tough investigation; how to frame a complex series with many characters and themes; and how to craft a true, deeply relevant story that serves the public good. And you'll learn what this arduous journey required of everyone involved.
This episode explores sensitive subjects including addiction and sexual assault. Please listen with care.
Follow Sound Judgment on your favorite podcast app, or subscribe to our channel @SoundJudgmentPod
on Youtube.
For more takeaways from this episode on crafting an investigative series and why accountability journalism is so important, visit Current.
Listen to the series deconstructed on today's show: The 13th Step.
Starting your own podcast? Be strategic with our Sound Judgment Show Bible Workbook.
Want to learn more about how NHPR's Document Team greenlights projects like The 13th Step to begin with? Listen to "How to Pitch an Audio Documentary and the Unusual Origin of a This American Life story."
More about The 13th Step
Read about the team
Check out the supporting legal documents
Resources on addiction treatment, substance use disorder, sexual misconduct, and more
Follow Lauren Chooljian
LinkedIn
Twitter/X: @laurenchooljian
Follow Alison MacAdam
LinkedIn
Threads: @ajmacadam
Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more.
Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more.
Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.
Connect:
Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
✉️ Email Elaine at [email protected]
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: [email protected]. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.
Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
Production Manager: Andrew Parrella
Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Sound Judgment is about the craft of audio storytelling. Not about the marketing of podcasts. But today, we're bringing you a gift from someone I trust completely when it comes to audience growth: Jeremy Enns of Podcast Marketing Academy, and his co-host, Justin Jackson, cofounder of Transistor.fm. They've teamed up to produce Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, a limited series that extracts proven audience growth techniques from Enns' comprehensive annual survey of podcasters about their marketing methods.
In this episode, you'll learn:
— Whether the famed "podcast discoverability problem" actually exists
— The three types of marketing channels at your disposal & what the data shows about their effectiveness
— Whether or not it's worth it (and when) to pay for ads
— How to pick the right marketing channel for you
— Why "owned media" is the low-hanging fruit for many creators
— What most podcasters get wrong about growth through collaborations, and
— How to kickstart word-of-mouth growth. (P.S.: Word-of-mouth growth is my favorite kind of growth, and IMHO, the best kind!)
About Jeremy Enns
About Justin Jackson
Can't get enough of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained? Follow it now.
Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more.
Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more.
Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.
Connect:
Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
✉️ Email Elaine at [email protected]
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: [email protected]. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.
Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
Production Manager: Andrew Parrella
Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
At some point, every one of us will reach a point in our professional lives where it's time to change — but the status quo, even when it's not working, is comfortable. Are you ready to say goodbye to your old life in order to find your way to a new, better one? But you don't have a map? That's what Daily Creative host Todd Henry and his "story architect" producer Josh Gott wrestle with in the episode we deconstruct together, "The Curious Death of Todd Henry." You won't be the same after you listen to this episode — a play in seven acts.
Follow Sound Judgment on your favorite podcast app, or subscribe to our channel @SoundJudgmentPod
on Youtube.
Listen to the full episode deconstructed on today's show: Daily Creative: The Curious Death of Todd Henry
Follow Daily Creative
Join Us for New Sound Judgment Workshops!
Improve your storytelling, interviewing, writing, producing, hosting and guesting skills! Sign up for new Sound Judgment workshops today at www.podcastallies.com/workshops.
April 5, 2024: Mastering the Art of the Interview. Interviews are the foundation of all good storytelling, but we don’t get much instruction on the art and science of them. In this workshop, you'll get ten proven, transformative strategies that you can apply to your own work right away.
April 11,2024: Success in Guesting: Be a Great Guest, Get a Great Guest
Learn how to curate great guests and what it takes to be a phenomenal guest yourself. Learn how NPR producers curate and book guests – and how you can set yourself up for success no matter whether you're making a show — or seeking to be a guest yourself.
Todd Henry
Positioning himself as an “arms dealer for the creative revolution,” Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of seven books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, Louder Than Words, Herding Tigers, The Motivation Code, Daily Creative, and The Brave Habit) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work.
He began podcasting in 2005, founding The Accidental Creative. Before transforming it into Daily Creative, The Accidental Creative had been published continuously for 18 years and been downloaded 18 million times. Both podcasts help audiences become brave, focused, and brilliant.
Joshua Gott
Joshua Gott is a messaging strategist and creative director helping companies simplify their brand message so they can tell a better story. He's worked with organizations like P&G, Anthem, Nestle, Dropbox, Workday, Trip Advisor, ESPN and many others to make sense out of nonsense. His approach to crafting clear messaging is encapsulated in the Story Square®, a framework he developed based on many years of finding creative ways to explain complicated ideas. When he isn't playing pickleball or coaching girls volleyball he's telling stories with Todd Henry on the Daily Creative podcast.
Connect with Todd
Website: www.toddhenry.com
Instagram and Twitter/X: toddhenry
LinkedIn: toddhenry1
Facebook: toddhenry.ac
Improve your storytelling Check out our popular workshops on interviewing, story editing, story structure, longform narrative, audience engagement, guesting, scriptwriting and more.
Hire Elaine to speak at your conference or company. Subjects include: Effective Storytelling; Communicating for Leaders; Communicating about Change; Mastering the Art of the Interview; Success in Guesting, and much more.
Discover our strategic communication services and coaching for thought leaders using storytelling tools to make the world a better place. Serving writers, podcasters, public speakers, and others in journalism & public media, climate change, health care, policy, and higher education. Visit us at www.podcastallies.com.
Subscribe to Sound Judgment, the Newsletter, our twice-monthly newsletter about creative choices in audio storytelling.
Connect:
Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
✉️ Email Elaine at [email protected]
💜 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
🟢 Leave a rating on Spotify
🗣️ Share the show by word of mouth and on your socials
Help us find and celebrate today’s best hosts
Who’s your Sound Judgment dream guest? Email me: [email protected]. Because of you, that host may appear on Sound Judgment.
Credits
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC.
Host: Elaine Appleton Grant
Podcast Manager: Tina Bassir
Production Manager: Andrew Parrella
Audio Engineer: Kevin Kline
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson