This American Life wins first Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting

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• This American Life has won the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting, a journalism award founded in 1917. The award was for their episode The Out Crowd, with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, a freelancer with Vice News. The judges described it as “revelatory, intimate journalism that illuminates the personal impact of the Trump Administration’s Remain in Mexico policy”. The finalists were Ear Hustle and NPR’s White Lies.

• What is today’s most popular Android podcast app? With 74% of mobile phones running Android, which podcast app should you be linking to? We looked at the download and ratings data to find out whether there’s a clear leader. (There is!)

• Triton Digital has released its US Podcast Report for the four weeks ending April 12. By average weekly downloads, the #1 is NPR News Now; My Favorite Murder at #2, and The Ben Shapiro Show at #3 - no change. The top network was NPR; and there were fourteen new entries in the charts. The service measures podcasts from participating publishers.

• Acast has expanded its podcast network - partnering with South Asia’s JioSaavn, which has 104 million monthly active users. All of Acast’s content will be appearing in full on JioSaavn in the next few months. (Podnews is also available there).

• She Podcasts LIVE will be in Scottsdale AZ, USA, on Oct 15, the organisers have confirmed.

• Libsyn are reissuing their financial statements for 2018" - reported income for the year was $586,000 too low. Libsyn’s former CFO, John Busshaus, resigned in Oct 2019.

• Switching podcast hosts? Because Google Podcasts uses your RSS feed in its button, you’ll also need to change your Google Podcasts badge or button on your website. The company tells Podnews that they “aim to automatically redirect a badge URL to the canonical feed soon”. It follows the itunes:new-feed-url for your existing subscribers, though - so you’ll not lose any.

Changing times, changing consumption

• Podcast traffic is continuing to recover, according to latest data from Podtrac. Last week was 2% higher for audience and virtually flat for downloads; comedy podcasts fared best. The service measures podcasts from participating publishers.

This link is no longer available, as at Aug 23 2023

Tips and tricks

• How to ask better questions in podcast interviews (Jovian Guatama)

• Podcast Interviewer Tips From Non-Podcasters (Blubrry)

• How to do audio drama (Wil Williams)

Podcast News

In The New Media Show with Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee, they interview Bradley Davis, the CEO of Podchaser. Bradley is also the subject of Podcast Movement’s ten questions.

7am, a daily news podcast for Australia from Schwartz Media, has joined Acast.
dotLab Radio, a podcast from DCU Business School and the Irish Institute of Digital Business, has, as guest, Matt Deegan in their latest episode, “The rise and rise of podcasting – and the opportunities for brands and organisations”. Matt is Creative Director of Folder Media, and a founder of the British Podcast Awards.