Recently I got into a small back and forth with a prominent person in the podcast industry. Nothing heated but we had a fundamental disagreement with the direction of podcasting and the influence of advertising. One of the things that seem to offend him is the term “PLATFORM FOR FREE SPEECH”. The people that feel threatened by freedom of speech are some of the most threatening people to all speech. Granted, I’m nobody in the podcasting world. I podcast for my own amusement and experimentation. I’m interested in the Podcasting 2.0 namespace and the future of independent media. I don’t have a following and I don’t have many listeners (I see the 10 or 15 of you out there. It’s hard to tell though with analytics). Anything I say won’t have an impact on the future of podcasting. But I am a consumer of podcasts. And as a consumer I would like the freedom to choose what I consume rather than have platforms or people like that deciding what is safe for me to consume.
Two podcasts I listen to could be labeled as crackpot depending on the prevailing definition.
One is the No Agenda Show. They have had the best coverage of everything pandemic related from the beginning. They deconstruct the media narrative with precision and actually go through legislation (unlike our elected representatives). No Agenda could never exist on an ad safe platform. It’s a long form podcast. If you can’t listen to an entire episode I recommend at least listening to the first hour. It’s chocked full of information from all over the world.
The other is the Low Carb MD Podcast. This show is by two doctors in the low carb space that left their traditional medical practices to start their own metabolic health clinics. They are helping people with Type-2 Diabetes and morbid obesity by improving health through a low carb lifestyle. They don’t necessarily recommend low carb for everyone as they use a patient by patient approach and prescribe what is necessary to the individual. They could be considered crackpots because they are going against the grain of established medical practices that seek to first prescribe medication before any other type of intervention.
Low Carb MD Podcast | Podcastindex.org
I get tons of information from these two shows. Neither one is ad friendly in my opinion. If they had ads it would impact their opinions. How can you speak ill of a particular drug when the pharmaceutical company, media company, or company for any product when they fund your podcast? They are outside the mainstream. They don’t care if people disagree with them. They would rather argue their side. If wrong they may change their opinion but if they believe they’re right they hold their ground.
Because they don’t follow the narrative of mainstream thought does that make them nutcases, freaks, crazies, and crackpots? If so, I’d rather join them than sheepishly follow along with the rest of the world.