Hacker News Reader

Comment by akkad33 | Hacker News Reader

Podcasts are not a good format for consuming serious information, at least in my experience. Neither are audiobooks. The problem with podcasts is they are light on real content and if it's on a technical topic and the format is having a guest be interviewed on it, the quality of information depends on the quality of questions and most people are not good at coming up interesting questions on unfamiliar topics on the spot. So you get very superficial questions and equally superficial answers. But podcasts are great for entertainment and zoning out. And for lonely people it's great to hear people talking. Darknet diaries is a good one though I don't listen consistently

View on HN

I disagree, though it depends on the circumstances in which you're consuming them. If you're listening while you're doing something that is mentally engaging then of course it will be hard to absorb the information. But I'm not exactly taxing my brain when I'm walking my dog or sitting on the porch drinking coffee.

Heartily disagree. A lot of professional journalist-led podcasts are really excellent. And the audio format is concise without being distracting. It's basically the on-demand version of classic talk radio. I crow a lot about On the Media which is fantastic journalism. There's loads of other similar content that varies from topical to human interest. Stuff like This American Life or Radiolab or How I Built This or Planet Money or more niche stuff like Cyberlaw. Kara Swisher is great too.

> not a good format for consuming serious information

Yes, podcasts are reminding me 'the age of the feuilleton' from Hesses's Glass Bead Game.

There are good ones, but they require a proper host and environment.

Steve O has had some interesting people open up about their issues, same with Jon Bernthal. Especially his episode with Shia LaBeouf was amazing.

But these people are rare. They devolve too often into the host fawning over the guest. Nerdist podcast started doing this at one point.

+1 on Jon Bernthal. I was very skeptical at first but he gets very unique guests such ex-gang members and policemen.

Many popular podcasts just have guests who are obviously trying to promote a new Netflix special or book.

He stutters and the outcome isn’t that polished but if you can adapt to that his podcast feels very authentic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com