Amy Westervelt

Amy Westervelt runs the Critical Frequency podcast network. She also reports and hosts the podcast Drilled, and co-host the podcasts Hot Take and Labor. Follow her on Twitter here, and follow Critical Frequency on Twitter here.

How did you get introduced to the audio space? Have you always loved it, before podcasting?
About 7 years ago now I was driving around listening to NPR and wishing I could do audio. I had been a print reporter for about 13 years by that point, and I thought well I could probably learn how to do audio and I haven't learned anything new in a while. So I contacted my local NPR member station (in Reno, NV) and asked if I could be an over-aged intern for them. They taught me the ropes for a month or two and then hired me as a staff reporter. As a community reporter in Reno, you wind up with a WHOLE LOT of characters and stories that don't make it into your news feature, so my colleague Julia Ritchey and I started a podcast called Range to capture all those lost moments. I loved doing audio, but podcasting made it an obsession.

Fill in the blank: You will like Drilled and Hot Take if you like ______.
Oh wow that's tough because they're so different! I think you will like Drilled if you like conspiracy theories that turn out to be true, and you will like Hot Take if you like dad jokes, f-bombs, and real talk on climate.

Why are you the perfect host for Drilled and Hot Take?
I think I have a pretty unique view on climate because I've been reporting on it for 20 years, so I've seen a lot of the different cycles the story of climate has been through -- Drilled focuses on the disinformation ecosystem and how it's shaped the conversation, and resultant action or inaction, on climate, and Hot Take is constantly examining and reexamining the ways we're talking about climate and how it intersects with various other big stories, so I think it helps to have that long history looking at the topic from a lot of angles!

Hot Take feels so totally different. Why is there nothing else like it, why aren't these intersectional climate change conversations happening all over the place?
Thank you! We think so too -- I think it has a lot to do with how the conversation around climate has evolved. In the early days it was all scientists raising the alarm and they were largely white men, plus climate emerged as this thing that was separate from the environmental movement, and then the environmental movement evolved totally separately from the environmental justice movement, so you really had these three separate groups of people who largely weren't talking to each other. For the first 20 years or so of the climate movement there was this pervasive notion that you shouldn't scare people by talking too much about the impacts, and that you should stick to hard data and science. It's only really been in the last 5 or so years that those rules have started to relax and that people have increasingly come to see the climate movement as a justice movement. So yeah, I think it's taken a while for people to learn how to talk about climate as something other than just this very scientific, complicated, scary topic.

What are the most fun parts about your job? This stuff is pretty bleak.
Cracking jokes with Mary is always fun, and actually so is the fact that we can be very straight with each other about just how bleak this stuff is. And then I just love reporting -- finding some big revealing bit of information in a stack of documents, getting a FOIA reply that sheds light on something, talking to the perfect source, I get a high off that stuff.

How has climate podcasting changed over the past few years and...where is it going?
It has changed so much! When I first started Drilled, I initially tried to pitch it to some of the more established podcast companies and they were like "there's just no audience for a climate show," plus I think they didn't see how a climate pod could be narrative. Now, three years later there's an explosion of climate podcasts, all the big companies either have one or are starting one. I'm still not seeing a ton of experimentation in terms of the types of climate shows -- Drilled is still one of only a couple narrative climate pods, for example—but I think that will come.

How has podcasting changed the conversations we are heaving about climate change?
I think it's provided a lot more onramps for a wider variety of people and made the climate conversation more accessible. We hear from a lot of Hot Take listeners, for example, that we've helped them connect the dots between another topic they care about and climate and that the fact that we are not "very serious climate people" helps people feel like they can join the conversation. And then Drilled has actually been the basis for congressional hearings and some proposed policy changes, so climate pods can have an impact on policy conversations too!

Your shows highlight so many fascinating stories...what's one that's stuck with you?
In the second season of Drilled, I followed a group of crab fishermen in California who had decided to sue the top 30 oil companies for their role in delaying climate action. It's an interesting case because it's the first time another industry is suing Big Oil so it's tough for them to make the usual business vs. the environment arguments, plus it's not like fishermen are a bunch of liberal elites. But the story that really stuck with me that season was a woman I spoke with who is a named plaintiff in that suit but still doesn't believe that humans are contributing to climate change. For her, it's about fairness. Whether it's humans or nature causing climate change, oil companies knew it was coming and prepared for it, doing various things to make their business resilient to it while telling everyone else not to worry about it. That was a real aha moment for me because for a really long time the cost of entry to the climate movement has been "believing" in climate science, and people act like that's a really low bar but... climate science is complicated. You know what's not complicated? Fairness. It's like the first story we learn as toddlers -- that person took something from me, why does that person have more than me, he's not playing by the rules, etc. That story really shifted my thinking about how we frame the issue.

What’s something listeners don’t understand about podcasts and what goes into making them?
Oh god, how much time do you have?! Most people assume that it just takes way less time than it actually does. For Drilled, because it's a narrative show, there's just a ton of pre-work that happens before I even start scripting, from the reporting to storyboarding, transcribing everything, thinking through who the main voices will be, it's not a light lift! And then even for Hot Take which is more of a talk show, it still takes a lot of time to plan out episodes, and we almost always have twice as long of a conversation as what you hear in the final episodes (and probably still need to tighten it up more!) I think the production side is vastly misunderstood. Even people who work in podcasting but don't have any production skills tend to think it's easier than it is.

What do you hope your shows do for people?
In both cases I hope they help people understand that climate is a power problem, and by that I do not mean the energy source, I mean power structures. You don't get a problem like runaway climate change, where a handful of people made decisions that impact us all, and chose their own profits and comfort over the good of humanity, without some seriously f-ed power imbalances.

Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
I've gotten a couple of those comments, one person said I needed to use my "big girl voice" whatever that means, and another accused me of vocal fry. For me, the value I bring to the shows is the information, I've never really thought of myself as having a great voice or being voice talent or anything like that so I kinda don't care when people say that stuff because I don't have a lot of self-worth tangled up in my voice and how others perceive it. If someone were to say my reporting was faulty on the other hand...

Do you think there are any rules all podcasters should adhere to?
I do, and I think we're at a bit of a tipping point on that front. I think we're really in danger of podcasting becoming the next Facebook where disinformation is concerned. Because there are no rules around advertising, you hear stuff in podcast ads that you'd never hear on broadcast. I hear it in oil company greenwashing ads all the time, for example. And then on the content side I really think more podcasters should think about fact-checking. I hear a LOT of bad journalism happening in non-fiction pods and I don't think just because you're not doing a news podcast you should be nonchalant about facts or about where the information is coming from that they share. I heard a host of a very popular podcast recently straight up parrot a talking point from the chemical industry, for example, which is unfortunate because now that information seems credible to that shows millions of listeners. So... yeah, I'm not advocating censorship or anything but I do think podcasters need to be more aware of the power they have to shape people's understanding of the world. And I think as an industry we should come up with some sort of consistent guidelines around advertising. When I asked NPR why their podcasts didn't follow the same ad rules as their broadcast shows, their answer was basically that the laws were different for each. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's ethical, and as an industry we could and should do better.

Should podcasters read their Apple Podcast reviews?
Yes! Sometimes they make you feel like crap, but oftentimes there is useful feedback there.

What shows do you love?
Scene on Radio, Behind the Bastards, Invisibilia, Floodlines.

Thanks, Amy!