This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app and listening life of Justine Paradis, producer/reporter at Outside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio. Her work has also appeared on Millennial, Love + Radio, and more. She is the recipient of a 2019 regional Edward R. Murrow award.
App you use: Overcast
Listening time per week: I’m trying to be pretty careful with my attention these days, maybe to a fault. I’m a podcast producer, so I spend a lot of my time listening to interviews or drafts, or searching for pieces that could work on Outside/In, the show I work on. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have a ton of energy for listening in my free time. So my podcast listening really varies to anywhere from zero hours to maybe 8-10 hours a week.
When you listen: I listen when I’m doing something else: gardening, driving, crafting, doing chores, running. I need to be doing something to be a good listener. Like many have observed, now that we don’t have commutes and are basically stuck at home, my listening time is dramatically shortened.
How you discover: I’m kind of a binger: I get stuck on a certain sound or idea or maker and will listen to everything that person has made, and then I look for what inspires them.This year, I’ve found that in my free time, I really crave media that makes me laugh, so You’re Wrong About’s Diana series (also quite heavy at times, obviously) and Reply All. I’m also into Dharmapunx NYC, which explores ideas of psychology and then applies them to a Buddhist meditation practice.
As far as discovering things totally new to me, I love going to makers who inspire me and finding what they love and what inspires them in the audio realm and beyond, both contemporary and from the archives. So, I’m still working my way through this year’s Third Coast winners and finding new things in the Bello Collective’s year-end list. I always discover beautiful work through HearSay. I also subscribe to Bethel Habte’s wilt, partly because it’s not all podcasts—she includes music too. I recently read an interview with Michelle Macklem that pointed me towards work and makers I hadn’t heard, as she often does. Finally, I also have my own little newsletter which I send out with things that feel like they vibe together, at a frequency only slightly higher than once a blue moon. Otherwise, I basically discover through friends’ recommendations, features on other podcasts, or on podcast Twitter.
When I’m choosing what to listen to, I think it’s a balancing act for me to let myself off the hook and just follow what’s making me laugh, but also to push myself to try to find room for work that might require my full attention and emotional engagement, but ultimately are deeply nourishing and inspiring. Sophie Townsend’s Goodbye to All Thisand Sharon Mashihi’s Appearances were wonderful. I also loved Constellation Prizeby Bianca Giaever. I keep thinking about something Giaever said in the show, that maybe we don’t really talk about God on public radio or in podcasting. Again, I work on Outside/In, a show about science and the natural world, and I think a lot about how to bring other idea worlds that we’re also in relationship with into that space, like spirituality, love and relationships, conflict, identity, and race and equity. I recently produced a piece on how trees represent identity and conflict in Israel/Palestine, for instance. Through reporting that piece, I stumbled across “Jerusalem Calling” from Kerning Cultures, a great listen about a 1930’s radio station in Israel/Palestine, told with lots of lovely archival tape and personal history.
Anything else? I also think it’s really important for me to leave room to not strive for productivity (I was really inspired by the ideas in Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing this year). I used to feel that I had to listen to it all, but that’s too much. I need to leave room for music and silence too—to have my “what I’m listening to” list also include walks in which I’m listening to nothing but the world around me.