22 Better Ways to Start Articles About Podcasts

Writing a lede to an article is difficult. You gotta hook the audience, communicate a new idea to unsuspecting readers, and give a small summary of what’s to come. But Internet writers talking about podcasts are using the same ol’ beginning: “Podcasts are easy: all you need is a mic and a computer!”

The New York Times kicked it up a notch on Monday with this lede from their Daily Podcasts recommendation list:

They were called audioblogs when they started out. They were casual and rambling, the aural equivalent of the diarylike entries posted on WordPress or LiveJournal in the 1990s.

“Podcasts were bad, but now they’re okay” is not a great step up. But do not fear, I wrote up some examples to help other writers diving into audio recs to get started:

1. There is a lower bar of entry to making a podcast than developing a TV show and or publishing a novel. But making a good show is just as hard as any other medium.
2. Podcasts are great, huh? I feel like a lot of people are listening to them, so let’s talk about them.
3. I tried to subscribe my aunt to my podcast and it was difficult. While we wait for the technology to catch up, (HI APPLE HELP MY AUNT LINDA), here are some good shows
4. Podcasts: everyone has one, but only a few of them are really great.
5. Making podcasts is hard! That’s the entire article. Go home.
6. Podcast comes from the Latin word podcastum, which means, talking in a cave to yourself.
7. Podcasts: not just Ira Glass anymore!
8. Podcasts have been around for a while. I couldn’t figure out how long, but it feels like a long time.
9. What is Serial? No one told me and I feel too self-conscious to ask. Is it like “cereal?”
10. I had a Livejournal and now I have no idea what a podcast is. Does this make me old?
11. Someone jammed a copy of the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World soundtrack in my car’s CD player and it won’t eject, so I had to find my entertainment on the road in a different way.
12. The word podcast comes from the Greek words podae (sound) and castises (from the void)
13. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the podcasts emerged.
14. Sure, starting a podcast sounds easy. But making sure it gets a proper amount of sunlight, water, clean air, and good music can be quite an undertaking.
15. I’m receiving some breaking news, we’re getting an exclusive here: podcasts… are very good.
16. Hi, I’m Michael Barbaro, host of The Daily. We’ve had a lot of fun here on the podcast today, but I’d like to talk to you about a serious issue: gateway drugs.
17. *insert an mp3 of only harmonica solos from Blues Traveller songs*
18. What if I told you that you could listen to the radio on your phone, in your car, in your home? That’s right, podcasts are here to say, and they’re moving in right next door.
19. I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
20. The word “podcast” comes from the Sanskrit word vaiyaktikapodcastavēṇa, which is loosely translated to: “get 25 percent off your next HelloFresh box!”
21. Podcasts have recently gotten popular, so we’re going to try to give a blanket statement about them which resonates with those who have never heard of them and the early adopters that love them. It’s a new technology which is always hard to parse, but we’re going to do our best to inform and recommend. We won’t do the best job, but we’re trying, we promise.
22. Some would say that the Declaration of Independence was the first podcast.