Why I take more time on my podcast’s Medium posts than I do on the audio

And why very few do.

Bradley Cooper enters a not-so-fun house to capture a drunken, escape ‘geek’ from the freak show at the beginning of “Nightmare Alley.”

I am wrapping up my 31st episode of the debut year for Hear In LA, a podcast where I go to every one of the 250+ neighborhoods in LA and learn from the people.

The podcast part has been done for days, that part is easy.

The most time-consuming and, I think, most vital part, is the accompanying blog post.

Doing research for the interviews takes about a day. The conversations take 2–3 hours. But the blog post can take 2–3 days, for many reasons.

I have a terrible issue with attention span. Once I have done something I don’t want to obsess over it for days on end. But I see the value after each episode is done.

Currently I am posting the blog entries on Medium, which can be a frustrating environment because you are a bit limited in your formatting, but I trust their analytics because it is owned by Ev Williams, the co-creator or Blogger and Twitter, two platforms I owe so much to.

Over the last week I have posted two things on Medium which would make the average Joe say, “oh yeah, blog posts for podcasts are a royal waste of time.”

The other day I adapted a 10-tweet critique of a half-assed and embarrassing LA Times column into a Medium post. I added a few pictures and links. It didn’t take long since the meat of the piece was already in the tweet storm.

But because it was short, sharp, had a wide potential audience, and the SEO was right, it got 4x more readers than a far more detailed and interesting piece about Griffith Park.

Do some Medium readers flinch at a piece that will take 23 minutes to read? Of course.

Are some readers more willing to dive into a rant that takes just 3 minutes to be done with? Hell yeah.

So why not just do 1–2 quickie blog posts on Medium instead of this insane Sisyphus podcast project? Easy, I’ve already been a blogger. My personal blog is 20 years old. Of course I know how to make successful blog entries and corresponding social media posts.

I’m not even close to kicking ass at podcasting.

The namesake of the US’s largest urban park, LA’s Griffith Park, made his wife kneel at his feet and admit she was spying on him on behalf of the Pope, when she refused, he shot her at near point-blank range in the face. Because she flinched at the last minute, she avoided death and was only blinded in one eye. For his crime, the wealthy Griffith spent just two years in prison. Once out of jail he wrote about prison reform after seeing it was not a place for rehabilitation, even though it seemed to work on him.

In the short time I have been podcasting regularly, I have noticed that no matter how good the hour-long audio can be, the blog post can add a different dimension. It’s easy to miss something audibly. It’s also easy to mis-hear something.

Add to that presentation, pictures, hyperlinks, charts, maps, and you have a real thing.

Often times, most things will never have a wide audience. I’m ok with the fact that the story of Griffith J. Griffith, details about California laws regarding cemeteries, and accessible parks for handicapable kids of all ages have a limited reach.

I’m not here to be Maroon 5, I’m here to be Dinosaur Jr.

And also, I enjoy taking on the hard work. There’s a reason no one has gone to every neighborhood in LA and talked with the people. It’s difficult, tedious, and has a limited payoff. It’s also not just a marathon, it’s many marathons. It will take me and my recording parter 7–10 years to complete.

Even the highly resourced LA Times would rather not take a magnifying glass to its grand and complex city in this way.

My favorite film this year was Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley which is rich with details of production design, lighting, sound, costuming, writing, and tone.

A scene from the second act of Nightmare Alley. Just look at those beautiful details. This was no flop.

Its budget was $60 million and because Spider-Man is taking all the filmgoing oxygen, Nightmare’s opening weekend only garnered $3 million.

People are calling it a box office flop.

But sometimes, I say, fuck the box office.

If Del Toro drops dead today St. Peter is gonna say “what a fucking film bro,” and shake his hand.

Well, I want to shake St. Peter’s hand too.