Graham Brown: Ben, tell me what does a journalist of X number of years know that a podcaster that doesn't know?

Ben Whitmarsh: In my case, certainly if I cast my mind back to when I first started as a journalist, which was in 1997-1998, it came purely from passion and just an interest in the medium just sparked by listening to the radio and having a particular kind of a bunch of people who would really inspire me, they made me incredibly interested in it. I didn't know what I wanted to do at all. I just knew I wanted to be involved in radio. And I wonder if that's what comes with an awful lot of podcasters now that maybe they hear podcasts, they just get inspired and they want to get involved. Then when it comes to the reality of actually creating content that other people want to listen to that isn't just a bit of a, wonderfully fun ego trip, isn't just self-indulgent, what happens next? And certainly, if I were to listen to things I did back in 1998 compared to something I'd have done 10 years later, there would have been a vast difference. And for example, storytelling things, that's one of the themes that we're exploring that became far more instinctive, understandably, as it does if you've been in the business that long. And certainly now I barely even have to think about it. It's something that I find incredibly easy to do to the point where you suddenly think this is so straightforward, why isn't everyone else doing this? It has come to me in such an easy way, but as it would for anyone who's done something for that long, if you were playing the guitar for 20 years suddenly you think, why can’t anyone else do this? So that's what I would say to the podcasters now: it might not come to you straight away, but hang on there. Hang on in there. You will get better at it. And you will always have fun. It will always be enjoyable. There has not been one second in my whole career, broadcasting in any way, that I haven't enjoyed, that I've ever dreaded going into work the next day. I'd never clocked a watch. I think that's the joy of it. I worked in jobs before then working in a call center, you started whatever in the morning and every 10 minutes you'd be looking at that clock. I didn't even smoke and I went out for cigarette breaks. I can't even remember. The only time I looked at a clock was when it was coming around to the top of an hour, and I knew how to do a news bulletin.

Graham Brown: I love this idea about storytelling as a journalist. As an observer, somebody looking at journalism, for example, your sort of natural instinct would be that journalism reports the truth of the fact, as opposed to a story, and people may argue that story in some way is an interpretation of the truth. And therefore for journalists to be a storyteller, it seems to me, and I'm playing devil's advocate here that not good journalism. So how can you say it is about journalism and it's about storytelling together? Aren’t these somewhere contradictory?

Ben Whitmarsh: Well, you're right. I'm an awful journalist and that's why I don't do journalism anymore. I went into broadcasting because my editors kept saying to me, “My God, this is fake news.” I discovered fake news before anyone else did it? And I'm very, very proud of that. If you look up the Wikipedia entry for fake news origins, has my name. You're absolutely right, but it's got to have that element in it to an extent to keep people interested. It's not saying a news bulletin that you'll put out, some of these stories that we used to do were three sentences long. So you don't have a chance to tell a story, obviously, you don't. But you're going to get opportunities, within journalism, within working on radio, definitely within the podcast to tell a story. And that's when you've got to seize that opportunity and make the most of it. I suspect that's why an awful lot of people get into it, particularly on the radio, they might think, ‘Okay, I'll jump into it through the news. And then I'll get the opportunity, later on, to maybe have to be able to do three-minute packages, five minutes, make a dream of working on radio, 4 or something like that, and be given 20 minutes to tell a story.’ So I was kind of thinking of it more that way, rather than a pure news bulletin perspective,

Graham Brown: Let's look at it from the perspective of tiny news stories. Obviously, where we are recording this now, the news and sport at the moment is about the Super League and the European tier one league in soccer, football, and that's a fact. That's what's happening right now. How does a journalist look at that and turn it into a story because what I kind of want to get across here is that for those in business, that storytelling isn't ‘Once upon a time…’ That's a type of story. But it's not necessarily the only format that we're using here. How would a journalist approach news like that and make it run?

Ben Whitmarsh: Speaking personally, I'm a Reading fan. We had a brief conversation about this before we went on air. The jolly locker room banter about our clubs being rubbish and how badly they'd be affected by this. And tongue in my cheek said, ”I don't care. My club is never going to be affected by this. We're never going to get into the premier league.” And to be honest, It gives me a bit of a giggle to see all these clubs in their premier league, whoever has been included or clutching their handbags going, “Oh no, this is absolutely terrible.” Well, a club like Reading, to be honest, it's been on the receiving end of this kind of thing for x amount of years, probably lesser than other clubs. So story-wise, just coming from that off the top of my head, I'll be wanting to trace back to the beginning of the Premier League, and I'm going to struggle to pronounce this. I was going to say inexorable. I might choose a different word, inevitable. How inevitable it's it if you trace it all the way back to the early nineties to the situation we're in now? So story-wise, that'd be the story that I'd like to draw from something like that. So, any journalist would tell you, it's just about looking at things in a slightly different way to create a story from it rather than recording, purely what's going on.

Graham Brown: I was reading this book by a journalist called Bob Fisk. He's Irish. He lives in Beirut and he spent his life writing about news in the middle east. He was there in the Iran - Iraq war, and he [inaudible] the first one, and then he has been there until the present day. And, you can easily become sort of new to all the happenings in that area over the last 30, 40 years. But I read this book; it must be about a thousand pages long. No joke. I read it cover to cover, and it was all his stories. And, he wrote about some quite dark things, but he had to because he was talking about, what was going on in that region, and I don't want to get political, but the point is that that to me is like really powerful journalism. That he was using his craft to make you care. And I think that's kind of like, whether you're a director or journalist, you have this ability to connect the audience with the subject matter in a way that they care about it. And to me, that's a real craft. And maybe like you say it comes instinctively, but where does that come from? Do they train you in journalism school? What is the formula for that?

Ben Whitmarsh: Did they train me in journalism school for that? I think they probably tried, but there was nothing I learned in journalism school that could possibly match two weeks' experience. So, now you've got to bear in mind that I haven't worked in a radio newsroom for quite a while now because I went out to radio in and then went into branded content if you like, working mainly in video. But when I was there it was an incredibly exciting place to work surrounded by very, very bright people. Surrounded by very bright people who kind of got that desire to entertain as well. Let's face it. There's got to be an ego there to want to go on or on the radio. And it's interesting what you say about there being some very, very dark stories because you do become immune to some of the dark stories, as well as I guess, any journalist will tell you some awful things would happen and you wouldn't think about them in a way that most normal people would keep approaching them from such a totally different way that's not an, I haven't come up with a unique idea there. I think anyone would tell you that. So that was certainly what it was like for me. In the end, I became a little jaded. I think it felt like a point. The longer I was doing, it became a bit of a sausage factory, the same things day in, day out maybe because I wasn't getting the opportunity to do maybe longer form storytelling as much as I would like. So that's why I felt I needed a change. And interestingly, I think seeing the demise of radio was kind of right at the point where, radio in, particularly in this country, in the UK was starting to go downhill, trouble seeing the head. And that's another interesting thing, how you could potentially argue that podcasting sees the battle there and the renaissance of engagement through rich audio storytelling, which was one of the things that we were going to be talking about. Certainly one of the things you raised with me before this recording, I think you can directly link one to the other.

Graham Brown: You mentioned entertainment as a sort of a base emo for somebody in radio. When I look at a lot of podcasting now, even though you say it's picking up the battle. When you think about, or even listen to a lot of podcasts, it seems to be that, okay, we're in the early stages as all the people are just getting in the game. But the entertainment factor really isn't there so much, people, obviously they're not professionals, they're not, most people aren't getting paid as they would be in a radio station or even trained. And yet, like when we think about creating content and I know you've done this in the video as well, is that. There is a different starting point isn't that, it's like, not necessarily, ‘Hey, what do I want to talk about?’ When I speak to people in the radio and increasingly in the video as well, it's like, what does the audience want? And how do I deliver that? And yet here we are on podcasts and people are saying, “Oh, I want to start a podcast about God and furniture because it interests me.” And okay, I'm wondering like, is that a reasonable assumption to start and you wouldn't get away with that in radio, would you? And increasingly in the video, you would just get eaten up by lack of engagement or I don’t know. I mean, where do you start with something? Like, do you start with a subject you want to talk about, or do you say, “Okay, who's the audience that I want to entertain?”

Ben Whitmarsh: Which to you and I seem so stark ravingly obvious. We can't even believe that people would have to be told that. It just seems so instinctive again, but you're absolutely right. People do forget to entertain. There's so much talk about bringing your authentic self. You've got to inform, you've got to educate if you want to take Raytheon values, appropriate that to this conversation and all of those things are absolutely right. And it's so important to be authentic, but if you don't bring entertainment, then you can be authentic as you like. If the audio is dull, no one's going to be listening to it anyway. So there has to be that element of performance as well. Thinking of your audience and bringing an element of performance because you are trying to entertain. If the person is boring, if they're not performing, then as a producer, that's when you really earn your money. That's when you've got to bring that out of whoever's taking part in the podcast and make sure when you do produce the final podcast, the final piece of content, excuse me, using the word content it's sometimes it makes me shudder. I don't know why. It seems like such a cliche, but when you do produce that, it does have to entertain. And you've always got to be bearing that in mind. You've always got to be thinking of your audience. Is this interesting for them? Is this indulgent on behalf of the people who were actually taking part in the podcast? You've really got to be very careful of that.

Graham Brown: I love this idea of performing and I'll tell you why. Firstly, I think about all the webinars that I've sat through and you've sat through and even participated in. How much of those were presentations as opposed to performance? It's almost like an event, even if you go to an industry conference. That model is, you queue up and you get your badge and you sit at the table there with the white tabletops and you pick your sweets out of the bowl and you speak to the person next to you. And that's kind of an event. And yet the performance is very aware that you’ve got 30 seconds. And you don't get them, you've lost them. They're looking at pictures of cats on their screen on Facebook or whatever. They've gone. So then performance as well it's like, you mentioned authentic self and this is something else I really feel we're unraveling is, performance really means putting yourself out there. Like if you were a musician. You don't leave anything on the table, do you? When you perform, you go live, you give everything and that takes everything out of you. And that's what people come for. And then you also have, if you need to consider radio, the best hosts are performers. Like even to the, down to their voice, how that isn't actually their natural voice. I listened to people like how it's done. His voice, he's got an amazing radio voice, but that's art. That's crafted over many years. That's kind of honed into a performance. That's his instrument. How do you see the performance? What is it to you? You've spent years in newsrooms and you've seen what essentially is people conveying information, but then you look at people who are doing it in the way where they're performing and getting that across. How does that work and what sort of inspired you in that area?

Ben Whitmarsh: It's interesting that you mentioned being a musician there because I'm very much an amateur musician, but I do play in bands and played solo over many years. I used to busk in Sydney. I did that awfully lot. It was terrific. That's interestingly, all I went to do after I stopped working as a radio journalist for the first time. I just thought I'm just going to go do something totally different and went and did that. And that was a wonderful experience. Many, many stories surrounding that. There are too many to go into. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was

Graham Brown: Well, I’m thinking that, is the point you're trying to make? That's what fascinates me like busking, stand-up comedy, and even podcasting. They have a lot of similarities. How can you draw that arc between busking and I've never busked? What is it like as an experience? I've only ever consumed buskers as an audience? What is that experience actually like?

Ben Whitmarsh: Like many things, sickening at first, and then you get used to it and then you start to enjoy it, like many kinds of jobs. And particularly when you're backpacking, you get to revel in the amount of cash eroding compared to your friends. That's how I found it, but my dad was a musician as well. And when I first started playing, he said, “The one thing you've got to remember is you've got to go onto that stage and you've got to make the audience feel that you've got everything under control. You've got to be in charge up there. And if you can go into it, thinking like that, even if you don't feel like that, but if you manage to portray that, then you're going to be able to give a performance and they'll feel comfortable listening to you.” And that goes for being a broadcaster, being a musician as well. Certainly if I, myself am busking, because you know, like I got, I've never been a standup comedian either this week. That's my shorty, considering the dreadfulness of my attempt to gags throughout this whole podcast. But if you don't have that, or if you don't encourage a client to bring that to the table and then what you have, certainly isn't going to be as good as it could be.

Graham Brown: There's a vulnerability in it, isn't there? And all props to you standing up and busking in a way you're much more vulnerable than doing it in front of thousands of people

Ben Whitmarsh: How dare you didn’t assume they weren't thousands there?

Graham Brown: Quietly confident of that fact. So, you're right there in front of them and literally your cap in hand asking for money. And in a way you’re, I suppose, very vulnerable to them because not everybody wants to listen to you. Some people stop and even at this sort of very awkward moment when people stop and watch and like, should I stick around and watch this guy? It's because the guy is right there, literally a meter away from you. It's tough, the parallel was, I've never done standup comedy. I'm just not funny enough. And that is very vulnerable. You talk about being in control with that. So that's quite a profound insight. You think about stand-up comedians, that's sort of about control. You're dealing with hecklers, you're dealing with the mood and if you lose it, if you lose the mood or the engagement of the audience, you've lost the whole thing. And in podcasting in a way, the challenge now is that, okay, you can be a busker or comedian, but that's fine. That's never really going to be something a senior vice president of marketing needs to do. But that's the challenge now is that guy or that woman needs to get on a microphone and be vulnerable. And this is really interesting, isn't it? Because you've got people now and got 20 years of experience of doing the opposite of being efficient and are sticking a microphone onto them and say, “Okay, right. Tell us a story or tell us a little bit about yourself without sort of going into pitch mode.” I wonder how you get that out of people. How do you get that vulnerability out of people who aren't natural buskers and comedians?

Ben Whitmarsh: It's funny that before we did this interview, I've done hundreds and hundreds, god knows how many interviews as the interviewer, but a handful as an interviewee and you can't help, but get nervous going into it. And you think, oh my God, have I truly got anything to say? And you said to me, oh, don't worry. We'll make it sound good. So if you are listening to this, Graham has done a wonderful job of making this sound good because I've been truly awful throughout the whole episode. So, a round of applause. Well done, Graham, the man's a genius. Anyway, so you say that's people, you just make people feel totally at ease and an awful lot of it comes down to yet again, experience having worked as an interviewer for many, many years, working with people who aren't used to being interviewed, who will be sitting down in that chair and you can actually see them visibly shaking. How am I going to get a performance? How am I going to get anything usable out of these people and you kind of know the beats to hit if you like, what to say, what not to say, how to make them not feel like they're under pressure in any way. Thankfully, I do branded content podcasts. I work with an awful lot of CEOs and people at that level. Once they've reached that level, they should be pretty comfortable in front of a podcast. They should have given an awful lot of webinars, speeches over the years. They should have interesting things to say that you shouldn't have to give them too much of a stare. So it doesn't happen often. But when it does. You've got to step in there and make sure in a gentle way, a way that doesn't put people off that you know by the end of that interview, even if it's taken an awful long time, you will have enough usable stuff there that you can knit it together. So they'll listen back and after they'd go over the awkward moment of hearing their own voice, they’ll think, that’s alright.

Graham Brown: One of the challenges I find Ben is with people like that, especially if they have a lot of experience in presenting, not necessarily that experience was in presenting the right way.

Ben Whitmarsh: Yeah.

Graham Brown: You have people who really are in command of the stage, they can do great public speaking. They're relaxed. They're almost in the zone, in that flow state that people talk about and they're telling stories and they're talking to you but they are looking at you and speaking to you directly on the stage or in a podcast, and that's very reassuring. And yet there are then those, there are a lot of people because it seems to be the default who say a lot without saying anything. Like you really want them to get specific. So you've mentioned this fact, do you have a personal story? Do you have an anecdote you can drop and even if you encourage them and I find this a lot with webinars and even podcasts that they struggle? I've sat with very senior people and you've spelled it out to them. Your audience likes stories, folks. So let's, in terms of storyboarding this, when you do the prep for a podcast that let's put some anecdotes in here. And even if you asked them, they struggle, they then sort of result back to just, what's the word I'm looking for? Vanilla.

Ben Whitmarsh: Yes, beige. I hear two different colors. There we go. Yeah. If you think about your new furniture and you don't want to cause a fence just before you sell your house, you're not going to go for something bright.

Graham Brown: I'm just looking at my sofa.

Ben Whitmarsh: Mine is the same.

Graham Brown: Well, it’s more cream actually. It’s actually Ikea beige.

Ben Whitmarsh: I was all up for the offensive colors, but my wife... That's a good color there on the Deluxe color range - Offensive Beige.

Graham Brown: Where do we go with that? How do you get people out of that? I mean, I've really struggled sometimes and maybe you can't. Maybe it's a lot, asking people to sing, you know? I don’t know. Are there hacks and tips to get people through that? Because even if it's the old adage, ‘You can take the horse to water, but you can't make it drink.’ These guys aren't thirsty, they don't want to do the anecdotes. I think there's a fear, isn’t it?

Ben Whitmarsh: Yeah, I wish I could tell you. Oh yes, I have this instant answer for this over the many years I've been doing this. I've come up with a perfect way now. Goodness, me, there are still plenty of times where, you almost, you're banging your head against a brick wall thinking I've given like exactly what you said, lead a horse to water, and you think I've given you so many opportunities here to share something and you're not taking it. And then as soon as you start recording, it changes and certainly they relax, his story comes out. So there's that approach? Oh, let's say what can you say that again for me or probably something a bit more sneaky. You leave the tape running and you say, oh, I actually recorded that. Do you mind if I use it? So that's another approach, obviously. You've got to have some ethics there. If they say, no, you don't use it. Can I admit to having done that before? Never I have done it. I would always make sure that they know I have done it and run it in before I did it. Particularly, with a client.

Graham Brown: It's interesting. Isn't it? I went through 500 episodes from one of my podcasts. And I've done a lot, like yourself, done a lot of practice, done my 10,000 hours maybe.

Ben Whitmarsh: Do you listen to the Malcolm Gladwell podcast?

Graham Brown: Yeah. I love Malcolm. He goes down the rabbit hole of just detail. And it's like, I'm with you Malcolm like he did one about, he was talking about insights on some World War 2 bomber.

Ben Whitmarsh: Yes. That was one of the most recent series. Wasn't it?

Graham Brown: It was just bizarre. It's like, why the hell is this guy talking about it? But it's interesting. And I loved that. I mean, I go back, you think about your teachers at school Ben and like your teachers, that kind of told stories were the ones that really got you. Do you remember, on TV, because you probably remember from a similar era, there was a guy on TV called Johnny Ball. He did think of a number.

Ben Whitmarsh: Yep.

Graham Brown: You remember that? So for those that don't know, he was like, he did do a program about maths. The most boring subject in the world, but he made it really interesting. And I used to rush home from school to watch that. I just feel that it's like, it's performance, isn't it? It's storytelling. The best teachers were also the best storytellers, the best performers. And even like with Malcolm Gladwell, I mean, he's doing it in his own way. He's really deep into the weeds of detail. You're a historian. You've studied history.

Ben Whitmarsh: Yes at the university. And I suspect I've got more of a passion for it now than I did then. And it's interesting you say revision is history. There are loads of podcasts out there. If I was to scroll down on my phone, now, the amount of podcasts I'm subscribed to that have some kind of link to history, there are some absolute belters out there and it just makes me wish that these were around when I was in university. It's funny, you mentioned on your LinkedIn feed that you've been talking to Pascal Hughes, founder of Noiser. I love real dictators. That's right up my street. I really enjoy it.

Graham Brown: He is amazing.

Ben Whitmarsh: He's incredibly well researched. Which of the McGahn brothers did the…?

Graham Brown: Paul

Ben Whitmarsh: Paul McGann and he is brilliant. It's such wonderfully high quality in every single way. And like, when it dropped into my feed. Okay. That's the first one into today, but that's by no means the only kind of history-linked podcast on my feed.

Graham Brown: Well, this is a long history. Isn't it? Why do you think that is having been a student of history? I'm sure you learn it in a very academic way like all subjects were taught. Why is it now that it's anecdotally one of the most popular genres?

Ben Whitmarsh: Because I think maybe like me, people are returning to it and perhaps it was rather dry when they're at school or at university, or maybe they didn't necessarily see the big picture as much when they're at university or at school. And the people who are doing the podcasts I think are invariably incredibly passionate about what they're doing. Certainly, ones that I listen to, they're incredibly passionate and they're very well researched. I mentioned about The Real Dictators. There were some other brilliant ones as well. That kind of has that ritual audio, if you like, not just the straightforward, two-way conversation that is brilliant. But having said that there is one that I absolutely love that it's the only podcast I'm a contributor to on Patreon. The only one and there's one called Cold War Conversations. And it's just a chap who knows this passion for the Cold War, speaking to a different guest every week. And it is incredible. It's about an hour long and it is absolutely wonderful. And again, it's when it drops on a Saturday. That's it. That's the first thing I'm listening to today. So if you've got and he's not a broadcaster by trade, the chapter does it at all, but because he's so passionate about what he's talking about because he knows the subject back to front, it's an absolutely compelling listen, if you like that kind of thing. So it's got that niche side to it.

Graham Brown: And you are a paid-up subscriber on Patreon.

Ben Whitmarsh: Yes, I know. I'm incredibly tight with my cash. I think it was the thought of getting a drink’s coaster when I paid my money that tipped me over the edge and I have it sitting on my bedside table and I'm very proud of my Cold War Conversations..

Graham Brown: It is amazing, isn’t it that people that are forking out for history podcasts. I mean, can you imagine when your university, somebody would say that in the future, people will be doing this? You couldn’t imagine it. Could you of all the subjects you say, oh, maybe music? I get that. I'd pay for a band because I support the band, but Cold War history. It's amazing. Really, if you think about how un-rock and roll that is, but maybe it is rock and roll, because like you say, it's about passion.

Ben Whitmarsh: One of the episodes is about an American rocker roller that was incredibly successful in east Germany. So, roll it out. Or maybe in Russia, I can't remember which. Don't hold me to that. But yeah, you're absolutely right. I think when I was at school, as much as I say, I wish I had it when I did my A levels, I wouldn't have done it. If I would've listened to it, I'd be really interested in people of that age now, with them becoming more and more interested in A levels and levels in podcast. Would it be something like that that they listen to? My wife is a teacher. She is a huge fan of podcasts. There are many times when we're both wandering around the house with our headphones in, listening to different podcasts, then we'll catch up at the end of the day and actually speak to each other. And I know that she's infused about podcasts to her pupils and there hasn't as of yet been a massive take up in any of the things that she has recommended to do with the subject she teaches. So that's going to be interesting. This is only a very small sample size to see if that does happen when it does. If that does keep them engaged. Does it spread? Does it become a thing that people of that age actually do when it comes to something to do with education?

Graham Brown: Yeah,I would guess it's probably a lot more to do with an adult telling them. In the same way that my son just doesn't appreciate my music tastes. Even though they clearly are very high quality. Anything you say, it's like, they'll do something else.

Ben Whitmarsh: If he liked your music tastes, then something is wrong. It's not their job to like your music tastes.

Graham Brown: When he is 15. He’ll be doing the exact opposite

Ben Whitmarsh: And that is the correct thing to do. You are being a good parent. That’s absolutely right.

Graham Brown: I'll just wait till he discovers my record collection. When he's older, comes back around.