Every Saturday morning, we invite a publishing pro to put together their top media links. This week’s guest editor is Christopher Phin.

Christopher Phin is the Head of Podcasts for DC Thomson Media. Find him on Twitter as @chrisphin.

Chris says:

"Morning! Got your coffee? Marvellous. I’m Chris, and I’m based in sunny Dundee. (That’s an actual thing. There’s a hashtag, #SunnyDundee, but it’s oh so much more than a hashtag)

"DC Thomson Media has been podcasting for about a year and a half, and a little while ago we passed a quarter of a million downloads across our folio of 10 shows. Not huge, not nothin’.

"It’s been a joy and privilege to work with so many passionate folks across the country and across the company to find new audiences, and clasp existing audiences more tightly to our bosom!"

Zetland’s members asked for an audio version — and now it’s more popular than their written stories — www.niemanlab.org

I think about this article so often. It tells the story of a Danish news organisation which, in response to audience demand, introduced audio versions of its stories alongside written, and how 60% of its audience now consumes those audio versions. I think about it often not only because this sounds like such a beguiling and tempting move for news organisations to make – proof, see, that people love audio! Think of the dwell times 🤤 – but also because I imagine across the world lots of organisations might read it and immediately, unthinkingly try to copy the pivot. It may work for them, but I bet there are lots of unexamined variables that could prove as disastrous (or short term) as the pivot to video was for so many.

Pivoting to nowhere: How Mic ran out of radical makeovers — digiday.com

And likewise, I think about the story of Mic so often. Mic seemed like such a promising thing. They might have bridled at the characterisation, but I’d call it a progressive news outlet for millennials, and I thought it was really exciting. This article chronicles its demise – though I remember the first time I scrolled (and scrolled, and scrolled…) through its flannel panel and wondered how sustainable the VC money funding such a huge staff was. Lots to think about here.

It's boom time for podcasts – but will going mainstream kill the magic? — www.theguardian.com

A very decent attempt to snapshot the state of the podcast market for a general audience. (An aside: podcasts are one of the last hold-outs of the open web, and while that causes me some headaches, I’m enough of an old hippy to be unsettled by the increasing siloisation of podcasting.)

The time I went on a Lesbian Cruise and it blew up my entire life — www.buzzfeednews.com

This isn’t an industry piece. But I think about and re-read this article often. In part, I like the story that is told. But more: I love the storytelling. If you ask me to pick one example of what I think journalism could do more of as it evolves, I pick this. It’s honest. The writer and their authentic experiences is foregrounded, without being pompous. There’s no hubris here. It’s impeccably structured and paced. I adore it. Instapaper tells me it’s a 47-minute read. Not all of this kind of journalism needs or should be this long, but… well, you still have your coffee in hand, right? The Sainsbury’s run can wait. Settle in and read this.

Two podcast episodes recorded today, four edited and published. Gin is imminent. Gimninent. — twitter.com

Earlier in the year I was completely blindsided to be awarded Media Voices’ Publisher Podcast Hero of the Year – an award we didn’t even know existed before we congregated in London for the ceremony. One of the things this award is for is generously sharing best practice, so this link is to a concept I talked about on Twitter which has proven popular: a mic we roundtrip out to important guests so we get good quality audio from them. The packs cost about a hundred quid all-in, and the results have been fantastic; these are the mics we’re standardised on for our podcasters recording from home. You’ll see in that thread that I include a quick guide with a link to a short video tutorial, return label, and repacking guide. If you implement this or similar, let me know!

If you would like to guest edit a future edition of My Media Roundup, simply reply to this email.