While more and more newspapers in the US are podcasting, I cannot find any here in Australia. Podcasting is easy, cheap and can help a newspaper reach a new mobile audience. Some newspapers in the US have even hired journalists to create audio content.
Brian Chin’s blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer site lists newspapers that podcast as of a couple of weeks ago. The efforts of the Ventura County Star, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Daily News are well worth listening to.
The latest podcast at the San Francisco Chronicle is a fascinating interview with Larry Ellison of the Oracle Corporation. It demonstrates how podcast technology enables an interview to have life (and colour) beyond the page. Listen to it.
Developing stories for podcasting as well as print will help produce better stories since the different skills will themselves uncover different perspectives of a story. The reader benefits and the story has a broader life.
In some respects, given that one of my businesses relies on success of printed newspapers and magazines, podcasting poses a personal economic threat. However, the technology is there and is being embraced at an exponential rate so I say embrace it and let it take news and information stories to every possible consumer. Along the way, businesses like mine will adapt and find their own place in this changing world.