Talking Podcasts 1

For decades, the way we understood public life — politics, power, crises, conflicts — was filtered through a professional class of journalists, editors and broadcasters. Podcasting has quietly dismantled that gatekeeping. Sir Richard Dearlove, former Chief of MI6, has found in podcasting a platform to share four decades of intelligence experience directly with a global audience. Joining him is Andy Coulson — former editor of the News of the World, Downing Street Director of Communications, and host of Crisis What Crisis? — who has built a platform on something equally rare: the credibility that comes from having faced the worst and rebuilt.

In this session, veteran journalist Kate McCann – current co-host of both the One Decision podcast and of the Times Radio morning show – sits down Sir Richard and Coulson to  explore what is involved in entering the world of podcasting from a different line of work. They talk about what it means to take up a role traditionally filled by professional journalists while drawing on a very different set of skills and experiences. They examine why the medium uniquely enables this transition, what it demands of those who make it.