For the past several months, I’ve been complementing my
podcast regimen with narrated long-form journalism via an
excellent new service called Audm.
I first discovered Audm when I was trying to understand what
was going on with the Republican party last year and discovered
two stories by Alec MacGillis of ProPublica, which Audm
recorded and made freely available on SoundCloud.
One of my favorite aspects of this service is its curation: it’s
not really “Netflix for narrated long-form journalism”, which might
prove a bit overwhelming for me. Instead, it gives me a weekly
selection of a few hand-picked stories from a variety of sources.
Some of them I’ve known about and respected for some time, like
ProPublica and The Atlantic, while others like The Bitter Southerner
and Outside Magazine are welcome new discoveries.
The range of issues covered is also something I look forward to. I’m
particularly interested in understanding perspectives that are vastly
different from my own, and I’ve found that Audm’s selection is
especially suited to this. Through it, I’ve gained some insight into
the minds of Brexit leavers, women who voted for Trump, and Krispy Kreme
aficionados.
So, this is one of the few startups I truly hope sticks
around–because until I started listening to them, I actually
didn’t read much long-form journalism. In that sense, the
service has given me experiences I otherwise wouldn’t have had,
and for that I am grateful.