Megan has written this article on behalf of the WADR Team. Photo by Luther Yonel on Unsplash
This week Channel 9 terminated their contract with breakfast tv host Karl Stefanovic due to his podcast featuring a man often described as a far-right extremist, Tommy Robinson. Stefanovic has responded by stating he is wanting to champion a diversity of views. Of course, his lineup isn’t that diverse. He tends to feature guests from the harder right. He is indeed making decisions about who to get on and what kind of audience he wants.
The guests podcasters choose is revealing. Taken as a whole, the guest lineup reveals to us the aims and values of the podcast. Like Stefanovic, as podcasters we come from a different medium and style of speaking. For us, our most common platform is the pulpit. Moving then to a podcast, we have learnt about podcasting through experience, through reflecting together on what we wanted to achieve and what was important to us.
Goals and Guest Choice
We didn’t start with guests but as the podcast went for longer, we introduced guests so that we could explore more topics and hear significant perspectives on these topics. We have had to think about who we got on and how we would interview them. This has been an on and off discussion behind the scenes over time. Is this guest going to be a good fit for the topic and the podcast? Who would be a valuable voice to platform? We have needed to consider both our goals and our skills.
For us, our goal is always to model thoughtful and respectful dialogue, combining grace with truth. We don’t pretend to be other than we are. We are an evangelical Australian podcast by two pastor-theologians. We have consciously set out to explore topics together, rather than to make boundary setting pronouncements. We don’t want to tell people what to think but rather help them to think through issues and topics seriously from a Christian perspective.
Expertise is Valued
Truth is important to us; we want people who are expert in the topic under discussion. We don’t have to agree with them, but they do have to have suitable credentials or experience. We get them on because we aren’t experts in every topic. We will work hard to get an appropriate expert voice, even delaying a topic because of not being able to line a guest up who fulfils this.
Alignment with Ethos
We want guests who will be able to converse within the ethos of our podcast, that is we want people of truth and grace. Our guests on WADR need to be both respectful and be credible. So, for instance, someone might be an expert but their schtick is ripping into people. We won’t platform that person. Someone else might be a friendly voice, but not be committed to ensuring their information is accurate. We won’t platform that person either.
Evangelicalism and Beyond
We are upfront about being two evangelical voices. We know that part of being able to evaluate the voices you hear is transparency about their commitments. We are open about where we are coming from and who we are. We will tend to draw guests from within our own communities and networks. This is partly because that is who we have connections with, the people who are likely to be responsive to our requests for an interview. However, this isn’t a boundary. Someone doesn’t have to be from within our evangelical community for us to have them as a guest. We are happy to have people on from outside that community, of all kinds. Looking back over our guest list, not all are Christian, and of those who are, not all are evangelical.
In some cases, if the topic demands it we go outside of our usual networks and connections in order to do it justice. For instance, we have spoken to a Catholic about Catholicism. In other cases, we have found ourselves choosing someone who isn’t a Christian to come on because they have more relevant expertise.
Balance of Voices
We aren’t pretending to try to get a balance of voices across every possible spectrum. Some views aren‘t credible or beneficial. We also aren’t a panel show. The vast majority of the time in our format it only works to have one guest on a topic. Of course, they won’t be able to represent every view, and we aren’t aiming for this. We simply think they will have a useful and interesting viewpoint. Where we do try to have some balance is with the gender and ethnic background of guests. In any season, we can have guests fall through and changes occur which mean even our best attempts to do so can go awry. Nevertheless, we are aware that within our own evangelical communities, white male perspectives have predominated. We want our podcast to enable other voices to be heard as well.
Our Skill Set and Mode
As we consider who to ask on and what questions to ask them, we are aware that we are not trained journalists. We don’t pretend to be able to do hard-hitting journalism in which we cross-examine someone in order to get at the truth. If we were, we would be more likely to get on a wider range of guests who we would then subject to strong challenge if required. But this isn’t our skill set and nor is it the tone of our podcast. Given that, we won’t get on guests who we would feel the need to subject to a more hostile rather than friendly style of questioning. This might mean too, that you are listening to our interview with someone, and then you think we have gone too easy on them. But for our purposes, we lead with curiosity.
Freedom to Pursue Podcast Goals
There is a simplistic view of free speech within our society in which people demand the right to be heard in all places at all times. Such a freedom would be at the expense of other freedoms. Just like you shouldn’t be expected to have to entertain guests in your home who feel free to say whatever they want, we do not feel compelled to platform guests who we think aren’t going to be beneficial voices. We exercise a responsible freedom in who we platform. We attempt to use this freedom wisely. We want to give you people worth hearing on the topic at hand.
Concerns Raised about Prior Guests
When we have a guest on, we have done so on the basis of what we know about them at the time, having done due diligence beforehand. At times, a previous guest might then have concerns raised about them due to later actions or previous ones we weren’t aware of at the time. We aren’t omniscient, so this can happen. When concerns are raised about a previous guest, we will consider what to do about their episode/s. This will always be considered on a case-by-case basis. We will usually decide not to erase the podcast history, but may in some cases decide to add a note to the episode or on our website. We reserve the right to entirely pull an episode, though we haven’t as yet had to do so.
External Influences
You might be wondering whether the various networks we have been part of, or the sponsors we have had, have influence over guest choice. To date, we have never had to pull a proposed guest because of our partners, nor have we had to platform a guest because of our partners. Of course, in any such partnership, the partnership has an understanding that goals remain compatible. If there started to be divergent thinking round guests, that would mean a rethink.
Thoughtfulness over Provocation
It might just be that we have never had to pull a guest because of our own ground rules about guests, principles which prioritise credibility and character. It would be easy for us to build an audience on outrage and provocation, but that is not what we are about. And we are glad for the commitment of our WADR audience despite our algorithm-challenging decision to pursue thoughtfulness over easy clicks. Thank you.
About the Author: Rev Dr Megan Powell du Toit is the Baptist half of the WADR team.
thewadrproject.com 