Hi,

I started following Newslaundry very recently, and must commend on the quality job you guys are doing. I may be stepping out of my boundaries by offering you suggestion on your work which I am sure is an outcome of hard work done by smart people. Apologies for that.

Glory of podcasts as a general, in my view, is fading at its best. Most of its target audience are those who want to fill their daily dead time like while running, gym, commute, travel etc. Having said that, an average dead time would typically be 15-20 minutes which I think is the perfect duration of any podcast episode. Its quite difficult to pause an episode and get back at it later, particularly when a podcast episode demands certain level of attention and retention. A podcast deserves more attention than to say listening music.

I love listening to podcasts, and was the main reason why I started following Newslaundry (and the videos which are quite long as well I must day). Even after subscribing to it, I find myself listening ‘Chota Hafta’ more often just because I know I will be able to finish it. So far, there are many regular episodes which I started listening to, enjoyed thoroughly, but had to leave unfinished because my dead time was over.

This may be a very specific issue to point out, and it may or may not apply to your target audience, I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t pass my common sense test on to why would someone sit and listen to more than an hour long discussion if he/she has something else to do. And, if someone really has that much time to listen, he/she is probably not your target audience…I am guessing.

If you believe above hypothesis makes any sense, here’s one suggestion (I am sure you can come up with many more): there are lot of loose lines/tangential discussion/memes etc which take up lot of time, all these can be cut short or edited later. Clothesline is a classic example of it. A good portion of any episode is just memes.

Also, if you guys record one hour sessions at any time, may be record them in such a way that it can later be post-processed into sub-topics labeling an individual episode like Hafta 122.1, 122.2 etc that way it will be easier to come back to where a listener left.

I hope I didn’t step in too much.

Sincerely,
– Anoop
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Anoop Agrawal, MD, DM, FACC
Cardiology

Hi NL Team,

I am a subscriber and I must say last two weeks without Madhu had been very chaotic on NL Hafta, specially last week. I did not find discussions going in any direction. Sometimes 4 or 5 people were speaking simultaneously, believe me listening that on earphone is very irritating.
My otherwise favourite Manisha was very silent. And when she spoke she was not fluent at all. She was using lots of ‘like’, ‘you know’, ‘umm’, ‘whatever’, ‘ya’ etc. That was making it very difficult to understand her views. I had to rewind twice.

Anand was almost rude to Mihir. Don’t know if there is some history there.

I wanted to listen more about GST for better understanding but I don’t know why Abhinandan was least interested in discussion and was trying to navigate discussion away from it.

These things don’t happen when Madhu is there. Please bring her back quickly. Even I missed Anand Vardhan. His manner of speaking brings a calmness in discussion which is very important for me to comprehend.

NL Hafta is very important source of news and views for me. Please maintain its quality.

Thanks,
Tarun Chandrayan

Hi NL Team,

I am a News Laundry subscriber and a big fan of Hafta.
I am writing in to suggest you to discuss, India’s absence at China’s One Border One Road event and its implications, in a Hafta discussion.

I know its an old news, but I have waited through last 3 Hafta episodes for any panelist to bring up this topic.
I do not expect TV media to pick up real issues with economic/geographic implications over peacock sex, but i have much higher expectation from you guys.

I know you have published pieces on this topic on your website, before the event.
However, an article has a single point of view. In contrast a Hafta discussion brings in other angles to most stories.
You hosted Mihir Sharma in Hafta 122, who has written an article on this very topic.
You have, in the past involved some of the best policy analysts to discuss India’s stand in Global policies. (Of course i am talking about Global Summits with Biraj Swain, which, for me, was your best offering yet.)
I am unable to fathom why this topic never made the cut.

If you already did discuss it in Hafta, and I missed it, I am really sorry. Let me know the episode number, so i can check it out.
If for some reason, you think this should not / cannot be discussed, at least mention the reason why.

A big thank you for all your hard work.

Regards,
Swapnil