Some podcasts are good for giving you a digestible summary of the day’s events. Among these, I occasionally listen to What’s News from the Wall Street Journal and the Irish Times’ Politics podcast, while the Spectator’s daily Coffee House Shots provides updates on the U.K.’s Parliament. Some others are one-time productions that go in-depth on a single topic. Of these, I can’t stop recommending the Economist’s short series on Chairman Xi Jinping.
But the best and worst podcasts have exactly the same quality: They sound like a couple of old friends catching up. The wrong hosts lead a show into boring minutiae, dead space, and in-jokes that are too obscure for a general audience. But the best ones are sublime for filling the time in an otherwise lonesome commute. They make you, the audience of one, feel included as a silent partner in their exchange.
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