Podcast Etiquette: How Not to Treat a Guest After the Interview is Over

by | Sep 13, 2006 | Podcasting | 3 comments

In the world of podcasting, there are bound to be some hissyfits. One has been brewing over the last couple of weeks between Joseph Jaffe and the Podfather himself, Adam Curry.

Jaffe, a new media specialist, recently interviewed Curry and Podshow CEO, Ron Bloom. The interview went 1-1/2 hours, so Jaffe split the interview in two.

Jaffe aired Part 1, but seeing that Curry didn’t promote the interview on his own blog, website or even on his own podcast show called Daily Source Code, Jaffe withheld airing Part 2 until Curry “showed him some love.” Well, that sent Curry off his rocker and Jaffe summed up the whole thing on his blog.

This misunderstanding provides some valuable lessons on how not to treat your guest once the interview is over:

  • You can’t demand that your guest publicize the interview they did with you. You can only politely ask.
  • Just because your guest doesn’t promote the interview to their own list doesn’t mean you can hold the MP3 of that interview hostage or use it as leverage to not deliver what you said you would.
  • At the end of the day, no one really cares about promoting your podcast except you, so get over it.

Here’s Jon’s take.

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3 Comments

  1. Leesa Barnes

    Pop your collar, brush the dirt off your shoulder and move on. I so agree, JJ. However, with Adam being so upset and relaying that on his podcast doesn’t seem like this was a “light-hearted misdirection.”

    I will say that your laissez-faire attitude gives me the impression that this is a well designed publicity stunt to generate more listeners for your podcast. I’ll post here what I said on your blog: This is an incredibly good idea. I must adopt this strategy to generate a slew of listeners.

  2. Jon

    @Joseph

    So the part where Adam said “F* you. Are you crazy?” was just part of the fun? He didn’t sound all that impressed to me.

  3. Joseph Jaffe

    Thanks for your thoughts…

    It’s interesting because in reality there really was no misunderstanding…it was all light-hearted misdirection, which seemed to send the community into a kerfuffle, as opposed to Adam and myself who both took the opportunity as a) a learning experience, b) new and original content e.g. what should Joe’s punishment be? and c) LAST AND LEAST: a buzz/traffic driving opportunity (meaning a by-product as opposed to the driving or primary reason)

    That said, the lessons you mentioned are great and make sense although once again, with respect to *this* particular incident, they are moot because they were never the real motivators in the first place.

    jJ