Questions asked of the New York Times after Caliphate

There’s growing criticism of the New York Times’s Michael Barbaro after the newspaper’s discredited Caliphate podcast. Barbaro conducted an interview about the show, including examining the actions of its Executive Producer Lisa Tobin. However, Barbaro was not as transparent as he might have been: he did not disclose that Tobin is his fiancée. This is in contravention of the NYT’s Editorial Standards, which prohibits staff reporting on people with whom they have close personal relationships. Barbaro has also reportedly told other journalists at the newspaper not to criticise the podcast.

• Meanwhile, some point out that while Caliphate reporter Rukmini Callimachi was made to publicly apologise and forced to move to a different area, the podcast’s producer and reporter Andy Mills - who made the podcast and accepted its Peabody Award - was hosting The Daily this week. On Twitter, Barbaro appears to be blocking those criticising the decision.

• MicDropp is a new app and website which claims it’s the easiest way to record and send audio. You connect it to your Dropbox, add a script if you like, and send the link to your contributors - they record their bits, and the audio automatically gets delivered to your Dropbox.

  • Want a year’s Professional account for free? The first 100 Podnews readers to sign up, using the code podnewsfree, will each get a year’s free account, worth $60.

• The future of podcast measurement is facing some very large challenges in the near future, says Rob Greenlee, writing in his personal blog. Rob works for Libsyn and is Chair of The Podcast Academy.

• It’s easy to make a podcast, but hard to find an audience that cares. So says Sarah Marie of SpecFM, the five-year podcast network, which closed this month.

• Missed someone’s Christmas present? Not been able to visit the swag tables at Podcast Movement this year? Worry not - the PodMatch podcast clothing store has just been launched, selling clothing and accessories - and even a mug or two.

• We’ve returned links to Stitcher back into our podcast pages. Here’s an example for This American Life.

Christmas is a time for joy and happiness, they say, but if things become too much, there are plenty of people who can help. A problem shared is often a problem helped. Here’s a list of helpful numbers and online chat services.

Tips and tricks - with Podpage

• How To Use Twitter To Boost Your Podcast Audience (We Edit Podcasts)

• How to share podcast clips to Twitter Fleets (Waave)

• Can you use commercial music in your podcast? Ho, ho, no.

Podcast News - with Fable & Folly

PodTales, a festival of audio drama and fiction podcasting, is the first event in the United States dedicated to the burgeoning art forms of imaginative audio storytelling. The podcast feed features discussions with creators, recordings of pannels, and our 2020 Indie Fiction Showcase! Ad sales by Fable and Folly.

Podland has Adam Curry and Dave Jones from the Podcast Index on this week, and talks about closed vs open.

The Jason Ellis Show, from the radio announcer who spent fifteen years on SiriusXM, is new from Kast Media.

Discuss this edition of Podnews in our subreddit.