Invisible podcast

In the early years of The World and Everything in It, an episode could fail to upload and, apparently, nobody would notice. I sure did—not only the missing program but the lack of calls or emails. It was a demoralizing mix of irritation and humiliation. Today, our average monthly reach is noticeable. That change—from a podcast whose absence went unnoticed to one that regularly exceeds a quarter-million average monthly listeners—is worth marking as the program turns 15.

The first idea I ever pitched WORLD founder Joel Belz was radio. He needed someone to steady the fledgling WORLD Magazine; I had a young family and needed a steady paycheck. We had a match—and so began what I call my two-decade, all-expenses-paid graduate education in journalism and the media business.

The radio idea remained. I believed WORLD’s journalism could become something like NPR’s Morning Edition or All Things Considered, but beginning from a Christian understanding of who made—and owns—the world.

Joseph Slife and Steve Moore arrived at WORLD headquarters in 2006 with a strikingly similar idea—and a strikingly similar set of problems we couldn’t solve: cost and distribution. Five years later, Salem Radio Network offered us weekend airtime. So, of course, I called Joseph. Together we pursued the governing question: If WORLD Magazine were a radio program, what would it sound like?

Joseph made himself indispensable. He turned an aspiration into a broadcast, found the title in Psalm 89:11, and chose “This Is My Father’s World” as the musical theme. On Aug. 6, 2011, The World and Everything in It went on the air.

The early program filled two unforgivably timed commercial-broadcast hours. After removing the station breaks and network news, the total was precisely 75 minutes and 40 seconds as a podcast. Joseph and I later tracked our hours: about 75 per week each. We had borne out the Public Radio Ratio, an old newsroom rule requiring a two-hour sacrifice of human labor for every broadcast minute. The remaining 40 seconds must’ve been the easy part.

Another old line became my lament of the weekly grind: “You’ve got your whole life to prepare your first one and a week to prepare your next.” Thursday could become a nearly 24-hour production cycle: work into the wee hours, sleep a couple hours on an office couch, hit Starbucks at 5 a.m., then push toward the network’s noon deadline. No misses.

The only way to game the ratio was to add people. Kristen Flavin, my daughter, accepted unwanted assignments before becoming a producer and editor who carried the program’s craft through successive eras. Mary Reichard made Supreme Court arguments understandable and the justices recognizable, sometimes driving files to a library parking lot to catch the Wi-Fi. Myrna Brown brought decades of broadcast TV experience and became one of the program’s most-loved voices. Joseph left after helping build both the weekly and daily versions. Other hosts, producers, reporters, analysts, reviewers, and technicians kept building. Lindsay Mast now helps lead the current stage.

For years, we barely knew how to measure what was happening. As late as 2017, a strategic-planning document left our current monthly downloads blank while confidently placing “podcast downloads have tripled” under where we were heading. Hey, start low enough and tripling is comparatively achievable.

Reliable numbers didn’t start until 2019, but the trend is encouraging. Unique Monthly Audience, our actual reach, climbed from 100,000 to more than 265,000. Because we’re a news program, we don’t have what’s known as a “long tail,” so almost every program maxes out after seven days. First-week downloads on weekday programs doubled to nearly 40,000. With nearly three of four listeners tuning in on the release day itself, The World and Everything in It has become a strong daily routine.

That matters because news media do more than transfer information. They explain the world, often without understanding who is ultimately in charge. Our calling is twofold: to resist conforming to the world and to promote transformation by renewal of the mind. We do report unsavory facts, but you’ll never hear us pass them off as good.

Fifteen years on, I am thankful for listeners who noticed, for colleagues who built what two men could only begin, and for providence that sustained an undertaking whose early arrangements were plainly unsustainable. Tomorrow morning, Lord willing, the program will be there. If it isn’t, there’s a good chance the moment won’t pass unnoticed.