The Pod
By 
One of the major initiatives that we’ve been happiest with over the last two years has been the podcast. As some have noted, the production and the performances are still a bit rough, although I’d say we’re improving. Having listened to every single podcast, however, I am extremely pleased with the content. In many ways the podcast plays to the strength of LGM, with scholars who focus on different subjects leveraging their personal networks to deliver deeply interesting conversations with deeply knowledgeable guests. Those conversations make up perhaps two thirds of our podcast catalogue, but by and large they represent deep dives into policy and history that will likely be as interesting five years from now as they are today. The other third are the fun ones; conversations between LGM frontpagers and friends of the blog about subjects of immediate interest, such as the NFL, the Academy Awards, or whatever else falls into our gaze. These are more topical and perhaps less enduring, but no less entertaining to record.
Over the next few months we have several big podcast guests lined up. I won’t go into it too deeply because I don’t want to jinx any particular conversation, but we’ll delve into topics familiar and dear to our readers, including most notably music and contemporary policy. We also expect to make good on a long-standing promise to have topical podcasts on subjects that commenters request; DJW opened such a thread several months ago, but unfortunately we haven’t been able to make the rubber meet the road, despite a number of outstanding suggestions.
As with all things, this costs money, including software, sound equipment, and hosting fees. And as with all things, it takes time; the podcast itself takes time to record, and post-production can run from 1.2x the length of the podcast to, at an extreme, 3x or 4x the length. Your contributions make possible more and better LGM podcasts, which is fantastic because we genuinely enjoy making them.