Boston Globe Head of Audio Kristin Nelson on Integrating Audio Into the Newsroom

Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription software errors.

Jeff Umbro: Today on Podcast Perspectives, I am speaking with Kristin Nelson, Head of Audio at The Boston Globe. 

Are there any unique strengths that legacy publications bring to podcasting that newer media doesn't?

Kristin Nelson: All the strengths of a newsroom, that's our competitive advantage.

Jeff Umbro: Kristin started her career more than a decade ago at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, and since August 2023, she has led The Boston Globe's audio initiatives. While The Globe is a legacy newspaper, they're pumping out a steady stream of hit podcasts. We'll dig into how legacy institutions are embracing podcasting, the business and editorial decisions behind their programming and with the future holds for audio at major publications. Just a note. Kristin and I talk about this during the episode, but The Boston Globe is a client of Glomerate. 

Welcome to the show Kristin.

Kristin Nelson: Thanks for having me.

Jeff Umbro: I wanna start by just your history in audio at CBC and what brought you to The Globe?

Kristin Nelson: I came from Canada. I was at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for over 15 years, and I was drawn to audio and to public broadcasting. I think it was always something that was on in the background as a kid and. Of course you don't like what your parents like. So you know, it seemed uncool. But then I hit an age in my early twenties where I started to realize, this droning on in the back of my life is actually really awesome.

And I kind of like, I kind of like what's happening back there. And I was on my path to do a PhD and I sort of this pivot after I volunteered for the campus radio station and realized how much I loved it. And then it was exactly like that. As soon as I got to CBC, I realized these are my people. I love this work so much, and I just never wanted to leave it after that.

And so I did everything at CBC from, you know, daily breaking news. The show that I worked for, it was created in the wake of 9/11 because, you know CBC was slow to react to the breaking news, and so the, the sort of mandate of the show I worked for was being able to pin a pivot and do live news if we had to, and, and so we did everything from that on the show to deeply reported narratives.

And documentaries and like special shows from a lot of different places. And so I got a taste of everything in that job. It was like just such a, such a great job. And, and then I went on to run weekly shows, launch new podcasts, that sort of thing. was an opportunity with remote work during the pandemic where it just opened up different career possibilities.

And I, you know, saw this job posting and took the leap after, after I was offered a job with The Boston Globe and it was, it was specifically to make an investigative podcast that first job. So it wasn't this role, but it was I I enough to make the leap.

Jeff Umbro: Kind of an aside, NPR is kind of known in some circles as like this stuffy legacy radio, All Things Considered, Morning Edition and what you'll hear in the doctor's office, BBC I imagine is kind of similar, although from my experience, British people really love the BBC and in a way that a lot of Americans don't for NPR. Where does the CBC fit into that like flywheel?

Kristin Nelson: I love that you're asking that because I think it's somewhere in between, even 20 years ago, it, it was so much more universal and I, I still believe, I know we'll probably never get back to exactly that, but you know. in my extended family listened to CBC. It was just part of the narrative and the national conversation.

So my uncle, who you know, has a cattle wrench and he would like call in from the tractor. It's Carl from Newburgh on the all the call in shows, you know. And then my cousins out in the oil fields and like, I think that's evolved a little bit over time, but there's still some of that definitely more I think than than NPR here.

But public broadcasting in this moment has, you know it, it's an uphill battle, but I think there's such a good story to tell and I still believe in it so much, and I really believe that we're gonna come back to that.

Jeff Umbro: What did they bring you on to do at The Globe?

Kristin Nelson: So the first job was there was a group of reporters who were looking back at this murder case that happened in 1989, trying to uncover what was the full story back then and what does it mean, you know, this many years later, looking back at that story. And so I was hired on to be the senior producer of that and at the same time, in parallel, HBO was making a film version of this. And so we were paired up with HBO, they were doing video doc side of things. They had a great director who was leading the charge on that, and we were making the podcast. And then the reporters were, of course, doing a print digital multimedia thing for the, for The Globe as well.

Jeff Umbro: Which came first on that? Was it the documentary or was it the podcast?

Kristin Nelson: In terms of the production, we were working in parallel and some of the interviews were shared interviews, you know, that you'll see that were in the film and also in the podcast, and some of them were totally separate and different production teams and a different way of telling the story. So it was really interesting to see how that unfolded.

Jeff Umbro: You were brought on to produce this show Murder in Boston and now that show is, is out, it exists, and what is your role today?

Kristin Nelson: So partway into that, then they were hiring for Head of Audio and had plans to build out the audio unit. And so I went for that job and had been remote before then. The senior producing job was something that I was still doing from Ottawa then. Yeah, got the head of audio job and moved my family down here.

And the idea was really, I mean, the way that I, I had always pitched it was about leveraging the great work that we do in The Boston Globe newsroom, and trying again to find new audiences, reach different people, build out the audio program that we have.

Jeff Umbro: So what is that program? Could you walk through a little bit of some of your priority shows that you guys are currently producing and how that kind of lives within the ecosystem of what The Globe is doing.

Kristin Nelson: One of the things that I, I think a lot of organizations are like this, but with The Globe, it's tricky because there's The Boston Globe and there's Boston Globe Media. The Boston Globe is just one of the entities under Boston Globe Media, and we have STAT which is another newsroom. There's sort of a firewall between opinion and the newsroom.

There's, there's, there's business led projects and that sort of thing. So it's a large company and the piece of it that my role is, is in the newsroom, editorial, you know, everything's sort of under the editor and so that is my piece of it, and there's a long running show that was well before my time that I can't take credit for.

It was before me. Scott Helman and Amy Padula with the wonderful Love Letters advice columnist Meredith Goldstein. They launched this love and relationships podcast, and it was basically, and it's, it's beautiful. It's well told, it's narrative stories about, you know, about all kinds of different love. A very strong podcast for the newsroom and, you know, she's, she's an advice columnist and she's a reporter with the arts section and so. That's one of our pillars because it's got such a loyal audience of people who love Meredith and love the show and who just can't get enough of it. And so that is one of our main priorities for sure.

And then the other, it's obviously, you know, we wanna find ways to leverage other reporting in the newsroom too, and bring it to people's ears. But trying to figure out how to do that with a pretty small team. You know, we're not, we're not the New York Times audio unit.

Jeff Umbro: You don't have 40 people working on your daily news show.

Kristin Nelson: Exactly. So with that is just trying to figure out, well, what can we do that gets the biggest bang for our buck with the resources that we have? And clearly this is where Spotlight came into things. Every Spotlight investigation is a huge deal for the newspaper and it pulls on people and talent from all over the newsroom and it, it's always the best of what The Boston Globe does, and it's such a strong brand and it's just so natural to try to bring it into other audiences.

And so that was another priority from the beginning for the editor and the Spotlight editor and myself.

Jeff Umbro: So The Globe has been in podcasting for longer than most organizations, to be honest. You know, I think we're on like the 10th or 11th season of Love Letters at this point. There's been a number of shows that you all have produced in partnership with other orgs. So you know, you had Gladiator, the story of Aaron Hernandez, which you all did with Wondery, which at this point is like six or seven years old, I think. And that also had some cross media stuff. There was a documentary?

Kristin Nelson: Well, it got turned into an FX series.

Jeff Umbro: And then Murder in Boston, which was done with HBO. And so you guys have a history of putting out these like big impressive narrative stories. And historically you all have done this in partnership with other organizations. You recently put out Spotlight: Snitch City just with The Globe on its own. So like what kind of drove that decision? Why not do that with HBO or, or a different org?

Kristin Nelson: Absolutely. And I think those partnerships were, I mean, there's no question they were successful partnerships and those podcasts reach huge audiences. They did. They had spinoffs and. The vision that we had was trying to own the feed ourselves so that we could leverage it in a different way and really build on it and build season over season. And so that is when full disclosure…

Jeff Umbro: Yeah.

Kristin Nelson: our relationship. I remember reaching out to you because I think a lot of the partnerships were driven in the past by, the idea was have sort of outside production experts lead the way and, and you know, sort of win-win situation.

And absolutely, like I said, that happened. If we were to do this on our own and own the feed ourselves and really be able to leverage it in all the different ways and build up this channel in a new way and that. Was the vision. It is the vision, but obviously the tricky thing is launching a feed in 2025 and a limited run feed and, and that is where we reached out to you guys.

Jeff Umbro: I have kind of a two part follow up to that. One is why make a podcast as opposed to some other form of media with The Globe? And the second part of that, which is kind of aligned, is how do you guys gauge success when you've done that using Spotlight as an example. Why was that a better audio property than doing exclusively like a written magazine or newspaper piece?

Kristin Nelson: Certainly, I think the investigative work is just so perfect for the podcast audiences out there, the true crime folks who eat it up, but, but you know, I think sometimes that gets diminished, that section of the audience, you know, because all that is is like people who are ravenous for. Well-told stories and who actually wanna understand their world and, you know, be pulled along in, in the, on the way, but who enjoy journalism and who enjoy the process of it.

I mean, I think this is one thing I've said to the reporters, you know, you guys have the coolest job ever. You know, and so all it is in the trainings I've done with working with the reporters and editors, it's just like, just try to capture. The stuff that you're doing day to day, like, some of which is boring, like going through long of data and making a million calls, but some of which is just really exciting.

And all you gotta do is just make sure you're capturing that and then necessarily, that's just interesting because we're already on a journey with someone trying to uncover something and like, boom, boom, you know, you, you've got me, you're halfway there.

Jeff Umbro: It's like listening to audio of them, you know, at the docks talking to folks, working on the boats with the Boston accents and like you, you can't really mimic that experience in another way.

Kristin Nelson: But it's true. Like if you throw a camera on that scene, I don't know that you would have the same level of people being candid. Like it's one thing to have a mic in there and you know, I think you, you can still bring a camera.

Jeff Umbro: But you might get like a scene from like a 90s cop documentary or something as opposed to like this really intense experience with the audio.

Kristin Nelson: The problem that we have is a good problem to have. This is what I'll say because The Boston Globe has oodles and oodles of incredible journalism and incredible journalists and great reporting, and it's just a matter of how much can we capture? Because these great stories go by all the time, and you're, I just feel like the Catcher in the Rye trying to like, oh, can we catch that one? You know, that's. I see my job and all we gotta do is just work with the reporters and try to bring up like, okay, you're capturing this great interview. Just turn on your voice memo. Got a great source? Like have them WhatsApp you, these sort of things because. It is the perfect fodder for audio. And I think you have a lot of other shops that have the know-how and are just hungry for the reporting and the stories, and so it's just, it's trying to bring the two together as much as we can here, but, but it just, it felt like it's such a natural place for the best kind of audio storytelling is, is the reporting that's happening all the time at The Globe.

Jeff Umbro: Are there instances where you decide not to make a podcast?

Kristin Nelson: Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And usually, you know, you're still looking for the things that everyone's looking for, the great characters and plots, twists and turns and some sort of findings and you know, how we make meaning out of a thing. And we, we are limited.

We don't have a ton, a ton of resources. And so even though we're trying to bring more in-house and there's certain things that we wanna own on our own, we're also open to partnerships and, and are doing a great partnership again, with WNYC around the, the Harvard reporting as well, because that's just another opportunity and a different way to kind of reach a different audience and leverage the resources that we have.

Jeff Umbro: And how do you think about those partnerships? In addition to sharing the responsibilities of actually creating this great audio, like are there other reasons that you would look towards a partnership?

Kristin Nelson: We're still building out the channels and so, you know, a WNYC they have just an entirely different platform. And so, oftentimes it's a way to reach an audience, a different audience in a different way.

Jeff Umbro: There is the question of what makes this successful beyond just creating a cool story. You work at a for-profit institution, how do you all think about podcast monetization? Because for you all, it does extend beyond just running ads on the show.

Kristin Nelson: At The Boston Globe, there's a very tight paywall and the economic model's very much about converting subscribers as the number one business priority. And gosh, we're so lucky because there's a lot of newspapers that are struggling and putting those tight paywalls on and, and working to that model that's working well for The Globe.

And that's the reason that we work at a healthy newspaper that's thriving is, you know, and so we need to find audio by definition in front of the paywall, to figure out a way to contribute to that vision. And absolutely, I think there's no question that it does, and part, partly it is top of the funnel is we're reaching different kinds of audiences in different ways and still, you know, saying, Hey, The Boston Globe's here, and you may wanna consider subscribing and supporting the journalism. But it's tricky because a lot of the shows that I just talked about, like to some of the biggest shows that we do are not geographically constrained.

You know, the, of course, like they're, they're of interest to New Englanders, but very much beyond.

Jeff Umbro: You'll get a Cleveland Browns football fan who just loves the Aaron Hernandez story, but he doesn't care about what's going on at The Globe.

Kristin Nelson: Exactly, and it's probably never gonna become a subscriber. And so we're having lots of conversations. Obviously, the shift towards subscription models and premium audio content is something we're. Looking into and thinking a lot about, we're looking for different revenue models and trying to be self-sustaining and, and, and find ways to contribute to the mission of the paper overall.

So, I mean, and one of the other big things is what we talked about with the Aaron Hernandez, like obviously it is a risk. You can't count on it. But IP is not a small thing either, and podcasting is certainly can be that. There's no better way to show how great a story could be for someone interested in buying the IP than a great podcast.

Jeff Umbro: Not to be too reductive, but if we were breaking this down into like the prime pillars of how this show or these shows make money, would you say that it is ad dollars? It is premium content that will drive to subscriptions at the paper. And it is derivative IP. Like is there anything missing there?

Kristin Nelson: I don't think you're, there's anything missing. If you can find more money for me.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah. Well there's, there are some other ideas there, but that's a future conversation. How are you guys selling advertising across these different podcasts? Why is it that selling ads for like a newspaper is different than selling ads on audio?

Kristin Nelson: I think they have the clients they go out to and know, and a lot of whom want an ad in the newspaper or want a newsletter ad or, you know, want something specific.

And so I think it's just a different sell because the demographic is different on the podcast and you're reaching a different audience.

Jeff Umbro: And then when you guys are looking at upselling to premium subscribers, have you all thought about doing ad free audio or just premium audio, or is it all driving straight to like newspaper subscriptions?

Kristin Nelson: This is a big conversation happening because there isn't really a tiered subscription option right now. There's a lot of conversations with a lot of different stakeholders about that and, and figuring out how audio can fit into that and whether a tiered subscription is. Helpful in how it fits into the broader strategy for the paper.

Jeff Umbro: Last but not least is just the IP. You're kind of like the organization that has made a business out of derivative ip. So how much of that decision making goes into like the shows that you guys create, just for example with Snitch City, is that being shopped as a TV show? Were you guys thinking about that when, when you actually made the show?

Kristin Nelson: I can't really speak to that at the moment, but certainly there's a lot of interest and there's a lot of people at The Globe who are working on this. We are doing journalism first and picking stories that are gonna do really well, you know, for the podcast. It just so happens though

Jeff Umbro: Yeah.

Kristin Nelson: Also like the, the same, the same things we're looking for that are gonna make a podcast fantastic are the things that people in Hollywood are looking for.

Jeff Umbro: Everyone's favorite question. How do you guys think about YouTube when it comes to the podcast that you're creating?

Kristin Nelson: Definitely. There's a lot of thought going into that as you, yeah, with Spotlight: Snitch City, there was a huge effort put behind animating the audio. For YouTube, the team on that did a wonderful, wonderful job and from our visuals team, and we're now having to look at the data and, and like, really, you wanna make sure that the effort is gonna be worth it, that you're gonna see the results.

And so there's many, many conversations about how does audio fit into the video strategy, because like everywhere else, you know, there's a huge pivot to video happening and a lot of, a lot of emphasis being put on that and, and a lot. And so I really truly believe that audio first stuff just translates very, very well.

As long as you're capturing something, if it's well produced then you can just work on multiple platforms and so yeah, that's of course we're talking about it like everywhere else.

Jeff Umbro: Well, you guys have actually done something a little bit unique because you were able to put animation behind a narrative podcast, which you're not the first people to do it, but what was your process thinking through that? When you decided to build that out, did you think it would be a success or, or was it more of it was the easiest thing to do out of the options that you had?

Kristin Nelson: Tim Rasmussen, the visuals editor, he really knew this was gonna be a story that was gonna hit big, but it's hard to bring to life for the eye because there were so many people who were anonymous who could, wouldn't be photographed, couldn't be photographed, you know, police officers who were. Never gonna sit down for a photograph for this particular story. And so they hired an animator. Ryan Huddle was the director, the visual director, and J.D. Paulson was the illustrator that they hired to bring the story to life. And he did these beautiful drawings and, and animations of, of these different scenes in the investigation. I think the thinking was, look at, we've got these great assets and there's a lot of materials too to use when you actually like look at the script, the audio script, and think about how to bring it to life.

And so between the animations and the other assets that they had, they did a wonderful, wonderful job, but it was a huge, huge lift. That was a lot of work.

Jeff Umbro: For sure. And, and it's almost like you're experiencing a different kind of media when you watch it on YouTube, which is awesome. And, and, and as you know, you know, the folks who are going to find this show on YouTube are very different than the ones who are gonna find it on Spotify or Apple. You need something to kind of set it apart. 

Is there anything that is like a unique challenge to a legacy publication, putting out audio podcasts?

Kristin Nelson: Definitely, I mean, the strengths of the organization are that it has this 150 year old legacy and just this strong, strong foundation. And so there's so much to build off of the pivot to multimedia and like, again, trying to make sure that you're leveraging and thinking about a story for different platforms from the beginning.

It's a lot of work of a newsroom with, you know, over 200 people, like getting people to think about that in setting up the processes and structures and even the thinking about stories to do that from the beginning. And so I think the easiest way to do it is showing how it can look, how great it can sound and, and, and just showing success.

Jeff Umbro: What are you excited about? Like what is coming down the pike at The Globe that you're really like eager for?

Kristin Nelson: Definitely, you know, what comes next with Spotlight will be exciting and great and high quality. And so there's many things happening on that front. And then we've also partnered again with WNYC, and so we're bringing back The Harvard Plan.

Jeff Umbro: What a time for it.

Kristin Nelson: Oh, exactly.

Jeff Umbro: Yeah.

Kristin Nelson: This year has no shortage of drama at Harvard.

And so Ilya Marritz, who's just a phenomenal person to work with, a great audio reporter, he's coming back to do this with us, and that's gonna be really exciting and important because yeah, this, this moment in higher education is, is really important to understand and, and we've got a deep dive onto the Rümeysa, into the Rümeysa Öztürk story as well. That's gonna be really interesting.

Jeff Umbro: This is the thing that I think is so great about. Everything that you guys are doing is that it's journalism, but it's also most of what you all put out is designed to be like very evergreen and can also be very timely at the same time. I have a hard time thinking about anything that you guys have done that won't be relevant five or 10 years from now, you know?

Kristin Nelson: You're so right and, and even, I mean, I should have added to that list is the next season of Love Letters that will be in 2026 is gonna be really interesting too, and, and is very much about this moment that we're in and you know, how people confront loneliness and isolation. And so to your point, I mean, unfortunately relevant now, and it will be for a while, and it's gonna really leverage the, the newsroom and, and the journalism.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome.

Kristin Nelson: Thanks for having me. It was fun.

Jeff Umbro: Thank you to Kristin for joining us on this week's episode of Podcast Perspectives. You can find Kristin Nelson on LinkedIn, or you can check out all of her work at thebostonglobe.com.

For more podcast related news info and takes you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jeff Umbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of the Podglomerate. If you're looking for help producing marketing or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at thepodglomerate.com. Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com or follow us on all socials @podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by Chris Boniello and myself, Jeff Umbro. And thank you to our marketing team, Joni Deutsch, Madison Richards, Morgan Swift, and a special thank you to Dan Christo. Thank you all for listening, and I'll catch you all in a few weeks.