Former NPR host Mary Childs is starting a new podcast, but keeping her Richmond roots
For seven years, Mary Childs was known as a cohost on NPR’s popular “Planet Money” podcast.
Now she’s launching her own show, “Mary in America,” an interview program that “jumps into the minds of the most interesting people.”
While Childs tapes her new show in New York, she’s still very much Richmond-based, and chatted with The Richmonder from her coworking space at No. 303 (the former Common House).
A published author as well, she discussed the differences between interviewing for print, with its follow-up opportunities, and a podcast, where the host must come prepared with a strong understanding of the episode’s subject and guests to create lively dialogue.
Childs wants the episodes to be thoughtful conversations rather than simple information-sharing sessions.
Her background in economics and finance has inevitably shaped how she sees the world and how she thinks about culture. However, she said there will be episodes that have “zero percent economics.” A future episode with an illustrator whose work has anthropological roots will focus on discussing “the human mind and behavior.”
The guest selection process begins with a question, rather than a celebrity name. Once a question is chosen, Childs and her team look for who would be best suited to answer it. Given that the podcast is “a question-motivated vehicle,” interviewees must be more than simply interesting and knowledgeable; they must be able to help answer a complex question over the course of 45 minutes.
“We think deeply about what our questions are, why we have those questions, why those questions matter, what the effect of the answers are, try to feel around and find all the different answers that we want from this person,” Childs explained.
The podcast is also available in video form on YouTube. She said it is funded by Eldridge Industries, a media company.
While she’s no stranger to hosting a podcast, she’s accustomed to listeners who don’t need to be clued into concepts or what a guest does.
“It’s so hard,” she admitted. “At ‘Planet Money,’ and in every other job I’ve had so far, I didn’t have to reveal for the audience, I didn’t have to be aware of the audience.”
She likened it to bringing a new friend into a conversation where everyone already knows each other.
“It's a fun challenge to try to remember to stay in the moment with the guests, but also remember that there's a third party watching and do that work,” Childs said.
Part of ensuring audiences can follow the conversation is providing enough background information – like an article they wrote or their field of work – before moving to the next topic. If she forgets to do so, executive producer Katherine Sullivan will point it out after the interview. While it’s possible to record and tuck in the missed information, the goal is to get everything in one sitting.
Childs approaches each interview with a flexible framework designed to help viewers follow along without detracting from the conversation or steering it in an inorganic direction. She enters each interview with several key points and an idea of where the conversation will end, but she won’t cut off a guest if they take a different tack.
“I think of the questions as rocks in a stream, and then the conversation flows around (them),” she explained.
Victoria A. Ifatusin
Another issue Childs has to navigate is how to make the episodes multiplatform-friendly.
“I've been trained to think of them as totally separate worlds, she said. “You have your podcast people, and your video people, and social video, and they don't actually feed each other.”
Childs started “Mary in America” at the end of May, interviewing Nobel economist Alvin Roth. Since then, she’s interviewed New York Times-bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez and art market lawyer Leila Amineddoleh.
While she expressed appreciation for her time at NPR, she felt this opportunity was too good to pass up.
Podcasts are often discussion- and opinion-based, but Childs has the goal of a “fact-focused” model with open dialogue with her guests. She does this by drawing on her 15 years of journalism experience, which has enabled her to connect with and learn from knowledgeable people.
“I’ve gotten a lot of practice at learning who's serious and who knows what they're talking about, and discerning between people's opinions, if they're rooted in fact, expertise and reality,” she said. “I'm not gonna bring somebody who, I think, is gonna just make things up and tell me a bunch of nonsense.”
While she acknowledged many podcasts’ appeal stems from the unscripted things people say – like on comedic or hot-take styles – that’s not what her podcast is about. To her, “Mary in America” is “basically a journalism project” centered around her interest in social and cultural infrastructure.
Sarah Huffman
The set is currently based in New York largely because it’s easier to schedule guests who are already traveling there for one reason or another, like a conference or annual event. However, Childs doesn’t want it to be “just a New York show.” She expressed interest in speaking with guests like University of Richmond professor Dr. Samantha Seeley and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott.
“I just think that there's so much richness and fun to be had across the country,” she said. “Being able to pull from other people's geographic areas is really exciting, and can be contributive.”
Childs acknowledged that there are plenty of podcasts out there with a similar framework, but believes “Mary in America” has “an edge” in the way it answers complicated questions without oversimplifying them and finds wonder in the complexity.
Childs hopes this podcast will “bridge that gap” between specialized language and those who may not have the same level of fluency in the topic.
“I think there are a lot of things out there that do that, but a lot of them are not built for a mass audience,” she said.
Childs said she’s had a lot of fun getting to “build the world that (she wants) to live in.”
She hopes audiences will be able to share in her excitement and know they can always come back each week to learn something new or learn more about a subject they’re already interested in. Childs added that she loves hearing from viewers and listeners, and getting show ideas from others.
“This show is built to answer questions and to help people understand the world, so what people are wondering about is what I want to know,” she said. “We're going to make it its own rewarding place and its own destinations.”
Contact Intern Haidyn Brockelman at hbrockelman@richmonder.org.
