This has been a long time coming.
When we started Discourse Blog nearly six years ago (!), it was just months into the pandemic, and like the rest of the world, we had an abundance of time: to blog, to plan, to devote ourselves to the mission of this site—worker-owned, fully independent leftist perspective on politics, culture, and whatever the hell else is on our mind (it’s our site after all). Our readers made us an early Substack success story, and I think I speak for the entire team when I say that we’ve been continually honored, humbled, and occasionally horrified by your response. Thank you—it’s helped keep us going all these years, even as the world reopened and our lives changed.
Recently, we embarked on an experiment that put in motion a new era of Discourse Blog—one we’re excited to announce today.
We’ve long tinkered with the idea of having a podcast. We did it in fits and starts, but nothing quite stuck; we hadn’t found the right format. Everything we came up with was too onerous—too much time, too much production, too little return on investment. So we decided to strip as much back as possible, to the most sustainable version of the idea, which you might have seen on the site in the last two months: Discourse Pod.
It’s just me, Jack, Producer Sam, and a rotating third chair discussing the recent headlines (“the podcast where we discuss the discourse”), with plenty of digressions along the way. These episodes have been a test for us—a way to see if this was something we could consistently produce in a way that felt fun, energizing, and enjoyable to hear and/or watch.
By our own internal barometer, it’s been a huge success: the team has felt reinvigorated by working on the pod. It’s also been a success in ways we hadn’t anticipated: Working on these test-run episodes has brought us a renewed focus on dedicating ourselves to kinds of projects that bring us—internally at Discourse Blog, but also with you all, our readers—closer together.
We are living through, as Jack aptly puts it in the announcement video at the top of this post, an especially bleak, despairing time—one with armed goons killing people in cold blood on the street with impunity; a “free” press overrun by sycophants and stooges; and vicious, genocidal war all over the globe. This podcast has proven to be an unintended lifeline for us, a way to commune with, laugh with, and be angry with people who share our worldview. It turns out that when you just focus on what brought you together in the first place (being absolute freaks about seeing what’s happening in the world and in our feeds through an unabashedly leftist perspective), you end up having a great time.
And we think you will, too. Starting today, Discourse Pod will be our primary offering on the site. We’re going all-in. Don’t worry, we will continue to blog—just at a different pace than you might be used to if you’ve been around since the beginning.
Here’s how it will work:
For everyone
New episodes every week, available in video and audio formats here on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and very soon, on YouTube and wherever you choose to listen (or watch!) us
For paid subscribers
If you’re already a paid subscriber to Discourse Blog (thank you!), you will continue to get access to all of our written blogs and the ability to comment.
You’ll also enjoy FUN NEW PERKS: In addition to our weekly free episodes of the podcast, paid subscribers will also get access to extended versions of the podcast that includes a bonus segment where we share gossip, trade rumors, and/or go a little deeper on a subject we can’t shut up about. OH BUT THERE’S MORE: You’ll also get Special Edition episodes, including our annual Oscars and Great British Bake-off pods, but also new ongoing series we’re excited to reveal more of in the coming months. Our first Special Edition, The Complaints Department, is live NOW.
We know this will be a big shift for some of you, and not one everyone may love, at least at first. But it’s our sincere hope you’ll give the pod a shot—if you liked our blogs, we think there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy hearing and seeing the voices behind them, too.
Thank you to everyone who has made six years of Discourse Blog a thrilling, hilarious, and humbling ride—we wouldn’t be here, now in HD video, without you.
