Hey — you’re busy, it’s nice out, Artemis II is serving up unbelievable moon pics. 

Also, the American president is threatening nuclear annihilation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Kurt Vonnegut would have really thrived in 2026. 

The point is, we’re feeling the need to get our houses in order, so let’s keep this cute. Here are some items of interest for April and beyond, presuming our days are not numbered: 

🎧 Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and School of Communication is hosting its inaugural Audiophile Conference on April 16-17. We love a new audio conference focused on journalism and craft, especially when the speaker roster is stacked. Chicagoland, show out!

🎧 The Signal Awards recently launched a podcast of its own: “The Signal Room.” The stated mission? To bring you industry insights from the best and brightest of our community. The first two episodes feature Pablo Torre and Anna Sale, respectively, plus a full complement of keen experts. Listen and get smarter about the business.

🎧 Speaking of podcast awards, the Webbys turn 30 this year, and the nominees just dropped last week. Public voting is open until Thursday, April 16; cast your ballots here.

🎧 This week’s digital drop from Good Tape’s Issue 03 is about the fiction podcasts sustaining us in apocalyptic times. The fiction category has seen better days in terms of industry investment and attention; perusing the top shows reveals a baffling tangle of low-effort creepypasta and bedtime story sleep shows. That’s why we asked the makers of our favorite fiction pods to navigate us towards the good stuff. Take a read, and if this helps you find a new favorite, let us know.

Apocalypse Preparedness Kit

10 fiction pods to add to your go-bag and help you pre-vis an uncertain future.

Words by Katie Clark Gray
Art by Sami Wittwer

Humanity’s got some problems. There’s creeping authoritarianism, genocide, and climate change, and that’s just some of what we’ve covered in this issue. But as you fill your ears with news and chat shows chronicling the fraying of modern society, the undersung genre of fiction podcasts is here to help. These serialized works of make-believe use dramatic tension and well-crafted characters to prepare us for the worst, while helping us imagine a better, braver version of ourselves.

Here are 10 podcasts to help you prepare for the coming apocalypse, as recommended by the audio-makers and Good Tape staffers cited below. Just make sure to download these shows before absconding to the bunker.

Read the rest

Some other stories that have our attention, brought to you by Good Tape’s “Off The Record” — an event series creating real-time dialogues between podcast executives, creatives, and brands on hyper-relevant topics to evolve the medium.

• • Join Jesse Dukes and Annie Nguyen in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 23 for How to Get Good Tape. (Despite the name, we are not affiliated with this in-person workshop, but we do recommend it.)
• • We’re excited to dig into The Obit Project, a 12-episode limited series from Jad Abumrad and a team of journalists in Montana. Sonic obituaries for the departed, what a beautiful idea. 
• • We’re still wrapping our heads around this story from 404 Media about a company that snatches up people’s Zoom calls and turns them into AI podcasts for… reasons? It’s a good reminder to password-protect your meetings by default. 
• • Getting back to the Artemis II moon stuff, did you know that the NASA Johnson Space Center has a podcast? OK, yes, it’s been around since 2017, maybe you did know. Some of us didn’t, OK? Gosh. Check out “Houston We Have A Podcast” in all the usual spots.

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