Q+A: Molly Fischer, Host of The Cut on Tuesdays

Interview by Study Hall staff writer Allegra Hobbs.

Study Hall: What is it like venturing into the podcasting space, which is so saturated right now? People joke about having too many podcasts to listen to — that obviously hasn’t been a problem for The Cut on Tuesdays, which has been really well-received — but I’m wondering if there was any apprehension about that going in, about carving out a unique space and creating something new that people would take the time to listen to. 

Molly Fischer: There are A LOT OF PODCASTS. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that we’re very much still looking to grow and expand our audience. Which is a fresh challenge, coming from a web publishing background. Still, I do think we have something new to offer. While there’s no shortage of smart podcasts dealing with women’s issues, they’ve tended for the most part to be straight-ahead chat shows — there hasn’t really been one with the kind of feature reporting and production values that you hear on a show like This American Life or Radiolab or Reply All. Our goal is to create something with that degree of ambition.

SH: How do you grow that audience for the podcast? 

MF: In terms of audience growth, the thing that makes the most meaningful difference for a podcast like ours is…. getting on a bigger podcast. So, producing a story that a show like This American Life will feature, thereby putting our work in front of way more people (people who are already podcast listeners). That’s our big goal at the moment: Making work that’s ambitious enough that we can be pitching it to larger outlets we admire.

SH: Have you found what kind of content brings in new listeners? Which stories do you see listeners really responding to?

MF: Looking at the smaller fluctuations from episode to episode, it’s hard to translate into any significant lessons about what people do or don’t want to hear. Which, in a weird way, is nice — we’ve seen lots of listeners for serious episodes and for lighter ones, for ones that came together fast and ones we spent months agonizing over. They’re drawn to the voice and sensibility, and they’ll follow us where we want to go.

SH: The podcast does a great job of integrating The Cut’s voice and feel into an audio format. How do you unify those two things, the publication and the podcast, and how they complement one another? 

MF: The Cut staff has a lot of very good talkers, so when it comes to translating the site into audio, we’ve been lucky. I think it’s come pretty naturally. We want the podcast to be a place where the staff can expand on the pieces they’re doing for the site or the magazine and take them in new directions. And the podcast is also a place where they can talk about things they wouldn’t necessarily want to write about. People feel a little looser when they know what they’re saying won’t be readily google-able.

SH: That brings up the problem of which stories are best served in a podcast format and which work better as text. 

MF: Narrative is key! Pieces that center on an actual STORY (the kind with characters and feelings, plus a beginning, middle, and end) are much easier to make into audio. Working on the show has made me conscious of how much of what we do at The Cut is rooted in ideas and argument (lots of essays, of various kinds), and that’s not always the easiest kind of piece to translate. Which does not mean we don’t try. I’ve actually been particularly proud of some of our efforts in that vein, like our election-day episode on AOC — it feels like an opening for us to bring our strengths to a new medium.

SH: What’s your process of identifying topics to cover? You tend to cover a really wide range of subjects that fall into the category of “Things I talk about with my friends at length,” from pubic hair to Elena Ferrante to sexual assault, so I’m wondering how much inspiration comes from just chatting with your friends and other women.

MF: A lot of what you see on the Cut gets its start in the conversations that we’re having and hearing, and the same thing applies to the podcast. When a subject sparks heated debate in a meeting, or an extended “several people are typing” Slack riff accompanied by loud IRL laughter, it’s usually a good sign that there’s something there for us. And, because the format of the show is conversational, we’re often able to translate that impulse much more directly into the final product. So, instead of having a conversation in a staff meeting about pubic hair, and then coming up with some grand unified theory of pubic hair that would sustain a reported feature, the podcast lets us assemble a collection of voices and anecdotes that adds up to something more than the sum of its parts. The intimacy of hearing people’s actual voices means you can bring your audience something approximating the original conversation.

SH: The podcast strikes a great balance of heavy subjects and light, fun subjects. How do you maintain that balance? Do you think, “Oh, we got really intense last week, let’s lighten up”? 

MF: We’re definitely conscious of striking a balance. The goal is always for the show to feel surprising and varied, and maintaining that mix is part of what makes the show exciting to produce. That said, there are lots of factors that determine what we put out each week — stories will fall through, news will break, etc. — so we can’t be too precious about what runs when. We’re still flying by the seat of our collective pants at this point.