Q&A With Sana Qadar Of "All In The Mind" Podcast About Podcasting Hosting Tips

 How do you become a good podcast host? One way is to study and learn from the best. Today, we are fortunate enough to have the host of the ABC psychology podcast All In The Mind, Sana Qadar, with us to answer some questions about becoming proficient as a podcast host.

Sana Qadar, is an award-winning podcaster and journalist whose work has featured on the ABC, BBC, SBS, Al Jazeera, and NPR to name a few. Most recently she was acting Deputy Editor, Multicultural at ABC Life, and co-hosts the SBS podcast Eyes on Gilead, which won a 2019 Australian Podcast Award for Best Fancast.

On All In The Mind, Qadar excels by acting as the narrative glue here, giving voice to well-chosen guests and then summarizing their conclusions. Her patient cadence and earnest tone imbue meaning into the podcast scripts.

 All the way from Australia, Ms. Qadar was kind enough to offer key insights on podcast hosting.

 Q. What was your podcast hosting learning curve? How did you start?

I’ve done radio reporting in the past, but I got my start in podcasting with a show called SBS Eyes on Gilead: A Handmaid’s Tale Podcast. It’s all about, as you might have guessed, The Handmaid’s Tale TV series. That got me interested in exploring other styles of podcasting (EoG is very much a chatty, conversational pod). At a certain point,  I pitched a series idea to the ABC, which didn’t get commissioned in the end, but that put me on the radar of some key people. A few years later they approached me and asked me to pitch for All in the Mind. The rest is history.

 Q. How did you improve when you began? What specifically did you do to get better?

I feel like I’m still improving – I’ve only been hosting All in the Mind since 2020, and Eyes on Gilead since 2018. But to try and improve my narration skills, I spent/spend a lottttt of time alone in an editing booth, doing multiple takes until I feel like a delivery is relaxed/ dynamic/good enough. 

I’ve had voice training in the past, but I found that was mostly aimed at making me sound more ‘broadcaster-y’. These days, I’m trying to sound as much as my natural self as possible – and on that front, I think I still have room to improve. It's hard to erase all that training!

Q. What kind of practice should aspiring podcast hosts engage in?

I think the biggest factor in getting ‘good’ at hosting is just time and experience – so keep going, keep learning from people around you, keep pitching ideas and recording stories. And maybe listen back to your old work and analyze it – what would you differently now? How would you change your delivery? What questions would you ask instead?

Q. How did learn to be an effective interviewer as a host?

Fifteen odd years in journalism helped in this regard! I had a lot of background understanding of what makes a story, what makes an interesting ‘lead’, what kinds of questions to ask to elicit a particularly interesting response. And then observing/analyzing the work of other hosts that I like. 

 Check out Sana Qadar on All In The Mind to listen to a host that has worked hard to be one of the best in the industry. 

I'm sure Ms Qadar would agree with this quote about "being the best."

"Training is a part of being the best version of yourself, and you need that best version of yourself to be successful."

Sana Qadar can be heard on All In The Mind, a podcast that launches its mind missiles on a wide variety of topics.

The ABC All In The Mind podcast is not about giving us the right answer, but helping us to ask the right questions.