The New York Times Premieres New Podcast "First Person"

 Interview podcasts can be classified in several ways. There's the friendly guest whose interview is poorly disguised as a way to promote the host's belief systems. Then there's the interview podcast where hosts expend more energy demonstrating their native intelligence instead of extracting anything of value from the guest. Then you have the intuitively brilliant interviewers like Willa Paskin, Ezra Klein, Guy Raz, Chris Anderson, Marc Maron, and Jessica Yellin.

There's a chance another budding interviewer could move up in weight class. 

Consider this question: 

“If you were asked to explain your life, what would you say?”

That’s the question we’re exploring in “First Person,” a new podcast from New York Times Opinion with host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. In each episode, Lulu Garcia-Navarro sits down with people living through the headlines for intimate conversations that help us understand the news. “The answers are surprising and revealing, and they help make sense of the world we are living in,” he opines.

The first episode is available. The topic is abortion or abortion rights.

The Times summarized the episode as such: "If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in the coming weeks, tens of millions of women will find themselves living in states where abortion is outlawed in almost all cases. And for some women, that will mean having children — without actually wanting them — because they are left with no choice."

Lulu is a two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist with years of experience interviewing world leaders, authors, artists and people living on the front lines of a changing world. A longtime international correspondent in the Middle East and Latin America, Lulu Garcia-Navarro was at NPR for 17 years, most recently as their host of “Weekend Edition,” where she reported on everything from #MeToo to immigration to the pandemic. Lulu Garcia-Navarro was also the co-host of the podcast “Up First” and the first Latina at the helm of a flagship show at the public broadcaster.

 

She definitely rates in the top tier of interviewers, regardless of your beliefs.

 

Or, you can listen to interview podcasts where the host says to the guest, "Please tell me how right I am again. I just can't get enough of that sweet validation." 

 

New episodes of First Person drop on Thursdays.