NY Times ‘Modern Love’ misses the mark in transition to audio

By Emily Tate, Managing Editor

The popular New York Times column, Modern Love, has been pulling on readers' heartstrings for over decade, and now, it can do the same for listeners.

In collaboration with Boston's NPR affiliate, WBUR, Modern Love is now available as a podcast, and while it still brings the same pizzazz of the print version, that's also the problem. It is the print version.

After its debut Jan. 20, Modern Love: The Podcast jumped to the No. 1 spot on iTunes, bumping off Serial, which draws more than a million listeners. But just three weeks later, Modern Love is down to No. 6.

This isn't necessarily bad news for the New York Times and WBUR - they're competing with veteran podcasts like Serial, This American Life and RadioLab, after all - but it speaks to the undeniable fact that something is missing in the Modern Love audio experience.

Five episodes in, the technique is pretty clear. Each 20-minute episode starts with a celebrity, like Dakota Fanning or Judd Apatow, reading one of the Modern Love essays previously published in the New York Times.

I'm going to stop right there, because this, I think, is part of the problem. The first episode of Modern Love: The Podcast was about a story I had already read in print: "Missed Connection," about a girl who finds fleeting "love" on the Craigslist Missed Connections page.

I was surprised to hear the essay simply regurgitated in the podcast version - and with hardly any add-ons. Besides a little background music and a melodic reading from the week's celebrity appearance (Lauren Molina), nothing had changed from the print text.

Before turning on that first episode, I had expected Modern Love: The Podcast to feature new stories about "love, loss and redemption," specially tailored for the ear.

Instead, the only new feature of these stories is that, following the guest reading, host Meghna Chakrabarti of WBUR and Modern Love editor Daniel Jones interview the author of the essay. These interviews allow the writers to discuss in greater detail the stories they submitted and provide an update on their lives, often several years after the story was originally published.

While these follow-up interviews add a nice touch, Modern Love: The Podcast still doesn't meet the expectations I had for a New York Times/NPR partnership.

Audio and print are different mediums, and those nuanced differences ought to be honored - if not championed - by the storytelling powerhouses of audio (NPR) and print (New York Times). Instead, it seems like the Modern Love column just wanted to be on the cutting edge of digital media, which, with their exploding popularity in the last decade, means podcasts.

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If it wants to be a top contender among the hundreds of podcasts available, Modern Love: The Podcast needs to understand what makes audio work.

This American Life and RadioLab are smashing successes because of their knack for storytelling, yes, but also because of their producers' command of sound. Every music clip, every sound effect, every sigh, laugh and sob included in a podcast adds to the impact of what the speaker or narrator is saying.

By transplanting the essays directly from their print versions, Modern Love: The Podcast is missing out on an opportunity to send its show to the next level. The producers need to adapt the column's theme to audio, and that requires new stories - not those published years ago.

That being said, it's still the Modern Love column. The stories themselves are honest and moving. They connect with readers and, now, listeners.

And the best part is it's not just about romantic love.

The second episode, "One Last Swirl," is about a man who is oddly attached to his daughter's pet fish. As he wills the fish to live, for his daughter's sake, he recalls pleading with his parents to fight the cancer that would eventually take them both. The second segment of this episode includes an interview with the author and his 12-year-old daughter, who, amazingly, has some really thoughtful things to say.

The third episode, "Not So Simple Math," is about a mother who gave up her son for adoption at a young age but maintains a relationship with both him and his adoptive parents. She writes about the struggle of having to keep her son at arm's length and watching him grow up in another woman's home.

So, Modern Love: The Podcast doesn't disappoint in the storytelling department, but that's a given - there's a reason the New York Times column has been around for so long. The editors and producers just need to redirect some of their focus on the audio experience.