We're gonna do something a little bit different here today. We are taking you to

Southern France where we are chatting with host and producer of the

constable confidential, Simon Constable. He's a veteran of

The Wall Street Journal where he hosted 2 daily TV shows for

their live brand and filled in at WSJ Radio. And separately, he also,

works with legendary broadcaster here in the States, John Bachelor.

Simon, it is a pleasure to talk to you today. It's like a blast

from the past. Thank you for thank you for having me on the show. It's

great. It's been way too long since I've seen you and talked to you. Well,

and as Simon just alluded to, we do know each other. We worked together at

the journal for many years overlapping, and and helping each other out

with our various projects. So first of all, tell me why did you

start the Constable Confidential, and and what is the show all about?

It's a it's a very good question. Well, as you've mentioned, I'd done

broadcast at at the journal. I know even before that at

at, thestreet.com, and then and that was

on TV or video, whatever you wanna call it. And then also a bit

of radio with with WSJ and a bit radio with John Bachelor

when he was at WABC and now at CBS. And I'd taken a

break from doing that. And then there was the

Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7th. And I

thought, I've just got to be there. I've got to not be

in Israel, but I've got to be covering this. This is a

monumental event, and I had contacts in

Jerusalem and in other places who had good insights

or I knew would have good insights on this. And I just started doing it.

And I thought, okay. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna get this

on tape or whatever we call it now on on pixels, I

guess. And and and make some

shows and then put them out, not really promote

Mathew, think of them as pilots, and I did a few of them.

And I got to learn the software, the Hindenburg, or the

Gutenberg software to put together things with an intro and

outro and then just leave the rest in the middle. So it was just getting

myself back into the groove with this without being under

the pressure of having to support mark marketing goals.

And that's been a lot of fun. It's obviously a lot of work. I had

to relearn a lot of stuff, get to to know the

software, get to know my voice and how it was and

and what worked and what didn't in this medium because it

was long for most of the the segments I've done are about 25 minutes long,

which is a a very big difference from what I was doing in TV

at the journal WSJ live where most of the segments were

3 minutes long. So a bit of difference, but it was really that

moment when Israel was invaded. This was news, and it was

news that needed to be covered, and I wanted to cover

it. So you said you haven't really been promoting it or marketing it

really. Are you seeing any traction with it? Is it is it finding an audience?

It is finding an audience, and it's very interesting. It's finding an

audience primarily, and I and I don't really quite understand this, in

the UK and a little bit in the in the US, but

also France as well. And that's interesting in France because France is a

French speaking country as as 1 might imagine. And

there are some English speakers here, and and it's getting some traction here and

some traction across Europe and then some spots all over the world.

So Japan, Mongolia,

and Africa, there was, I think, was Ghana. There was somebody somebody

there looking at it. So it's getting traction around the

world and that that's pleasing to me. And the

feedback I'm getting, which is what I was really looking for by not promoting

is getting feedback from friends who would tell me what was

terrible, which is which is what you want from your friends. You you don't

want your friends to tell you you're great. You want your friends to say, okay.

This was good, but this bit doesn't work and this bit doesn't

work. Feedback's been generally good, and that's that's that's a

nice feeling. And I had some feedback about things not to do.

What is fascinating and normally with these studio tours, what we're doing is we're trying

to look at people's complicated setup. You do not have a complicated setup. You're basically

working off of your MacBook Pro MacBook Air,

pair of the Apple headphones, right, that you just plug into your computer.

And for so many people, they would think, you know, this isn't a a good

enough setup. I can't launch a show. I need to spend a lot of money

on a mic. I need to spend a lot of money on a mixer. I

need to, you know, invest all this money before I get started

because no one's gonna take me seriously. But you are just out there doing

it, and you are being taken very seriously as indicated by

many of the guests who appear on your show. Yes. And

and it's all it's as you know, from from your podcast

work and your radio work, the guests are what the show is all

about. It's about the host helping the guests tell their story

and sometimes challenging them and, you know, getting people to

explain stuff that that might not be

obvious to listeners. And so I'm the voice of the

listeners. So, yes, they do take it seriously. And, I mean, as I've

said to some people when when talking about sort of,

you know, stories that I've written, it doesn't really

matter if they're written or not. I'm offering credibility

when I do an interview, and that's what the guests are there for. And then

the credibility of me asking them the tough questions, the necessary

questions that might be uncomfortable for them. I'm not offering

cleavage, which is a completely different thing. And I know

it might sound a bit racy, but you understand where I'm

coming from. There's something that's titillating. I'm not offering that.

I'm offering something quite serious, but in a very simple

way is what I'm I'm trying to offer anyway. And it's the audience who will

decide whether I'm actually achieving that in the right way. Something

that a lot of Podcasting are struggling with is how to

attract and how to actually get guests to come on their show.

What's been your strategy for connecting with and,

you know, getting folks to agree to to appear on the constable confidential?

Believe it or not, emailing people, just

emailing them directly and saying, would you come on the show? This

is what I'm doing. This is what I'm looking for.

And I've I've found a a very interesting man.

Tech good example of it is Robin Horsfall, who was a former SAS operative.

He was part of the the crew that rescued

the hostages in the Iranian Passy in

1980 in London. And he's 1 of those guys who went in there

very brave, very skilled, and he had

his army career long, long gone, but still a

very interesting and vibrant personality who

had turned to writing books as well as commenting on what's going on in

Ukraine. And I had him on the show, and I just wrote to him. The

only thing he said was, would you would you mention my book? And I was

like, sure. Of course. That was that was I mean, that's pretty easy. That's a

pretty easy guess. I wrote to him. Ben Habib. I I got an

introduction to him from a friend. But other people I just wrote to

and said, would you be on the show? And this is what I wanna talk

about, and they came back to me. So

that that was it. And I know that sounds ridiculously simple,

but writing a short an emphasis on the short email,

just a a few lines saying, I do this show. Would you care

to come join me? I think it's actually

really important that people understand that. So many podcasters get

intimidated by the concept of reaching out to guests. And, again,

they're they're worried, they're afraid, they're anxious about, a, just reaching

in a general, but also, b, reaching out thinking that they're not big enough or

they won't be taken serious enough. And as you're kinda showing, it doesn't

take NPR type studio and, you

know, a team of 20 people. There are plenty of

great folks out there who wanna talk to

regular people and and share their perspective on what

is going on in the world. I wonder because of your background, because of

all your work in broadcasting and and working at The Journal and The Street,

how do you prepare for these episodes? What what is

your preshow routine to get ready for an

episode? Well, my preshow routine happens every

day. So and this is not the same. I'm broadcasting every day.

But every day I wake up, I turn on BBC Radio

4's Today program to see what's in the news. So I

stay constantly up to date with what the major news is

that's going on. And you pretty much know within 5 minutes whether there

is any news. And this is a a 3 hour show that I listen to.

And if if within 5 minutes, if there's actually no news

going on, you know, nobody's died and it's just waffly stuff, then I

turn it off. But I stay up to date with the news and

specifically with the news I'm interested in. And 1 of 1 of the areas I'm

very interested in is geopolitics. So that's Ukraine and Russia

and, obviously, Belarus, which is involved there, and what the European Union's doing

about defense and what's going on in in Gaza, what's

going on in Israel, what's going on in Yemen and the

Red Sea and all those other places. So I stay up to date

with that. That means that when I see an interesting

story that I want to interview somebody about, I can slot

that into the context. So when you have

a US, I don't know, a a US

destroyer in the Red Sea firing bombs,

I already have the context of what's going on because we know that the

Houthis have been firing rockets at commercial

vessels in the Red Sea. So I can I can put that in Tech, and

all I really have to do is to skim through the

maybe the written piece? And obviously, it's very good to find a written piece

by a guest because writing forces

the writer to get their thoughts in order. So when you have a

guest who's written something, that's really useful, and you'll know that from

producing. And when you have the guest on, you say, can you send me 3

bullet points? That's not for the by the way, that's not for the

producer. That's for the guest themselves. They don't maybe don't realize that

the guest themselves orders their thoughts by getting 3 bullet points

down. And then I and then I just, you know, I

email them, set up a time, you know, get them on the get

them get them on the Zoom connection and go click. And, you

know, 321, go. And we go. And

do do do it right through, and I end it usually with,

this is constable confidential. I'm Simon constable, and that's it. And

then the segment's over. He's out easy.

Yeah. Easy peasy. But, I mean, you knew know as well as I do. When

you're doing current affairs, you have to stay up to date pretty much

every day. And there's no it's a it's a relentless thing. There is news

every day. And the question is, can you distinguish it from

what's important and what's just something that's happened? So,

you know, you know that about America and quite a lot of what's

on some news channels, and I won't name them because I don't wanna embarrass

them, is not really relevant in the long Tech,

whereas other news is. It is hard to

tell the difference these days. I wonder also because

I mean, you obviously with the background that you have, it it might be a

little bit easier. But for a lot of folks who are doing podcasts, especially in

the news world, it's helpful to grow their audience to get their names out

there by submitting their work to other

publications. And, you know, I know it says here that you've written for, obviously, the

journal and Barron's, both Dow Jones property, but also Time, Forbes,

Fortune, New York Post, New York's on the South China Morning Post. How is

it getting your work into other publications,

or or what's that process like for a podcaster who's thinking about this

as a route to raise their profile?

Well, the the the profile for podcasting, I

think that the the I mean, from what I've heard, from what I hear, because

I listen to a lot of of radio and podcasts and things,

is those ads, at the very beginning of somebody else's

show. So if it's a Matthew Passy show, there might be an ad

in the front of it. You know, I don't know, 15 seconds, maybe

30 seconds. So if they're big big spenders, it's

saying, you know, check out this new podcast

by ex Samson, John Smith.

It's really cool, and it covers this sort of thing. You know, I probably said

more eloquently than that because that's where the the authors

come from. I'm not sure that any of

my work in my written work

does anything except help me help me define

myself as credible when I'm getting guests.

I'm not sure that an audience really thinks that

much about that. Maybe I'm wrong. I've I write for any

publication that will pay a decent

rate, but and that doesn't have AAA

bias towards hate of any sort. So I avoid any organizations

that that have a a streak of hatred in in their

editorial policy, which is relatively few, but I'm just saying

that. So if if you've got the money, alright. So that that

that makes that very good. And I don't know that there's a there's that closer

connection between what I write and what

podcast listeners want. Maybe I'm wrong, and and I'm sure

you'll tell me that based on other people's experience. Well, no. I mean I mean,

in your case, it might not be. But I think for folks who are who

don't have the kind of background that you do, you know, they just might be

interesting for them to be able to get those bylines, get that

credibility. You know, even in some of those cases when people

read, you know, who wrote this article, say, you know, written by Matthew Passy,

they could even say host of blah blah blah podcast, which just gives them exposure

they don't have access to. So is there, like, a a direct route or is

there a strategy for submitting work to places?

Absolutely. And a lot of organizations

really need people who are technical experts in a an

area. Right? So if you if you're a sports writer or you know a lot

about sports, then you have an advantage over me.

For example, I I don't write about sports because I know nothing

about it. I know how to play them badly, but that's, you know, the badly

bit tells you everything. But if you do know that, that's great because there are

plenty of local papers and plenty of national papers who might want you to

go and look at a game and do a quick a quick

piece about it. And if it if it looks like journalism and you have some

quotes in it and and some action in in the way that you've

written it. And so, you know, then then they'll be

interested. So what the first thing they're gonna wanna do is

see what your previous work was like, and so you have to

make that step into it, into

writing something for someone probably for free

once or twice. And you have 2 clips, 3 clips, and you

that's what they call the the the clips in the paper, but they'll really be

printouts from a website. And then you take them to the bigger

companies that have money and say, this is what I've written

in the past. I'd like to write these stories for you. Are you

interested? And initially, there will be a lot of no's. We've already

got that covered. But, you know, you you you you've got

to keep going. You know, you've got to keep going and say, me,

sir, me madam, please. It's me next, me next, me next.

You Tech gotta keep saying it and just let it bounce off. It's

it's, you know, think of it like you're going into Hollywood to be an actor.

Of course, you're gonna get rejected a lot of the time. That's gonna happen, and

then you'll get credibility. Ring people up. Ask to

talk to them about what it's like to be in journalism and

what what journalist editors are looking for

and who, you know, what it's like in the business, what they what they want

and Tech to that. I had a guy ring me up and say he wanted

to be a journalist. And I said to him, Okay, well, who who,

you know, who do you want to write for and what do you want to

write? And he said politics and sports. And I said, Well, I don't know anything

about politics, and I know anything about sports, about geopolitics.

So I put him in contact with 2 of the best people

in their industry, and I'm not going to embarrass everybody else by naming

those 2 people. And that gentleman, young man, I think he was

about 22, he wrote to both of them, and 1

of them replied, and he had a great conversation. And now he writes sports.

You know? Not not for the biggest publications in the world, but he's got in

there. And he's 22, and he's having a great time. And I wish

him really well. So ring ring up Samson again, it comes down

to emailing somebody, and you'd be surprised

how many people will, you know, respond. And they will.

Amazing. Alright. Well, before we let you go, we have a couple of questions that

we ask everybody. And as a reminder, people, you can check out the constable confidential.

We'll have a link to it here in the show notes, and you can check

out the work that Simon is doing on the world news front here,

today. So, Simon, is there a place where you'd like to see

some improvement in the podcasting space? Is there something that,

you know, you find challenging or you think would make your life easier as a

podcaster? It would be really

nice if the the podcast platforms when

when you just say say Spotify, and I'm I'm picking that 1 because that it's

a very easy 1 to use, could have ways to

give more feedback, you know, comments,

a comment section from some people. Now I realize that

could be very dangerous because it could end up being, you know, hate hate speech

or whatever, which, of course, III don't like, but it could be

nice to get feedback. And 1 of the things that you'll you

know, from radio and and from any journalism is you produce the

content and you put it out there. And in many ways,

you you don't get much feedback externally. You might

get it from your editor, from your producer, whatever that

is. For instance, I had a column at The Wall Street Journal for

10 years once a month. Right? As well as other work.

I didn't get any feedback externally for the 1st 5 years.

Samson and and then people were saying, oh, I've been

loving reading that for the last 5 years. Thanks for telling me, I

think. But you know what? It's nice to get the good the good feedback. But

having some feedback or something 2 way some 2 way

thing or some mechanism to get a 2

way thing going with an audience without having it be a phone in

show, which doesn't really work in the podcast world. That

I think could be very useful. And also sometimes people are gonna tell

you things like, do you know you do this? And it's really annoying me.

That would be kinda useful to know. Well, we will

make sure to send you a link to a platform called Fanlist. We spoke to

their founder, previously on the show, and that actually has some tools that might

be helpful for you in this case. It's not the same as getting it directly

on Spotify, but at least it might give you, you know, 1 way to get

that external feedback. Is there any tech

on your wish list? Is there something a device that you would like to get

your hands on or something that you wish was invented that would make your life

easier? I think some

some equipment that would allow me to

record outdoors. So in in a coffee shop, maybe

on a on a terrace in the summer where I could interview

someone, you know, in the afternoon where it's reasonably quiet, but

you still have the ambient noise. That's what I'm looking for next because I

think that really takes you somewhere else from from

a studio sound. And the studio sound can be sound a

bit sterile. It can also be very nice, but it's also

nice to have that that sound in the background. There's a there's

a show on the BBC Radio 4 channel,

which is which is very interesting called Ramblings as a a woman who goes

out and meets people on country walks and talks to

them and has her microphone with her. And that works out very well

because you have the background noise and you hear her and her

interviewee talking, and you hear the the brushing

of their coat in the winter or the rain or the wind. And that actually

works in many, many, many ways. Obviously, she's very skilled at it.

I'm not, and she has a probably has a bigger budget than me.

Alright. And, and, just so the listeners already know, I've

already sent Simon a little shopping list ahead of this. So he he's he's gonna

work on that. Lastly, what's your what's the podcast that

you're listening to right now that you just can't miss? As soon as an episode

drops, you are, you know, switching over and turning that 1 on.

There's a a lovely podcast. It's based in Britain, and

it's called Dark Histories. It's by a

young man who lives in Brighton, who's a hairdresser, and he does this. And he's

been doing this for a while, and he's just charming. And he he

tells stories of of of terrible things that have happened to people in the

Passy, in long, long past. And he he writes them up, and he tells

you about it, about sort of the various

people usually in the UK who've done heinous things.

He's just very, very good at it, and he talks

about his situation. He also talks about he gets

emails from people and talks about those and and really

interacts. I think he's very, very good and very, very

funny. But somebody complained did Tech complain, sent to him. I'm

really sorry. I keep falling asleep when I listen to your podcast.

And he said, I, you know, I did I first did the

podcast to get control of my anxiety,

and it worked. And if it's working for you as well and you're going to

sleep and getting a good night's sleep, that's great. I'm really happy for you.

So I really really like him. He's called Ben. It's a great it's a great

podcast show. It's not news, but remember when I'm listening to a

Podcasting, that's not that's my

relaxation, not my job. Fair

enough. Alright. Well, once again, we've been chatting with Simon Constable. He's the host and

producer of the Constable Confidential, which we will have a link to so you

can find it right here in the show notes, and you can also check out

some of his writings and various papers all around the

world. Simon, it has been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us, and good to

see you, sir. Good to see you too, and thank you for having me.