Journal of American History Begins Podcasting

Kudos to the Journal of American History for their launch this week of a podcast. In the inaugural “JAHcast,” John Nieto-Phillips speaks with James Meriwether about his article, “Worth a Lot of Negro Votes’: Black Voters, Africa, and the 1960 Presidential Campaign.” The podcast is put together well. It has relatively good sound quality (always critical for podcasts; bad sound quality repels audiences faster than bad web design), it’s open access (anyone can subscribe via iTunes), and most of all, it contains interesting subject matter for our times.

You will be unsurprised to hear (given a certain other podcast) that I think more scholarly journals and organizations should be podcasting like this. It’s a great way to build an audience and add context to print publications. It would be great for the JAH to add other kinds of podcasts, such as panels from the annual meeting and wider-ranging discussions or debates (rather than focusing on a single article). But a great first step.