A podcast seasonguest research, episode briefs and show notes

Method

1. 1

   Have your assistant lay out the season

   Connect your assistant to know.sh once, following the support page for Claude, ChatGPT or a local model. Then give it the season in a paragraph: the premise, the ten working titles, and who is on which episode. Ask it to make the shelf, a document called Season 3 — the arc with one finding per episode (a logline, the guest, and what the listener should know by the end), and ten episode documents.

   Give every episode document the same findings in the same order: What this episode is for, the research points, Guest: public record, Facts to verify before recording, Questions, Show notes (draft) and Sources and credits. A fixed shape means you always know where to look, and it makes the public link simple later.

2. 2

   Send it to research the subject

   Ask your assistant to research the season’s subject on the web and file what it finds as a new document on the shelf, Background — the Harlan Valley line, 1905–1939, one finding per point, each with its source links. Tell it to prefer primary sources: digitised newspapers such as Chronicling America at the Library of Congress, government reports, and the catalogues of historical societies. This needs an assistant with web search; Claude and ChatGPT have it, and many local set-ups do not.

   Then ask it to move the points each episode needs into that episode’s document, as Evidence findings. A claim it found in only one secondary source should be filed as a Question, not as fact.

3. 3

   Research each guest from the public record

   For each guest, ask for a Guest: public record finding built only from what they have made public: their books and articles, talks, earlier podcast appearances, and the page of the museum, university or company they work for. Say plainly in the prompt that it should not look for a home address, family members, private social accounts or old personal posts, and should link every line to where it came from.

   The point of guest research is better questions, not a dossier on a person. Read it, delete anything you would not say to the guest’s face, and add what you learned from the pre-interview call.

4. 4

   Cut it down and make it yours in the editor

   Press Edit on the episode. Drag the research findings into the order you will tell the story, delete the ones that do not serve this episode (move them to the background document if they may serve another), and mark the two or three facts the episode stands on as Key.

   Your assistant can draft a list of questions from the research; treat it as a list of topics. Rewrite every question in the way you actually talk, cut the ones any guest has already answered on another show, and put your follow-ups under each. The script and the narration are yours, written outside the assistant. A listener can hear the difference.

5. 5

   Verify before you record

   Work through Facts to verify before recording with the sources open. Every date, number and name you will say aloud should trace to a newspaper page, a report or the guest’s own published work. A quotation goes in only if you have seen it in the original, with the paper, the date and the page; if an assistant offers a quotation you cannot find, delete it.

   Then ask your assistant to read the whole shelf and look for contradictions: the line opens in 1907 in episode one and 1908 in episode six. It leaves each one as a proposed note, and Look up (⌘K) finds every other place you used that date.

6. 6

   Give your producer a password link

   A day or two before recording, press Share on the episode, set a password and leave the seven-day expiry, and send the link and the password to your co-host or producer separately. They read the whole brief, research and questions included, without your highlights or notes. They cannot edit or comment; their notes reach you by message, and you make the changes.

   Put the episode in Focus for recording week. When it is recorded, Star the episode document, so Contents, under Starred, shows how much of the season is done.

7. 7

   Publish the show notes

   After the episode goes out, rewrite Show notes (draft) as the final notes: what the episode covers, the guest and where to find their work, and time codes if you make them. Put every source in Sources and credits: newspaper, date and page, archive and collection, and the credit line each archive asks for.

   Then replace the link, which stops the producer’s copy working and clears the old expiry and exclusions. Remove the password, choose Never expire, and leave out every finding except the show notes, the credits and a Corrections finding you keep for later. Paste the link into the episode description. If a listener writes in with a correction, check it and add it there.