Pod Save Politics: Parliamentarian Podcasts Allow for Deeper Dive, Wider Reach, and More Free Rein

Senator Omidvar’s podcast, Moving the Needle on Wicked Problems, is featured in this excerpt from The Hill Times:

Omidvar similarly said she sees her podcast, Moving the Needle on Wicked Problems, which she co-hosts with her director of parliamentary affairs, Paul Faucette, as “part and parcel” of her job as a Senator.

“Canadians get engaged differently, and I’m not sure how many actually watch the speeches that I posed or questions that I asked, and this is a different way of talking to Canadians about issues that are important to us, nationally; to raise questions that may not be covered in legislative matters or even studies,” said Omidvar. “I wanted to find a new way of digging deeper into important and essential questions.”

While the first season of her podcast, which launched in October 2020, focused on topics that related to her legislative agenda, Omidvar said she’s since taken a more “flexible” approach. In 2021, after a summer spotlight on racism in Canada, Omidvar and her staff put together a series of episodes exploring the subject, including one with fellow Ontario Senators Salma Ataullahjan, Yvonne Boyer, and Rosemary Moodie discussing their encounters with racism in politics.

“This is really about reaching a much, much broader audience, and I think podcasts, you know, you can be conversational, you can be casual. It’s not television so you don’t have … to be on your toes [that] you’re going to say something that’s not what you meant to say, so it’s a lot more, I would say, authentic as well,” said Omidvar.

Read the full article in The Hill Times