Looking at how two different podcasts handled old offensive jokes...

I was listening to a podcast from 2018 where a host made a bad joke about a group. One show just deleted the whole episode and never spoke about it again. Another show I follow kept the old episode up but added a 5-minute intro where the host explained why the joke was wrong and what he learned. The second way felt way more honest... it didn't try to hide the past. It let people see the growth. Which approach do you think is better for free speech and learning from mistakes?

4 comments

4 Comments

claire_grant3423d ago

Actually had a similar thing happen with some old blog posts I wrote. Leaving them up with a note at the top felt like the only honest way to handle it. Deleting them just makes it look like you never had a flawed thought, which isn't real. That approach the second podcast took shows a path forward without pretending the past didn't happen. It's not about making a big show, it's about being real, you know? Like @robertcarr said, people mess up, but how we deal with it later says a lot more.

robertcarr23d ago

Honestly, is every bad joke from years ago a huge deal that needs a public lesson? People mess up. The second way is fine, but deleting it is fine too. It's just a podcast, not a history book. @john_fisher has a point about hiding mistakes, but sometimes you just move on without making a big show of it.

keith_bennett23d ago

Does hiding the mistake stop real learning though?

john_fisher23d ago

Hiding it just means you learn to hide mistakes better, not fix them.