Catherine Saint Louis is executive editor of podcasts at Sony Podcasts. She is an Executive Producer for more than a half dozen shows on The Binge, SONY’s subscription for limited- run true crime podcasts. A show she EP’ed called Watching You sat at No.5 on Apple’s top series chart, The Crimes of Margo Freshwater was also top 10 right now, and Catch Me if you Ken hit no 1 on Apple’s top series chart. In the past, she has edited Fatal Beauty, Scary Terri, My Fugitive Dad, Not a Very Good Murderer with Ronan Farrow, Betrayal on the Bayou, and Hello John Doe for Morgan Freeman’s team. She started an Editors’ Bootcamp to train people from underrepresented groups to become story editors. Last year, she spoke at On Air Fest about her creative partner with Jonathan Hirsch and how to make great limited run narrative podcasts that are deeply reported. She lives in Brooklyn with her teenage son and Icelandic husband. She is a runner and a weightlifter.

How many years have you worked in podcasting or audio?

6–10 years

What is your current role, in your own words?

I specialize in limited runs. On some podcasts, I’m in the soup, structuring the outline, helping to perfect each episode from script to SD mixes. And then for 6-9 shows a year, I am an EP for The Binge, where I give notes on scratches, some scripts, and some SD mixes for multiple partners from Novel, Campside, Western Sound, Message Heard and Glass. I have to be able to work with all different kinds of teams, and motivate them to excel even when I’m giving tough feedback.

What types of projects do you typically work on?

Elevated true crime. It’s victim centered and nuanced work. I’m tired of people thinking true crime is inherently exploitative. I think there’s a way to get people to talk about the worst shit that’s happened to them that lets them share their truth and pain, and also tell a story of injustice, wrongdoing or simply human fallibility.

How many years have you been a Signal Awards judge?

This is my first year!

What excited you about joining the Signal Awards Judging Academy?

I love listening to podcasts, and love discovering new work that’s truly great, then telling everyone to listen. I am a beacon that way. I can’t keep great work to myself!

What is one recent podcast you’ve loved and would recommend?

Foundling — it’s heartbreaking, original and really ends up somewhere I think most story about family estrangement don’t.

What separates good audio storytelling from great audio storytelling?

I think the best narrative shows have three e’s — they educate, enrage and entertain. That and characters I give a shit about.

What project are you most proud of and why?

Watching You is a podcast I made with my boss Jonathan Hirsch, he hosted it, and Jason Hoch of Wavland. It’s the story of the murder of a mother by her husband, but it’s about so much more than that. All three daughters participated and ultimately our podcast led to them reuniting and so had real-world impact that was heartbreaking and beautiful.

What podcasting trend, challenge, or opportunity has your attention these days?

The difficulty of making a show shine in audio and also visually. It’s tough, and I am trying to meet that challenge.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to emerging creators?

Listen widely. Listen to both shows that are outstanding and ones that fall short especially the latter to figure out how things went wrong, or what you’d change to make the story sing.

What are you currently listening to? (podcasts, music, anything)

Foundling from Tortoise, The Poet from New Metric and The Binge, and the Hulu show Furious, which is so well-structured and paced, I immediately started re-watching Ep1-Ep4 right after I binged them.