We’re excited to announce a brand new podcast series called Listeners, a show about the craft and power of listening.

The show reflects the mission of the center I help run: The Agora Journalism Center. At Agora, we wanted to emulate a place where people can come together, present new information, discuss and deliberate, and seek out solutions that ills the community. There was such a place in ancient Greece, and it was called the Agora.

But I fear that we’re losing our natural abilities for healthy discussion and deliberation. And it’s not only because digital screens are vying for our attention, but it’s also because we’re grappling to live in a system that thrives on dividing rather than uniting… that would rather build walls than bridges.

But I do believe that people want to live in a society that is civil and care for the well being of others. To get to that place of empathy, however, we need (as a society) to be better communicators, the root of which is to better active listeners.

So this new podcast show is our journey to that place. We’ll talk with media and communication experts, thought leaders, doers, and innovators whose ideas can amplify the quality of our dialogue and interactions.

If you have any suggestions on who else we should talk to, please shoot us an email at listenerspodcast@uoregon.edu. Or if you have any ideas on how to make this new show better, again, drop us a line. And I hope you’ll enjoy the show.