5 Iowan Podcasts that aren’t about corn

You don’t have to travel to a rural farm two counties over to learn about preventing erosion. You don’t have to get married, buy a house and get a dog to find out what it’s like. In fact, there’s a podcast for that. Iowans are taking to the (digital) airwaves to chat about a wide variety of topics. Here are five created in Iowa that you may want to tune in to.

Above the Fold

Bri and Josh Larson started a podcast for fun. The married couple, two twenty-something young professionals live in Des Moines. Together, they host the Above the Fold podcast. Referencing what they call “the olden days” when physical newspapers were a ‘thing,’ it’s what is most important went on top. They discuss millennials, marketing and meeting people in your 20s, among other subjects. Each episode is around a half hour long.

“It was a little out of our comfort zone, we’re not loud, outgoing people,” said Josh, about his experience starting a podcast. “We bought a couple microphones, sat down and recorded it.” Since it began 2 years ago, the show progressed into stories about their daily lives and dogs. “The show ended up being more interesting for close friends and family instead of actual marketing professionals.”

Insight on Business

But what if humorous, relatable musings aren’t what you’re looking for when you put on your headphones? Find out what restaurant you should visit next or what’s the “stuff to do” in the Des Moines metro area on the Insight on Business podcast. Daily hour-long installments on what’s new in business. In doing so, they’ve got a claim to fame: they’re “the only daily, hour-long business broadcast in the region,” according to the program’s website.

Listen UP

Based in Des Moines, Iowa, a collection of Drake University students working in their senior capstone project, taking ideas and turning them into professional pieces of journalism. Their latest installment discusses the cinematic revisit of The Shack, a 2007 novel that portrays God as a black woman.

The TD+ Podcast

Like Urban Plains, the TD+ is another Drake University student production. This is the podcast for Drake’s student newspaper, the Times-Delphic. The 3-minute weekly podcast is a low-commitment, light-hearted round up of the paper’s trending news and what they plan on printing next. (Full-disclosure: I’m the host, writer, producer, editor and creator of the student journalism audio initiative.) Despite it being a one-man show, the podcast is an experiment as email newsletters decline in popularity and usefulness.

Talk of Iowa

Iowa Public Radio brings Iowans a well-rounded look at life in the state: lifestyle, culture and the arts. Recently, IPR recorded an interview with a Holocaust survivor who returned to Iowa City and where to plant shrubs to prevent land erosion from the gusts of wind we get here across the state.

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Be sure to check out these podcasts and while you’re at it, let us know what you think! Send us a tweet @heartdesmoines.