Category Archives: Editor’s Blog

Exciting news everyone – we’re now officially partners with the British Humanist Association. We’ve been friends with them for a while – they like what we do, and we like what they do, so we decided to formalise our relationship.

Though this is exciting – I know you lot are a skeptical bunch, so I want to clarify what this actually means.

We retain complete editorial independence – the decisions on content, what we talk about, who we talk to and so on are not going to be run past the BHA first for their stamp of approval. Similarly, we will not be changing our content in the slightest. Having our lead story as “God still doesn’t exist” every week would get a bit tedious – the contents of the podcast is not going to change. We’re still going to have provocative reports slagging off Remembrance Day and interviews with interesting people regardless of how they define their personal philosophy. What’s unified the podcast since day one has been a set of values, rather than a set of topics – those of rationalism, critical thinking, and of course, things that are just plain interesting.

Similarly, we’re still going to talk to other organisations – be they the National Secular Society, the JREF, the Church of England or even a certain litigious cult, should they want to speak to us. Just because we’re partnered with the BHA doesn’t mean that after every report we’re going to say “And now here’s what the BHA thinks, and what you should think too”. We’ll obviously be approaching the BHA should they have relevant comments to make – like we’ve been doing anyway.

Also, in case it’s not obvious – the BHA do not ‘own’ the Pod Delusion. I do, still. It’s not going to be “The BHA’s Pod Delusion” or “The Pod Delusion, brought to you by the BHA”. We’re still going to be “The Pod Delusion” and I’ll still be as foul-mouthed as usual.

If the above wasn’t the case then we wouldn’t have agreed to partner – compromising editorial independence and the ability for me to use the podcast for my own (possibly evil) agenda would have been a deal breaker for me.

So why have we done this? I’ll tell you now – no money has changed hands. What we’ve essentially got is a cross-promotional quid-pro-quo. We’re going to put a couple of links on the Pod Delusion site, and in return the BHA are going to put a page about us on their website – as well as put a bit in their weekly newsletter to their members about us. We figure that humanists are a fairly receptive audience to what we have to say – so hopefully this should make the show even more popular, and allow us to grow even more!

Of course, if you have any questions, comments, or want to call us sell outs, put them in the comments below and I’ll attempt to address them.

James