The Monday Media Diet with Brooke Black

On Scandinavia, The Island of Sea Women, and Shawnté Salabert

Brooke Black (BB) runs comms at Podimo. She was previously at Apple. I know her from her NYC music publicity days. Happy to have her recs on the page today. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I’ve been working in entertainment and tech PR since I was 19, starting out in NYC on the artist and agency side, always with a penchant for working with Scandinavian and European artists and festivals. After moving to LA I spent a few years at Warner Records and Live Nation’s developing artist division before joining Apple Music to build out global comms around Radio and all of the artists that had radio shows, eventually working on other services, including Podcasts. 

The world shut down a week before I had my second kid, and me and my family escaped LA to visit my in-laws in Denmark and ended up staying, which is now three years ago. We bought a 1722 farmhouse in a tiny town with one ring road, shaggy cow neighbors, a community house where we cook and eat together, and the second smallest church in Denmark from 1150 where an actual person rings the bell every morning and night. We split our time between there and Copenhagen, where I run global comms for Podimo, a podcast and audiobook subscription service with a local-first approach (language, voices, stories), currently in six markets across Europe and now in Mexico too. 

Describe your media diet. 

For work I start the day by skimming some basics - NY Times, Bloomberg, CNN Reliable Sources, The Guardian, Morning Brew, The Information (+1 on  their Creator Economy newsletter), Harvard Business Journal for occasional long reads, and all the podcast outlets like Hot Pod, Podnews, etc. I also glance over a few Danish media outlets like Børsen and Mediawatch. My leisure reading is pretty sporadic. Some I’ve stuck with throughout the years are Esotouric (Kim and Richard always fighting the LA historic preservation fight), Gastro Obscura (history of king cakes around the world? Sure.), Travel & Leisure, and a bunch of witchy and astrological stuff. I also get into a lot of new outlets from recommendations in this newsletter. :) 

Recent TV has been Yellowjackets, Servant, Ted Lasso, Den Store Bagedyst (Danish Bake-off, much preferred over this last year’s British), and Danmark’s Næste Klassiker (furniture design competition). I also currently consume every episode of the You’re Wrong About podcast, and listen to Danish radio station P3 in the car. 

What’s the last great book you read?

I am grateful that my IRL book club with my LA girlfriends survived the pandemic along with half of us moving to different parts of the world by going virtual. The picks are always great, and my last favorite was Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women, a historical novel about the life of Korean female divers (haenyeo) from the island of Jeju. Lessons in history through the stories of these powerful women are some that I’ll never forget. 

What are you reading now?

I’m currently reading Auē by Becky Manawatu. It’s a fictional look into a Maori family saga in New Zealand. Really raw and at times difficult, but incredibly compelling. I know I’ll carry it with me for a while. 

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I wouldn’t call it a “strategy.” I call it never-ending aspirational-impossible-consumption. I grab everything I want to read and put it in neat piles around me excitedly and start diving in with my cup of coffee, getting as far as I can. I used to do this in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square in NYC, and I miss it a lot. When I’m home alone, which is rare, I still do this, surrounding myself with stacks of magazines (hello, Monocle) and projects to catch up on, but then I have my laptop open and also the TV on. Works…not great. But I have dreams!

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Full transparency she’s a friend, but Shawnté Salabert. She’s based in LA and writes primarily about the outdoors, people and culture, intersectionality, sustainability, and everything in between. I don’t see anyone else doing what she does or covering the stories she does, particularly through her lens of curiosity, wit, empathy, and humor. 

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

The Seek app has been a solid companion in my never ending quest to identify all plants (and some insects/animals). In NYC I used to carry around a Book of NYC Trees identifying the same ones over and over again and it used to annoy my friends to no end. I get excited about making a “new” discovery in the Seek app or earning a badge, since I used to be a girl scout. Changing environments from LA to Denmark there’s been a lot of new stuff to identify out here. 

Plane or train?

I take the train every week to the office about 3 hours each way and when it’s on time (98% of the time) I love it. I can work, sleep, or watch horror movies (since my husband hates them), without being bothered by anybody. The silent car is a real treat, and so is a window seat, which they don’t let you reserve - it’s usually luck. This will sound like a plug but it’s not, the train in Denmark DSB has a partnership with 7-11 because there’s one in every station, and when you buy tickets you get points towards food or drinks/coffee, so it ‘feels’ like I’m getting free stuff even though I paid for it - much like when you get your tax return back. I’m the person these kinds of things were made for. 

What is one place everyone should visit? 

Lofoten, a chain of islands above the Arctic Circle in Norway. The mountains and scenery are dramatic and peaceful, plus the midnight sun. On a solo trip, I set out solely to get from one end to the other to find a town with one letter called Å, just because I’d never been to a one-letter town. I got dropped off in the middle of the night at a 3-way intersection to try and find the fishing cabin I was staying in and by sheer luck picked the right path. Otherwise I would’ve been sleeping by the side of the road (which probably would’ve been safe). Everyone there was incredibly friendly and I hitched a ride on a tiny plane with someone back to the mainland. Go! alone - even better.  

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

I fall multiple times a day through these. My friend’s impersonation of me is me Wikipedia-ing something mid conversation. One I am continuously falling through now that I live in Europe has to do with the pagan-ish very regional holidays where people walk around with crazy masks or animal heads like Candlemas or Fasnacht in Austria. My eventual goal is to get to all the small towns in Charles Fréger’s Wilder Mann photography book when these celebrations are happening. Check back with me in a few years.  (BB)

Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Brooke (BB)

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