Joe Budden, now more than a decade deep into podcasting, doesn’t see what he and others in the space do as a form of journalism.
Speaking with Jeff Ihaza for Rolling Stone, Budden, who earlier this year came in at No. 3 on Complex’s annual Hip-Hop Media Power Ranking, discussed his years-long journey toward podcast dominance. Asked if he viewed podcasting as journalism when he first began his shift into the field, Budden confirmed that he did not, and still doesn’t.
“No, no. I didn’t see it as journalism,” Budden said, as seen below. “I have a healthy respect for the journalists. I was talking shit, I was talking shit. Journalists were journalisting.”
Budden conceded that, in some instances, the line between podcasting and journalism is “blurry” these days. Still, he’s a supporter of full-fledged journalists and the important role they play in society.
“It’s blurry, but I think we still need both,” he said. “We need the journalists that’s gonna thoroughly vet things, do their due diligence, and uphold their responsibility to all their journalistic integrity and all that shit. I wanna talk shit. I don’t wanna have to uphold the value system. I wanna come and say this is what I see, this is what I think, this is how I feel.”
The Complex alum has been particularly vocal with his thoughts on podcasting at large after hitting the 10-year milestone. In November, during a conversation with Jim Jones, he cautioned against prospective podcast personalities rushing to simply “take a check” instead of developing their platform from a do-it-yourself mindset.
After a stint with Spotify, Budden is now focused on sustaining his decidedly popular Patreon community. In July, in response to a request for comment on a New York Times article estimating that the Joe Budden Podcast Network would end the year with more than $20 million to its name, a Patreon spokesperson confirmed that Budden had, at that time, earned more than $1 million per month on the platform for the last eight months.