The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe Awards added a Best Podcast category for its awards show in January. They began from a short list of the top podcasts, about 25 programs, but that included shows the left hates, like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and #1-rated podcaster Joe Rogan. Right-wingers never win awards!?
Over at his kvetchfest of a website Status, Oliver Darcy complained for weeks that the Globe pickers wanted to platform “toxic figures” “who spend their days radicalizing audiences and inflaming the culture wars.” Darcy wants conservatives to be removed from all platforms, including awards shows.
Maybe it's time for Darcy to do a victory dance. The six nominees for that inaugural Best Podcast award are out, and none of these Darcy-inflaming shows made the cut. Instead, it’s mostly light celebrity fare: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Call Her Daddy, Good Hang with Amy Poehler, The Mel Robbins Podcast, SmartLess (with actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Poehler's ex-husband Will Arnett).
Tacked on is the Up First podcast from NPR, which is their three top news stories in ten minutes from their show Morning Edition. That recently included Odette Yousef's rah-rah story on ICE resisters in Chicago.
So it looks like just another award for glitzy celebrities to win. NPR weekend anchor Ayesha Rascoe was thrilled, but will they be thrilled if they lose to the sex-talk Daddy podcast?
It’s not every day you wake up and a show you host is nominated for a Golden Globe!!! Shout out to NPR and the entire Up First team and all the co-hosts! pic.twitter.com/P7SK7RTdYy
— Ayesha Rascoe (@ayesharascoe) December 8, 2025
NPR TV critic Eric Deggans loved that the "knucklehead political chatter" from the right didn't a foothold:
Not gonna lie - I was pretty psyched to see that, in the Golden Globes first year presenting an award for best podcast, they looked past knuckleheaded political chatter - including Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro - to nominate Amy Poehler, Dax Shepard, and NPR's Up First.…
— Switching Codes with Eric Deggans (@Deggans) December 8, 2025
The entertainment site Deadline carried this headline: "Comedy Stars Triumph Over Right-Wing Firebrands In First Golden Globes Podcast Nominations." They noted Ben Shapiro paid for an ad campaign promoting his show...and the New York Times podcast The Daily -- which airs on hundreds of NPR affiliates -- withdrew from consideration.
In their story on the list, AP turned to Ben Bogardus, chair of the journalism department at Quinnipiac University, who argued: “They’re trying to bill themselves as an award show that is for the masses and non-controversial, celebrating the best in entertainment. Having this political sideshow, I think they just wanted to avoid that."
Has the professor ever watched the Golden Globes? Political sideshows are a big thing....just not conservative sideshows.
The 2024 Golden Globes on CBS began with the host, "comedian" Jo Koy, riffing on the movie Killers of the Flower Moon, which taught "white people stole everything! You guys stole everything! Not, like, 97%. You guys stole 100% of everything. You took the land, you took the oil!" Sure, that's non-controversial stuff for the masses, sure sure.
