Meet the man who invented podcasts. Christopher Lydon recorded the first podcast in 2003 because mainstream media now flocking to the medium wouldn’t listen to him: “Podcasting was born out of the despair around the Iraq war. It was a political response to a giant breakdown in the American conversation, in the world conversation. I went to New York to demonstrate and the New York Times didn’t even cover it. Podcasting was about people speaking up in a time of traditional media oblivion.” Podcasting “is different to radio — institutionally as well as functionally,” he tells the Guardian in a profile. Lydon hosts the Open Source podcast. While you’re there, check out the newspaper’s list of 50 podcasts you need to hear, which is rather surprisingly not a bad place to start if you’re new to the medium.