FEATURE: Reagan Conrad Wants Better for Women

In a world of reactive women’s media, Reagan Conrad is in a new era, aiming to cultivate something more meaningful.

PHOTOGRAPHY: BETHANY MILLER

INTERVIEW: HANNAH BRUSVEN

A sad trend has taken over in the women’s podcast industry. Give a modern woman a quiet moment alone, and she’s likely tuning into one of two categories of audio entertainment: Crime Junkies– with gory, mysterious details guiding the listener from episode to episode– or relationship shows like the ever-popular Call Her Daddy podcast built on voyeurism and sexuality. These shows average two to five million downloads per episode, with viral social clips influencing tens of millions of women weekly with spookiness and sex. 

Meanwhile, many of the most successful male-oriented shows frame themselves around discipline, self-improvement, achievement, and mastery. You might say that while men’s content is aiming to remedy a world of broken masculinity, women’s content is simply reacting. 

Reagan Conrad is on a mission to rebuild what women’s media has lost: real conversations, underreported stories, wrestling with ideas before accepting them, and the opportunity for listeners to positively build culture instead of simply consuming facts. In her new show, Reported by Reagan, she hopes people will find ways in their own lives to be a light to others, while negativity is amplified all around us. 

Reagan is no stranger to the online firestorms she now hopes to counteract with more constructive content. Many first encountered her after she became host of The Comments Section, a massively popular culture and commentary show with millions of subscribers known for its laid-back, against-the-grain perspective on internet culture, which Reagan produced for several years before taking center stage. While she still uploads there weekly, reacting to culture isn’t where she believes the conversation ends, or where her heart is. It was time for her to have a fresh start. 

Reported by Reagan has been in the works for several years, and was officially announced this Spring to her audience of happy supporters, excited to see her strike out on a new venture. 

In a sit-down interview on the set of Reagan’s new show, decorated with classic books, vintage photos of Ronald Reagan, and baseball memorabilia, she opened up to The Swish Editor-in-Chief, Hannah Brusven, about parts of her story the public has not yet heard. It all starts with how much of her confidence and joy comes first and foremost from her family. 

Following in the path of her parents and grandparents, she grew up in what she considers to be an idyllic small-town environment in Pennsylvania that she didn't see as "cool" until she moved away. Her family dynamic was one of robust debate, problem-solving, and patriotism, where discussions about how to defend and live out her faith were central. She once described her story as a “boring testimony,” but has since come to appreciate it as a steady foundation that enables her to help others find joy in the midst of tragedy, ultimately leading her to study journalism in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the power of storytelling.

While she studied professional journalism and the rules and ethics around reporting, she feels it all has been flipped upside down. A simple glance at X and you’ll see a Wild West in the modern news world. In a chaotic landscape, she intentionally now chooses stories that hold a moral center and practical application instead of simply throwing mud. It's something she wishes more young women would do.

"I think it's really important for women, especially those who want to get into journalism, to just start telling stories and see if you like writing or video best. The camera was a part of my storytelling from the jump because I grew up loving video. Ask yourself what stories specifically you are drawn to, and share."

The content Reagan now shares has a very specific filter. "I can talk about this piece of essentially gossip that has no meaning, and maybe that'll get some clicks, but I don't think that's a valuable asset to add to the conversation."

"I filter out those stories and will only pursue ones that I think I can tie back to something with a broader purpose statement. If I can't tie it back to that, then I try to avoid that story. I don't want the only thing I have to add to a story to be, "That's crazy!!" Everyone can do that, and everyone is. If I don't know the background, the players, and what's going on, I'm not the right one to cover it."

As Reagan personally now drafts, produces, and hosts both shows, she aims to redeem journalism in a small way with this approach.

But redeeming culture isn’t just philosophical for the multi-hyphenate talent. It extends into her surroundings, beginning first with the restoration of an early-20th-century home and now a 1960s ranch tucked away on Nashville acreage, where she lives with her college sweetheart turned husband and their newborn baby boy.

When our team visited her new abode, The Comment's Section host greeted us with an apology for the wet paint before walking us through the nursery she was preparing, complete with hand-stenciled wall art she was beginning and a vintage chest of drawers she had restored by hand from a Marketplace pickup. Furniture and art from her favorite antique spots and vintage finds were in almost every corner of her home. Finding pieces with stories that she can add her own unique touch to is the key for her. 

At the time of our visit, she was days away from giving birth, and still not missing a beat in her restoration process. Reagan doesn’t see culture building as something women simply talk about, but what is built in the little moments we cultivate every day– from her garden, to her new venture into sourdough, and her home-studio where she shares her thoughts online.

The domestic life she has been fostering on her new land is her dream, but also a life that she believes exhibits the antidote to the greatest lie that women are told; in fact, she believes the modern narrative around home, motherhood, and feminine ambition needs to be rewritten entirely.

“We can do it all as women, sure, but you are not going to be the best at all things. So you have to find an order of prioritization.” 

She shares that young women often write to her asking what this kind of prioritization practically looks like, especially now as she enters motherhood herself. “What is ultimately the most fulfilling?” she asks in response to those who discourage women from prioritizing family and home.

“Really sit in that question. We’re all in the machine and trained to think that a career is the most meaningful. I, frankly, have wrestled with that too, but it’s an important conversation to dig into. Are you making this decision to be reactive? Or to build something long-lasting?”

"I always knew that I wanted to be a mom, but it was never my answer if someone asked me what I wanted to do when I was older. Perhaps motherhood is the obvious answer, but when I got to my twenties, it wasn't the obvious modern path. I constantly had to come back to asking myself, What is valuable at the end of the day? What are the women doing that I love and admire? They would all say the most valuable thing they did was having a family. I watched these people that I love and trust the most say the opposite of the world."

Her motherhood journey is something she looks forward to sharing on her new show, as it's a balance many women today are juggling, and there are few examples of young women celebrating this season of life without submitting to the overwhelm.

"I wouldn't say I delayed having kids, but I was definitely a little more hesitant with fully just surrendering that to God. The timing with the new show has been busy, but I have peace about it, because God is leading this, and that always makes it easier!"

This season has also led Reagan toward a more unsettling realization about the way modern life is spent. One of the most jarring realizations she recalls was discovering that she had likely spent nearly a full year of her life on social media, not pursuing a hobby or building a skill, but simply scrolling. A year of her life, lost to a screen.

After comparing her screen time reports and calculating the years she has spent online since her early teens, she found herself asking an eerie question: What could I have done with an additional 365 days of my life? She knows she is far from alone in that realization. Worse still, there is very little remembered from all those hours spent online.

“We do not understand what we’re faced with [online]…mental loads, identity crisis, and this time online has a huge part to play in that. I’m working on ways to unplug, open a book, read something, cultivate crafts and gifts, and simple learning. This is what will ultimately make you a more interesting person. When you read a book, you can quote it. But I can’t quote any of the things I’ve consumed for the 365 days that have been wasted.”

As wet paint dried in the next room and unfinished restoration projects sat scattered throughout the house in the days leading up to the birth of her son, it was clear that Reagan’s vision of rebuilding culture is not rooted in nostalgia, outrage, or performing for the internet. Rather, it is found in smaller, slower acts of cultivation like restoring a home, gardening, reading meaningful work, raising children intentionally, creating impactful work, telling meaningful stories, and refusing to surrender attention to an endless scroll.

In an age where entertainment and algorithms are built on reaction, maybe the most countercultural thing a woman can do is build something lasting. Exactly as Reagan exemplifies.

No longer should we women be content to passively consume and react to shallow entertainment, but instead learn to redeem every part of our lives — our homes, our habits, our media, our attention, and our relationships — becoming a joyful light to the world around us, much like Reagan hopes to embody in this defining new era of her life.

Find Reported by Reagan on Wednesdays for her conversational “Field Notes” episodes, and Saturdays for deep-dive, longer-form productions at youtube.com/@reaganconrad.

Read the full interview feature with Reagan Conrad in the upcoming print and digital SUMMER issue of The Swish Magazine