“Best Indie Podcast Host” Nominee Is Milwaukee-Based Creator With News Reporter Roots

MILWAUKEE—After six years of hosting the Lead Balloon podcast about the adventures of professional storytellers, Wisconsin-based creator Dusty Weis has been nominated for “Best Indie Podcast Host” in this year’s international Podcast Academy awards, the Ambies.

This will be Weis’s second time walking the red carpet as an Ambies nominee. Lead Balloon was previously nominated for “Best Business Podcast” in 2023, and is once again in the running for “Best Business Podcast” this year.

“We’re up against NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and four other big budget TITANS for best business podcast,” Weis said. “We don’t have a shot at winning that, but it’s an honor just to be in the running against shows like Masters of Scale and Business Wars.”

“But I like our chances for ‘Best Indie Podcast Host,’” he added.

Winners will be announced at the 6th annual Ambies awards show in New York on February 23, 2026. Academy voting is underway now.

Weis is a former journalist and PR practitioner, and now heads Podcamp Media, a podcast production studio in downtown Milwaukee working with clients from across North America.

Its flagship program Lead Balloon chronicles notable tales from professional storytellers, public relations practitioners, and marketing mavericks, exploring paradigm-bending campaigns, behind-the-scenes lessons, and hilarious anecdotes involving some of the world’s most influential brands.

“It’s like Freakonomics for communicators and media consumers,” Weis likes to say.

Lead Balloon previously made history as the first podcast to fly a ride-along with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, and has featured guests including White House communicators, HBO producers and brand managers behind the internet’s most infamous viral sensations.

In its most recent season, Weis has increasingly used Lead Balloon as a platform to call attention to alarming trends in misinformation and technology, including the rise of wholly AI-generated SLOP (Synthetic Lazily-Outsourced Podcasts) that game algorithms to capture ad revenue. Weight for It host Ronald Young, Jr. and Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro were guests in a spirited discussion about whether AI could ever actually replace human podcast hosts, and helped Weis earn his “Best Indie Podcast Host” nomination.

Additionally, a fan-favorite episode featured Liquid Death VP of Creative Andy Pearson with the behind-the-scenes story of the brand’s successful jet airplane giveaway—a nod to the infamous Pepsi Harrier jet PR fiasco of the late 1990s. Jeff Beer from Fast Company joined the episode as well, and together they helped Lead Balloon secure its second nomination for “Best Business Podcast.”

Previous honors for Lead Balloon include:

• Winner, Adweek’s “Marketing Podcast of the Year” (2020)
• Webby Awards – Nomination for Best Creativity and Marketing Podcast (2022)
• The Ambies Podcast Academy Awards – Nomination for Best Business Podcast (2023)
• Milwaukee Press Club Gridiron Awards – Silver Medal for Best Podcast (2024)
• Signal Awards for Podcasting – Silver Medal for Creativity and Marketing Podcast (2025)

The editorial team for the 2025 season of Lead Balloon included editors Matt Covarrubias and Emily Kaysinger. A new season of the show debuts next week.

“Podcasting is a special medium; you don’t need a big-name studio from the East Coast or the West Coast to do world-class work,” Weis said.

“As always, I’m darn proud of the work we do here in the Midwest. Huge thanks to Matt and Emily for making me look good every time they fire up the audio editing software. I appreciate so much the incredible guests who share their time and insights with us on the show. And to the listeners, especially the folks who have been with us since the beginning: you’re the reason we keep chasing down these stories. Thanks for coming along on the ride with us.”

Listen and subscribe to Lead Balloon at podcampmedia.com/leadballoon, or on your favorite podcast app. Follow @PodcampMedia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.

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