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Madi Chantry sent her guests the questions before recording, cut any they did not want, and drew the same line around what she discloses herself.
“Many people mistake talking openly and transparently for oversharing and crossing boundaries,” Madi Chantry says. The subjects she covers stay uncovered for a related reason: “A lot of individuals avoid talking about taboo topics because they’re afraid of uncomfortable conversations.” Chantry spent six monthly episodes on those subjects for Harrogate Community Radio, under OFCOM rules, with her name on the production. Her answer to the confusion was not to disclose more. It was to decide in advance what she would not disclose at all.
Madi Chantry is a journalist in England, the founder of the women’s community She., and the producer, presenter and editor of Mastering Brave Conversations.
Every Guest Got the Questions Before the Recording Started
Chantry’s working claim is that candour follows preparation, not surprise. The preparation runs in two directions, into the subject and into the person sitting across from her. “I research my topics and guests thoroughly before presenting on my radio show, meaning my questions are appropriate and sensible on air,” she says.
Then the questions go out. Guests receive them before the recording, and any question they do not want is cut. “I send my questions to my radio show guests before recording so they feel prepared for what I’ll ask, and if they find any uncomfortable, I remove them.” The veto is the load-bearing half of that arrangement. A question she is willing to lose is a question a guest can afford to consider.
The episode that best shows what the arrangement buys was on mental health, recorded with guests Georgia Goulding and Pat Porter. “In the episode, we spoke about medication, sexuality, depression, anxiety, and therapy,” Chantry says. Five subjects in a single recording, none of which arrived cold and any of which could have been struck in advance. When the recording stopped, one guest’s verdict was: “It felt so therapeutic to talk about.” The listeners came afterwards. “Those who listened to this episode reached out and told me they felt heard and seen. Mental health is often looked down upon, and I wanted to shift this.”
What Chantry Withholds From Her Own Writing
The blog runs on different rules and the same boundary. “For my Substack, it’s a little different. I do research, yes, but my blog is more personal and opinion-based.” The post that drew the most response was about the pressure young people feel to have sex by a particular age, written from her own experience. “Young individuals feel like they have to lose their virginity when they turn the legal age, but soon regret it after. I wrote about my own experiences, and how I’m glad I didn’t rush into it.” Readers her own age answered it directly. “I had so many girls similar to my age reach out and tell me how understood they felt when reading this blog post.”
What the post does not do is trade her privacy for the reach. “With my blog, I do spread awareness on issues not widely spoken about, but I don’t go about it in a way where I’m sacrificing my privacy.” The subject is open; the writer is not on the table. Her stated purpose sits outside that line: “Being transparent is core to my personal brand because I want to show others that it’s okay to be vulnerable and seek help, even through reading another person’s writing.”
What Anyone Running a Hard Conversation Can Steal From a Radio Studio
None of this requires a studio. Four moves carried the show, and each transfers to any room where a difficult subject has to be opened with someone who did not choose it.
- First, research the person, not only the topic. Chantry’s preparation covered both, and the test she applied to her own questions was whether they were appropriate before they were asked rather than defensible afterwards.
- Second, send the agenda ahead and let it be edited. An advance list only earns the other person’s attention if they can strike from it, which means the sending and the veto are one move, not two.
- Third, price the veto before you offer it. What Chantry gave up was any question a guest found uncomfortable. The cost is a question. The return is everything the guest says once the recording starts.
- Fourth, choose the room, not only the words. The show ran monthly on a Sunday morning slot, and a subject too explicit for that audience moved to a late Thursday evening slot so that children would not be listening, inside OFCOM’s guidelines and with no swearing on air. The subject was never softened. The scheduling did the protecting instead.
One listener wrote to Chantry after the endometriosis episode: “It makes me really happy to hear you talking about it. It really should be more normalised.”
The four moves point at the same person, the one who has decided their situation is theirs alone to handle. “When you feel like you’re navigating everything by yourself, you don’t reach out to people because you feel like a burden, so you end up juggling everything on your own,” Chantry says. What she would tell that person is one sentence: “You’re not alone; you’re just not surrounding yourself with the right people.”
Who Is Madi Chantry, the Journalist Behind Mastering Brave Conversations?
Madi Chantry is a journalist based in England, the founder of She., a women’s community, and the creator of Mastering Brave Conversations, the Harrogate Community Radio show she produced, presented and edited across six monthly episodes.
She is studying Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Leeds Trinity University and has written a Substack on mental health, growing up, change, sex and relationships since June 2025. Her published bylines include “Catcalling or Compliment?” in The Indiependent and a March 2026 piece in Gurlish Magazine on dating apps, built on a survey she ran herself. In June 2025 she received the Digital and Media Brilliance Award, presented by York College, where she was then a student.
“I founded She. because I never felt accepted in society. Throughout my years of education, I felt as though I never truly fit in, and that no one could ever like me for me. I knew others felt this way, in adulthood, too,” Chantry says. The community was built for a condition rather than a demographic: “Founding She. was a way to connect women across the globe, because oftentimes we find ourselves feeling lonely even if we’re not quite alone.” What its members report back is what the show and the blog were also built to produce. “I’ve had people tell me they find it hard to connect with people in real life, but joining this group and meeting likeminded people has really helped them.”
The radio show has ended and the writing has not, but the rule that governed both is portable. Madi Chantry’s argument is not that hard subjects should be discussed more. It is that they can only be discussed usefully by someone who has already decided where the line falls, and decided it before anyone else is in the room.
Madi Chantry is a journalist based in England, the founder of She., a women’s community, and the creator of Mastering Brave Conversations, the Harrogate Community Radio show she produced, presented and edited across six monthly episodes. To connect with Madi or learn more, visit her LinkedIn Profile.
