Students attend International Audio Festival in Chicago
The Media School Report
November 17, 2017
Seven Media School student producers from American Student Radio traveled with adjunct instructors Amy Gastelum and Allison Quantz to Chicago to attended the Third Coast International Audio Festival. At the two-day conference, students networked with industry leaders and learned tips on storytelling and production. They blogged about their experiences afterward.
American Student Radio attends Third Coast International Audio Festival
By Sophia Saliby
Media School students (from left): Emily Miles, Kathryn de la Rosa, Sarah Panfil, Angelo Bautista, Sheila Raghavendran, Sophia Saliby and Carter Barrett, and instructor Amy Gastelum attend the Third Coast International Audio Festival. (Courtesy photo)
Seven members of American Student Radio’s leadership team attended the Third Coast International Audio Festival Nov. 9-11 in Chicago.
The annual conference is a gathering of 800 radio and podcast producers. We were joined by IU audio storytelling instructors Amy Gastelum and Allison Quantz. This was the first time most of us had the opportunity to go to Third Coast. My fellow producers and I drew inspiration from keynote talks, breakout sessions, live events and even a late night dance party.
Throughout the conference, we had the chance to meet and connect with producers whose content we admire. Many conference attendees, including some American Student Radio alums, were more than willing to meet with current ASR producers, and we appreciated this positive environment. The conference provided a look at the industry we all would like to be a part of after graduation, and it offered an opportunity to network and grow as future journalists and audio producers.
“I felt so welcomed and encouraged by other people at the conference. There were independent radio producers, community radio reporters (and) audio artists,” said ASR co-founder Sarah Panfil. “People came from a multitude of backgrounds but united to talk about and support audio storytelling.”
There were many times over the course of the conference when I shared with other attendees what ASR does at IU. Over and over, the response was either, “I can’t believe you’re able to do that,” or “I wish I had a group like that when I was in school.” These reactions capture how ASR is unique, especially as a student-run organization. We were able to get perspective on how our experience with ASR at IU will impact us as we enter a growing job market for audio producers.
“It was great to talk with experienced radio producers about the future of a thriving industry. There are careers in radio, whether it be as a radio news reporter or as part of a growing independent podcast,” said ASR producer Carter Barrett. “The skills we use in ASR are extremely marketable, and it’s a mistake to ignore this growing field.”
The do’s and don’ts of pitching a piece
By Angelo Bautista
Kathryn de la Rosa, Angelo Bautista and Carter Barrett network with leaders in audio storytelling. (Emily Miles | The Media School)
You have a story idea in your head. You’ve done the research, you’ve done your pre-interviews and you’ve gathered some good tape.
But now what? How are you going to get the story into the head of an editor who can help you get that story into the heads of listeners? You pitch it.
Pitching is a difficult but essential skill for every radio producer and audio storyteller. Although we aren’t salespeople, we need to be able to sell our ideas in order to reach a wider audience. This is why every year, Third Coast and the Association of Independents in Radio put on what they call their “Bitchin’ Pitch Panel.” A select few storytellers get the chance to pitch their story ideas to a live power panel of editors.
Here are some of the lessons I took away from listening to these pitches:
Everyone Struggles with Pitching
Even the most seasoned producers struggled to pitch their stories. These producers have already published their work in outlets such as NPR’s All Things Considered, Marketplace and their own podcasts. Take comfort in this fact. If everyone is bad at pitching, then anyone can be good at it, too.
Keep It Short
This was one of the big mistakes I saw. Many of the pitches were entirely too long or too cluttered with information. Some of the editors said they struggled to keep up with some pitches because there was too much being thrown at them.
An editor wants to know what the story is and what it is about in as few words as possible. Brevity and conciseness is key in radio. If your pitch fails to be either, you need to go back and work on shortening your pitch.
Know the Story, Know the Show
There are essential elements to every story. There’s characters, scene and conflict. There’s a narrative arc to follow and a big idea behind it all. You need all of these in a good pitch. Some pitchers had a good idea or a topic, but lacked some of the elements that make it a story. Many editors had questions like: Who is the character we follow in this story? What is the arc? Where is the interesting angle into this story?
And obviously, make sure you know the show that you are pitching for. Your pitch may be good, but the outlet may say that the story isn’t for them.
There Is No Failing Pitch
Sruthi Pinnamaneni from Gimlet Media’s ReplyAll told us pitches are like gum. They’re flexible. A pitch can always be changed and adjusted. If an editor rejects your pitch, that’s OK. Keep practicing your pitch. If you believe you have a good story to tell, go back to the drawing board and try again. There is always a better way to sell it.
Rethinking my creative output
By Kathryn de la Rosa
(clockwise) Angelo Bautista, Carter Barrett, Sarah Panfil, Sheila Raghavendran, instructor Amy Gastelum, Sophia Saliby and Kathryn de la Rosa converse at the conference. (Emily Miles | The Media School)
Third Coast kicked off with Late Night Provocations: five-minute speeches from radio producers challenging conference attendees to rethink their creative output over the next few days. Collectively, their challenges are widely applicable to anyone who tells stories:
1. Stop signposting.
Revisionist History producer Mia Lobel challenged us to abandon the audio-standard tool of signposting: inserting blindingly obvious transitions that fundamentally distrust the listener to follow a story, for example, “Here’s where things get really interesting.”
2. Go bilingual.
Martina Castro, a producer who has worked with Radio Ambulante, asked us to consider the audiences we overlook when we choose English as the only language for our stories. She highlighted the work done by Radio Atlas and her own experience collaborating with monolingual producers to reach Spanish-speaking audiences.
3. Rethink how to frame stories about people who face oppression.
My personal idols Kathy Tu and Tobin Low from WNYC’s Nancy shared this viral clip that is truly worth seeing, and they gave us some pointers to avoid making such ridiculous mistakes when reporting stories on anyone who isn’t a white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied man, which is most people.
4. Go rogue.
Maureen McMurray from New Hampshire Public Radio told producers in public media to go rogue if they feel like their station managers are resistant to change, or otherwise not facilitating journalism that needs to exist. McMurray herself stubbornly co-created Outside/In despite NHPR’s disinterest. Today, the program is on NHPR, and she is now content director of NHPR.
5. For white folks in the room: Flip the script on race reporting.
Angelo Bautista carries a Third Coast Audio Festival bag. (Emily Miles | The Media School)
John Biewen, a radio veteran who leads the audio program at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, recently launched a documentary series called Seeing White, which examines the construction of whiteness in America. As a person of color, I thought this was especially interesting to consider, and significant alongside Kathy and Tobin’s provocation.
6. Meet audiences through media they use.
Sarah Alvarez, an investigative reporter formerly of Michigan Radio, left radio to start Outlier Media, which she calls a team of public service journalists. The Detroit-based service delivers information directly to consumers via SMS and Facebook Messenger. Its flagship project is a personalized, free report on whether rental homes in Detroit have back taxes or have been inspected, which homeowners can access by texting a five-digit phone number. Alvarez pointed to the overwhelmingly white and affluent core audience of public media and asked us whether those were the audiences we really wanted to serve.
7. Think like a fiction writer.
Brian Reed of This American Life and S-Town had 10 minutes to encourage us to get insanely creative within the restrictions of fact, leaning on the sweepingly literary production of S-Town for examples. S-Town is one of my favorite works ever. Its protagonist, John B. McLemore, explicitly framed his home of Woodstock, Alabama, (“Shittown”) to Brian Reed, with short stories by Shirley Jackson and William Faulkner. The most ludicrous but wonderful example Reed shared was that in crime reports filed in Bibb County, there’s a section to tick under what light the crime occurred. For a fight central to S-Town, the officer ticked “moon.” Brian Reed’s narration would include “According to the police report, it was a clear, moonlit night …” It takes an acute level of observation and just plain joy of writing to write a detail like that, which Reed said we can all do.
Connecting with an alum
By Emily Miles
When I exported my Audio Storytelling final project last semester, no part of me ever expected Curtis Fox to hear it.
Jessi Carrier (producer for the podcast Love+Radio) talks with Sheila Raghavendran. (Emily Miles | The Media School)
But at Third Coast, that’s what happens sometimes. Sometimes it’s 5:30 p.m., and your Radio Innovation professor offers up her session with one of the conference’s audio doctors — the originator of multiple New Yorker podcasts, a producer for WNYC, an editor for Ear Hustle, the host of Poetry Off the Shelf and an IU alumnus.
Of course, IU was our first topic of discussion in the conference room, where we occupied only one corner of a massive wooden table.
He asked about what I do now and what I’d like to do eventually, the sorts of questions that make a college junior nervous. But like everyone else I met at Third Coast, he assured me I’d be alright.
Once he knew all there was to know about me, he asked if I’d brought a clip.
Perhaps overly cautious, I had the feature story pulled up from Canvas, Box and an email to my mom. For good measure, I had also emailed and texted the file to myself.
Fox listened to the whole thing, all six minutes. He complimented a butt cut between the main subject and an expert, and I felt validated.
We talked about the piece’s general strengths and weaknesses, such as the pervasiveness of the music bed and the challenge to understand the subject. Then he asked to hear it again.
This time, we took turns tapping and pausing the phone between us. Fox gave advice. He said I should give a physical description of Betsy. Maybe Christine’s voice isn’t necessary. I need to cut an actuality here, let another one breathe there. And the music must come down. But, again, nice butt cut. I seared it into my eardrums.
By the end, we’d gone over time just slightly, but there was still room for Fox to tell a story about visiting the Bloomington quarries as a child.
With Bloomington in my head, I walked away thinking about the possibilities for a Hoosier who loves radio.
Cultural representation in media
By Sheila Raghavendran
Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby walked onstage. I beamed. I’ve smiled and snapped in accordance so many times while listening to their podcast, Code Switch, that I couldn’t help but do the same when seeing them in person.
Hari Kondabolu talks about his new documentary, The Problem with Apu. (Sheila Raghavendran | The Media School)
This year’s Third Coast International Audio Festival sold out, with 800 attendees from across the world. It was exciting to meet audio producers from as close as Indianapolis and as far as Australia. Though there were people from various world regions, I quickly noticed that this weekend’s group was largely white. Assuming that this sample of 800 producers is more or less representative of the audio industry, I am even more compelled to continue producing stories about the experiences my minority background shapes.
Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby perform a live show of their podcast Code Switch. (Sheila Raghavendran | The Media School)
Code Switch, a weekly NPR podcast about race and culture, held a live show at the Harris Theater in conjunction with Third Coast. The Code Switch live show was like a radio alternate universe. Meraji and Demby interviewed Hari Kondabolu, an Indian-American comedian who will soon release The Problem with Apu, a documentary about the cultural issues of an insensitively crafted Indian character on The Simpsons. I related to Kondabolu’s takes about not having enough South Asian role models in America. And now, even though we have Aziz Ansari and Mindy Kaling, as Kondabolu pointed out, it’s still not enough.
We need to improve cultural representation in all fields — journalism, entertainment, literature, politics, etc. — and thanks to the skills, connections and insight I picked up at the Third Coast festival, I hope to make my contribution to the audio industry.
Learning to tell the best story
By Carter Barrett
The final speaker of the Third Coast International Audio conference was Ira Glass, creator of This American Life. He outlined seven things he’s learned over his career.
#1 How to tell a story
Telling stories is the premise of journalism. A sequence of events is powerful, and people will engage with topics that don’t interest them just to know the ending.
#2 How to interview kids
Fact: Kids make great radio. They’re honest, and since they’re experiencing things for the first time, the stakes feel high. But when interviewing kids, Glass said to talk to them like you would an adult.
#3 It’s normal to be bad before you’re good.
Glass started at NPR when he was 19, and he admits he wasn’t any good. After eight years at NPR, he produced a story about Oreo cookies. Still, even after almost a decade, it wasn’t the content on This American Life.
“To the people trying to make stuff and it’s not as good as you want it to be, it’ll get better,” Glass said. “All you can do is keep making work and show it to people.”
#4 Amuse yourself
Even in super-serious stories, there should be funny or surprising moments. Find something about your character that isn’t in the tape. Imitate other people if you’re not sure how. Find ways to be funny, even if you’re not.
“Life is short. Let’s amuse ourselves,” Glass said.
#5 Failure is a success
At This American Life, one-third of stories never air. Sometimes they need to try stories to know if they’re any good.
“Any process of finding a story is inefficient,” Glass said, “It’s like being struck by lightning, so you have to walk around in the rain for a long time.”
#6 All This American Life stories are like Fiddler on the Roof
There’s a feeling Glass said he wants all stories to have. First, they start with something small and funny. Next, they introduce compelling characters and then reveal a larger, universal theme.
While at a production of Fiddler on the Roof, Glass realized all This American Life stories follow the same structure.
#7 It’s Not War
In the era of fake news, Glass said people who create fake news treat it like war. But journalists don’t see it that way.
“I’m disturbed by the unfactual things people I like a lot say to me all the time, forming a fable about America that’s not true and believing it,” Glass said.
He said radio is a part of the media that has an unusual opportunity to fight fake news. This American Life has lots of far-right Trump supporters write in, saying they love the show.
“You can get people to listen to a podcast that don’t engage with the media in any other way,” Glass said. “We have the ability to try to make a future.”
Personal Narrative and the “us-cast”
By Sarah Panfil
As a student, attending the Third Coast conference was invaluable. I had the opportunity to meet with and talk to members of a booming audio industry and envision a future career within it.
The three days included breakout sessions, during which successful audio storytellers shared tips and tricks of the trade based on a topic. I attended a session about telling personal stories, led by reporter Sally Herships and editor Alan Hall.
Herships told the personal story of her husband abruptly leaving her and of coming to terms with the grief she endured afterward. The story then aired on the BBC for a podcast called Falling Tree.
Personal narratives have saturated the narrative landscape in recent years, but Herships and Hall argued that we must avoid the tendency to create “me-casts” in podcasting. Herships and Hall introduced the concept of the “us-cast” as a different approach to personal stories.
A personal story, Herships and Hall said, is worth sharing when that story offers specificity and intimacy to a listener. As storytellers, we must consider whether the story will be interesting to a listener who is not just your grandma or close friend; it has to have legs.
A personal story worth telling should also have “structure, purpose and meaning,” Herships said, drawing on advice offered by her aunt. More so, the storyteller should consider whether they’re telling the story to look good, or to share something “powerful and true.”
I appreciated the advice shared in the breakout session, but also have come to realize that there is no one right way to tell a story. Every time, though, we should put thought and care into what we are sharing.
There is so much happening in the audio storytelling world, and I’m happy to be a part of the community. As I heard a few people say at during the conference, it felt like a family reunion.
