Third Coast Pocket Conference

Whether you’re a longform documentary maker, or reporting a short news spot, you need to have a deep understanding of the people and places you’re covering. WBEZ reporter Linda Lutton and Snap Judgment producer Adizah Eghan both believe in telling deeper stories through staying in one place. But it’s not easy. At the 2018 Third Coast Conference, we brought together Adizah and Linda to discuss the peaks and pitfalls they’ve encountered when reporting stories that unfold in real time over months. This session includes practical tips on finding characters, identifying storylines, wrestling with hours of tape, and handling fatigue. For a full list of resources mentioned in this session, along with a transcript provided by Descript, visit ThirdCoastFestival.org  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Building a radio story often means hours (Dozens? Hundreds?) of tape, reams of written notes, photos, links, and research... It is very easy to get lost in this mountain of material — unsure of what or even where your best stuff is. Eric Mennel (formerly a producer of StartUp) has reported everything from spot news to serialized narrative seasons. At the 2018 Third Coast Conference, he shared some of the best tools he’s learned for keeping stuff organized. He also make the (strong) case that the very process of organization helps craft a better story, no matter the length. Spreadsheets! Field notes! File structures! It's all here. You can find a link to the spreadsheet template Eric made here or at ThirdCoastFestival.org. You can listen to all the sessions from previous years of the conference at ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Podcasting has shaken up the way public media reporters & journalists tell stories - in some deeply exciting and innovative ways! How can audio producers in public media, including member stations outside of major markets, continue to innovate storytelling formats - even while taking risks, or working in uncharted stylistic territory? And - how can local public radio stations jump into the fray too, hooking national audiences on stories that they can uniquely report, in their own backyard - and with increasingly fresh takes? At the 2018 Third Coat Conference, Maureen McMurray of New Hampshire Public radio dove in with panelists from three outstanding narrative podcasts in public media: Jeannie Yandel & Jim Gates of Battle Tactics for Your Sexist Workplace (KUOW), Erika Aguilar of The Bay (KQED) and Shannon Heffernan of 16 Shots (WBEZ). You can listen to all the sessions from previous years of the conference at ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Come hang with journalists Leila Day and Hana Baba, co-hosts of The Stoop Podcast: stories from across the Black diaspora. Born out of the side conversations they had while microwavin' their lunches in the kitchen of KALW where they worked together, The Stoop digs into things Black communities are living, but don't talk about enough. And throughout their podcast journey, Leila and Hana kept hearing the same questions: "who's you're audience?" and "Should audience affect the content and style of a show?" At the 2018 Third Coast Conference, Leila & Hana led an honest conversation about audience, identity and being a maker of color in an industry that's overwhelmingly lacking in diversity. Drawing from their own work and the inspirations of others, they presented some creative ways they’ve found for producers to own their own narrative. You can listen to all the sessions from previous years of the conference at ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How can audio storytelling translate to — and interact with — media like photography and print, and platforms like public installations and live events? And how to conceive and develop such projects? At the 2018 Third Coast Conference, independent producer Ruxandra Guidi and Sayre Quevedo, a multimedia artist & journalist, dove into these questions together. During their session, they shared their inspirations, works-in-progress, and tips on how to make successful collaborations that bring stories back to communities. You can find the visuals referenced in this conference session on our website, ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In June of 2018, ProPublica released a piece of audio that would come to define one of the most critical news stories of the year: the separation and detention of families seeking asylum at the U.S. - Mexico border. The opening panel of the 2018 Third Coast Conference explored the extensive reporting behind this story — and how the it continued to unfold, even after the daily news cycle moved on. Moderated by Sean Rameswaram (Today, Explained), the panel was made up of a group of journalists who had been tirelessly reporting this story: Anayansi Diaz-Cortes (Reveal), Caitlin Dickerson (The New York Times) & Jeremy Raff (The Atlantic). This session took on the realities of translating a complex, ongoing human rights crisis into story.  You can listen to all the sessions from previous years of the conference at ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Two moments are colliding: An oppressive politics of hate and repression, and a boom in narrative storytelling. So how do we use one to confront the other? It’s time to think deeply, meta-critically, and proactively about the work of narrative storytelling; to challenge the ways that podcasts privilege whiteness, quirkiness, empathy, and centrism, using a critical reframing lens. At the 2018 Third Coast Conference, Chenjerai Kumanyika (Rutger’s Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, host of Uncivil & contributor to Seeing White) and Sandhya Dirks (KQED reporter and host of American Suburb) offered techniques to explode traditional narratives. How do we reframe the way we conceive, report, and compose stories? This session challenges the illusion that there is an innocent, objective, or purely entertaining story. All stories are stories about power, and our power as storytellers is to better interrogate the structures that shape, and too often determine, not just our understandings but people’s lives. You can listen to all the sessions from previous years of the conference at ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're kicking off this season of the Pocket Conference with the closing event of the conference: the Awards Ceremony for the 2018 Third Coast / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition. This year's Awards Ceremony was historic for a few reasons. First and foremost: when the award-winning producers took the stage in Chicago, they set a new standard for awards speeches — using the microphone to push for structural, political & creative change in the audio world. You can listen to all of the winning stories from the 2018 competition at ThirdCoastFestival.org. There you can also find a link to the full transcript of the Awards Ceremony, thanks to Descript. We're sharing so much more each week - sign up for Producer News to stay in the loop!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode we’re bringing you another session from the 2018 Audiocraft Conference in Sydney, Australia. While there's often talk about creating the Next Big Thing in podcasting, Eleanor McDowall (Falling Tree Productions & Radio Atlas) and Helen Zaltzman (The Allusionist from Radiotopia) are curious about small, quiet acts of invention. In this session, they discuss ways they play with form to create something that sounds fresh and surprises listeners, season after season. If you like what you hear on this episode, subscribe to the Audiocraft podcast or check them out at audiocraft.com.au.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode we’re bringing you a session from the 2018 Audiocraft Conference in Sydney, Australia. Hear about the ways you can transform your audio story with music. Audiocraft's Jess O'Callaghan moderates this discussion between Jaye Kranz (Audiocraft/independent) and Jon Tjhia (Paper Radio), who are not only great audio producers, but fine musicians as well. Together, they consider music as an element of storytelling that can add, detract, or play with the other components of the story. If you like what you hear on this episode, subscribe to the Audiocraft podcast or check them out at audiocraft.com.au  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this session from the 2017 Third Coast Conference, sound artist and designer Stephan Moore demonstrates his approach to sound design. He explains how he incorporates generative techniques into a range of unusual projects, including a 500 lb. ear training device, a 40-speaker installation in the Guggenheim Museum, and a system to create a musical accompaniment to the Australian motorway system.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Often, the first question a show or editor will ask you when you pitch them an amazing story is whether your subject is "a good talker." But what if they're not? What if English is their second or third language? Or they come from a culture that tells stories that under-emphasize the self? Do they have any place in an American podcast aesthetic that is so relentlessly focused on "I"? Gregory Warner wrestled with this problem in creating NPR's first international podcast, Rough Translation. In this session from the 2017 Third Coast Conference, Gregory pulls from his own tape to show how you can work with challenging interviews of so-called “bad talkers” to create exceptional stories.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Is traditional “objectivity” in journalism on its way out? In this session from the 2017 Third Coast Conference, NPR editor Alicia Montgomery and reporter/editor Shaya Tayefe Mohajer hash out points of agreement and disagreement over the role of "objectivity" in radio and print.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After a lifetime in the system, Noel Anaya got unprecedented permission from family court to record the hearing where he’d age out of foster care--and worked with Youth Radio to, in his words, “blow it up on NPR.” Noel and two Youth Radio producers, Teresa Chin and Lissa Soep, go deep into the making of Youth Radio stories to share what they've learned about establishing the “rules” of collaboration from the beginning, bouncing back when best-laid plans fall through, navigating challenging moments like when you’re required to fact-check the lived experience of your creative partner, and managing the digital afterlife of a story once it’s aired.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Imagine opening your work to the possibilities of drama and fiction that can bring a rich, more expansive story to life. Think of the elements you could incorporate… dreams, satire, flashbacks, recreations, invented characters, fantasy plot turns, speculative futures, and much more. And what does it sound like when you push the boundaries of reality? In this session from the 2017 Third Coast Conference, Ann Heppermann (The Sarah Awards) and Ellen Horne (Audible) take a look at the wild yonder and the scary and fascinating dilemmas in that space.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.