Expos 20: American Money Interviewing on Podcasts

--- tags: resources --- # Expos 20: American Money Interviewing on Podcasts We are excited to help you prepare for your podcast interviews, where you'll share a specific number each of you has selected as significant and thus worthy of explaining and analyzing. We're excited to help you think about these podcast projects! ## Activity 1: Close-Listening Let's do a close-listening to very quick excerpts from podcasts you've already listened to in class. * How would you describe the audio quality? * How would you characterize the formality of each podcast? What effect does that have on you as a listener? [NPR's The Indicator: The Social Cost of Carbon; 2:03](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1157550402/the-social-cost-of-carbon-a-powerful-tool-and-ethics-nightmare) [Slate's Money: Homebuilders Are Doing Great; 43:20](https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money/2023/02/slate-money-talks-new-home-sales-employment-for-people-with-disabilities-and-sbf) ## Activity 2: From Question to Story Learning your content well enough that you can respond to questions as they are actually asked *while also* hitting the key points you need to in order to explain your number in the most effective way is a real--but exciting--challenge! To start thinking about this, let's imagine our ideal interlocutor--a person who would ask the perfect questions in an ideal order and think about *why it is* that we want to be asked those questions. What is the story we hope to tell about our number, and what kinds of questions will help us articulate that story? * activity: * on one color card, write down 3-4 questions you would love to be asked * place those cards in the order you'd like them to be asked * on a DIFFERENT color card, write down the key point that each of those questions would allow you to address * then we'll reflect as a group about what the main "thread" of our discussions should be * how can we respond to the actual questions we are asked * but still have a way of articulating our key points ## Activity 3: Pre-Interviewing News organizations like NPR emphasize "pre-interviewing" as a key component of preparing for recorded interviews. It's a way of getting information from the interview subject and acclimating them to the interview format prior to recording. * If you had to imagine what pre-interviewing entails, what would you guess? * What type of information would be useful to have from a guest before sitting down to actually conduct the interview? You also have the option of conducting your interview informally/like "friends" or more formally/like "experts." * Head to either the small studio or to one of the microphone zones in the main studio to ask a few pre-interview questions of one another depending on the level of formality you want. * there are two microphones at each station * one condenser mic: condenser mics pick up a ton of sound and are ideal for environments where getting additional sound or sounding like you're recording on location is ideal (kind of an ethnographic/documentary style). they're very sensitive! * one dynamic mic: dynamic mics are ideal for environments where you can be quite close to the microphone since they only pick up what's right in front of them. they can handle high levels of volume without distorting the sound. ## Activity 4: GarageBand Demo [Assets](https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Tx82SlImTwLsBWgARXoP1b47uvOOruAv) ### Podcasting Resources * [Podcasting 101.](https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/ll-podcasting) * [LinkedIn Audacity.](https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-audacity-2/jump-into-the-world-of-audio-editing?u=2194065) * [Bok Podcast Tips.](https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/podcasts) * Sourcing Audio * [blue dot sessions](https://www.sessions.blue/) * [bensound](https://www.bensound.com/) * [free music archive](https://freemusicarchive.org/) ## Some Interview Prep Resources From NPR's internal training guides: * [story structure](https://training.npr.org/2016/03/02/understanding-story-structure-in-4-drawings/) * [the show editor's checklist](https://training.npr.org/2021/03/04/the-show-editors-interview-checklist/) * [casting, coaching an interview](https://training.npr.org/2018/03/05/casting-coaching-and-cutting-a-producers-guide-to-unmoderated-conversations/) Other resources: * [the art of the pre-interview](https://transom.org/2016/art-pre-interview/) ## Recording Tips Here are general podcasting tips, including recording and editing, from our [podcasting site](https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/ll-podcasting). ### Microphone placement: In order to guarantee the highest quality of audio in your recording, it is important to pay attention to the proximity between your microphone and your subject. When recording a group discussion it is important to arrange the participants so that they are equidistant from the recording device, and if possible, try to avoid areas with a lot of background noise (fan, laptop, open window or other groups of people). Choosing a location with a quiet atmosphere can also help to make sure you have a clear capture of everyone’s voice. However, some background noise is okay - you also want to keep the conversation feeling natural and not too staged - as long as you can hear all of the participants in the conversation. Other tips for increasing the quality of an audio recording are to remove your phone from its case, and limiting movement of your phone or other objects around it (for example, papers on a table). ### Test your recording: You may not be able to monitor your audio while recording, so it is important to test your recording prior to capturing anything that you plan to use later. Wear headphones while listening to playback to ensure the best quality while you are monitoring your test recording. Listen for things like background noise (HVAC, traffic, other people’s conversations) and to make sure that your microphone is picking up your subject at an appropriate level. ### Start early, stop late: Make sure to begin your recording prior to the start of a discussion, and allow it to run even when the discussion seems to be slowing down or has stopped. It is hard to know exactly which segment of a discussion will stand out as “the best” part, but you can ensure you don’t miss it by capturing everything. ### Name your recording: Even if you don’t have a lot of audio files stored on your phone, make sure to name your recordings after you have finished. This will help keep files organized throughout the uploading and transcription process, and can help you to make sure nothing gets deleted by accident.