In this Podcasting Series, we'll be cross-pollinating with a community of independent radio producers. What do we have in common? A love for making things and expressing ourselves, a desire to connect with other passionate people, and a variegated cross-section of people ranging from amateur to professional and everything in between.  We're also ambitious and want to change the status quo!

Public Radio is in a period of dynamic experimentation, trying to capture the energy of the Web 2.0 by crowdsourcing content from user-generated contributions and reaching out to hear new voices. In the interview below, I spoke with radio producers and community organizers Jones Franzel, Jaimita Haskell and Kiera Feldman, who will talk with us about their adventures in independent radio in an Online Workshop on March 12th. The piece below is sprinkled with some links to favorite shows. Post more of your faves in the comments below!

Vanessa: Let's start this off on the right foot...Why do you, Jones, Jaimita and Kiera, love radio?
Jones: What other medium puts you right smack in the middle of a story, lets you see and hear and imagine and experience it, without actually showing you a single picture?… Plus, radio is fun and relatively inexpensive to make, it’s also compelling, honest, and interesting.  A good radio story can change your life.

Kiera: I'm finishing college right now, and I find that radio has led me to all kinds of new interests. There’s a quote from Gwen Macsai that sums up my feelings well. She hosts Re: Sound — a terrific show on Chicago Public Radio. On a DIY radio site called Transom, she writes, “Radio is my first love and like a first love, no matter how far you stray and no matter how badly it ended, your heart still skips a beat when it walks through the door.”  Isn’t that great?

Third Coast has a yearly radio conference and competition. You can sample some of the emerging talent on their website.
Transom is a website where radiophiles and podcasters gather to talk shop.

Jaimita:  Wow… why do I love radio?  It’s different... It’s a different type of connection – radio forces you to listen, it forces you to think about what you’re hearing and actually see it in your mind and feel what you’re hearing…After all these years, people still come up to me and say, “I really appreciate your story.” I want to say, “That was 6 years ago!”

The Kitchen Sisters produce radio documentaries — and they have this way of choosing the most amazing, unexpected topics.  Give Hidden Kitchens a listen.

Vanessa: Jones, Can you introduce yourself and explain what PRX and GenerationPRX are, for those who don't already know? What is the relationship between Radio Rookies, YouthCast podcast and GenerationPRX?


Jones: The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is kind of like Etsy for radio — it’s an online marketplace for distribution, review and broadcast of public radio programs.  It’s also a social network of producers, stations and listeners collaborating to reshape public airwaves. GenerationPRX takes these tools and dedicates them to supporting, connecting and distributing youth-produced radio.  We work with over 50 youth radio groups (including Radio Rookies) and hundreds of teens and teachers who are making new, different and engaging radio, and we help get these heard.  The YouthCast podcast is one way we help share some of this radio with a larger audience — it’s curated and hosted by the amazing Kiera (who also runs the YouthCast podcast), and goes out through alt.NPR.org  This a long way of introducing myself as having a dream job!  I’ve been the project Director of Generation PRX since it launched in 2004.  (to get more detail on Generation PRX, please see read this).

Vanessa: Jaimita, Please introduce yourself. What is your background with the Radio Rookies program and how did you get involved? What was your experience with radio growing up?

Jaimita: I got started in radio when I was in high school...  When I was in school, Czerina (Patel – former director of Radio Rookies) came to my journalism class.  She came in to present, and when someone comes into present and you’re a teenager, you hear “blah blah blah.”  I filled out the application, but it was real short, and Czerina said, “Fill it out more in depth.”  I did, but I wasn’t accepted into the program at first — someone dropped out, and then she called me. At the time I was like “No, I wasn’t your first pick!” But my mother said to do it.  The experience was crazy. I was the only black female that was in my group and the reason why I say this is that the people in my group and I ... never ever ever spoke before [we got involved in the program], but all the people who went into the program had a really good bond.  

Growing up, the only thing with radio was music to me and 1010 WINS here and there, I never knew — NPR, what?  It wasn’t brought up in my household, though music was very important to me.  I was always listening to the radio, but if anybody told me I would have been into this when I was younger, I would have said “yeah right, sounds boring.”

Radio Rookies, a youth radio project based at WNYC since 1999, matches mentors to teens. Listen to the Radio Rookies pieces and read more about the project here.

Vanessa: Kiera, can you give us the low-down on the YouthCast? How did you get involved in radio? Can you tell us about how you came to KBOO Youth Collective, in Portland, Oregon?

Kiera: Each YouthCast podcast features just one example of all of the exciting work that’s bubbling out of the GenerationPRX hot springs. I like to say that YouthCast is a glimpse into the Magic 8 ball of radio’s future (and the outlook is good).

Like most “how I found the thing I really like to nerd out about” stories, I kind of stumbled into radio. As a freshman in college I went to an open house at Brown Student and Community Radio where I met a formidably talented producer named Kathleen Ross. We hit it off and started a humor show called Gladiators of Awesome. Kathleen was an alum of Blunt Youth Radio in Portland, Maine. Home in Portland, Oregon for summer break, I wanted to learn editing so I showed up at the KBOO Youth Collective’s weekly meeting and said, “Teach me!” The amazing Erin Yanke (youth advisor) basically replied, “Sure! This is how you edit sound. Go make whatever you want!”

The moral of the story is that community radio is a beautiful thing. You can learn production skills, plot collaborations, and, most importantly, have a space to produce for fun.

Radio Diaries does series (Prison Diaries, Teenage Diaries, AIDs Diary) where they give equipment to people who record their lives, and then Joe Richman, the producer, shapes the tape into documentary pieces. They also offer the incredibly useful Teen Reporter Handbook for free (and it's not just for teens!). 

Vanessa: Jones, can you speak a bit about the GenPRX platform and its role as a marketplace? How do you see the internet changing the face of radio?

Jones: With the internet anyone can make audio stories — once you’ve got access to a computer, download Audacity, take a free online tutorial (like this one from Kiera) and boom!  You are a podcaster. In the same way that Etsy showcases various items, GPRX curates audio to direct visitors and stations to pieces that match their interests, and users can rate and review pieces for others to see.  The review function has multiples purposes — it lets users identify pieces, helps producers improve their work for air, and creates a conversation between makers of radio.

Download Audacity and get right to experimenting!  Audacity is a free, open-source audio editing program. You can also record into your computer if you have a line in, or just use Skype to conduct interviews.

Vanessa: Jaimita, did you have a moment where you realized the impact radio had on your life? Or the impact your radio pieces had on others? Or was it a gradual thing, or a thing that always made sense to you?

Jaimita: Yes. One of the impacts radio had was that it separated me from everyone else in high school. I had a story where I had to bring my Marantz recorder into school — which was very embarrassing (they called it a karaoke machine) — but it set me apart and made me different before my story was even finished.

One of my friends actually listened to my story one time, and she looked and me and was like, “I never knew you felt that way.”  The story was a way of communicating with another peer, even though she was close to me she didn’t know that I was upset.

  StoryCorps is a project that enables everyday people to make a recording of an interview: it's like a radio oral history project for the Internet Age. The project sets up recording studios in places like Grand Central station or the public library in Nashville, and anyone can sign up, go in, and record an interview with a friend or family member.  Find out more on the StoryCorps website and get their podcast here.

Vanessa: Any other suggestions for listening — especially shows that work with user-generated content or bring new voices to the airwaves and people's iPods?

Jones: Many many of the groups on GenerationPRX also have their own podcasts you can find through their websites, and you can always start your own. Vocalo.org is an exciting new project at WBEZ that’s working almost entirely with community-generated content.  The internet has also opened up new ways to find radio personalities.  Last year PRX ran the Public Radio Talent Quest, a hugely popular competition with an open call for submissions.

Kiera: Check out Tell Me More to see how new shows on NPR are starting to involve audiences in the production of the show, by blogging about upcoming shows and integrating audience input from comments.

See other articles in this Podcasting Series. Post your favorite radio shows and podcasts in the comments below!