Farewell to Starting Out
Some final resources and a guide to the archive
Hi y’all!
Back in January I told y’all that I would be in touch in two months and it’s uh…December.
Here’s the headline: as you may have guessed, Starting Out is coming to an end. I love this project, but the time off gave me the space to focus on my community in North Carolina. And deepening that connection has become a bigger priority for me. .
I’m writing this from my garden in Durham, as students at UNC finished with the fall semester. I was a first year there a little over ten years ago (oh my God!) and the environment I entered is fundamentally different from the one they’re in now.
Last spring I watched as police employed what local officials described as “aggressive” force on student protesters. The administration closed the campus’ center for social justice (though they’ve recently been allowed to reopen with reduced hours). They recently shuttered the campus’ Diversity and Inclusion office while the student body became less diverse. There are cameras on the quad now, and professors are being surveilled. To be a college student today, especially a student journalist, feels perilous.
Over the last year there’s been plenty of talk about how the students are our future, how they’ll save us. I kind of hate it. Because that’s a lot of responsibility. Students from New York to North Carolina to Gaza to Bangladesh should be able to focus on learning, making mistakes, and having fun with their friends. That they’re being asked to save the rest of us while many are struggling to survive feels like a profound failure on the part of the adults in the room.
The Starting Out newsletter has been a valuable way for me to try and support student journalists, and anyone who is coming into the world of audio with the hunger to learn and take risks. And even though I’m stepping away, I’ll always be committed to that support: I still love talking to college classes, and chatting with people about how to get their foot in the door.
I’m so grateful to everyone who has given an interview, helped with a resource guide, sent me a job posting to share, or a kind note. And of course, I adore the team at Transom who have been my collaborators.
They’ve got some exciting things going on— the Traveling Workshop is back, there’s a one month residency on offer, and a new Transom newsletter. If you’re a total beginner, I particularly recommend the Traveling Workshop!
There’s so much to be said about how we hire and pay interns, the barriers for people switching careers, the importance of collective organizing. But if you read through the archives you’ll see my opinions on all of these topics (Pay people well! Remove the barriers! Start a union!).
And if I had another wish for this industry, after the revolution comes and all our shops are unionized and there’s a clear path for newcomers to make a good living, it’s that people would feel safe enough to take risks. As a judge for Third Coast last year, I was inspired by the off-the-wall things that people were trying. It didn’t all work, and who cares? The most exciting work wasn’t an imitation of a famous podcast’s style. It was intimate, experimental work that only that creator could have made. Make more of that, please. I’ll be listening.
There are some excellent resources out there for people early in their careers, here are a few that I love:
Over the Transom, Transom’s new newsletter on Substack.
All Hear, by the wonderful Talia Augustidis
Mostly Audio Jobs, by the excellent Adrian Ma
The Early Career Audio Collective, a super helpful community
I also wanted to give you a guide to the newsletter archive.
Resources:
All the interviews are on Transom!
Kathy Tu and Tobin Low on the problem with internships
Josh Gwynn: Making the show you want to hear
Keisha TK Dutes: making a career change into audio
Anna Sale: getting started where you are (even if you don’t live in a big city)
Misha Euceph on fighting for ownership over your work
Priska Neely: navigating relationships with supervisors and dealing with layoffs
Noel King on finding that new gig
Chris Steadman: telling stories when it’s personal
Rebecca Ibarra on making tough, professional judgment calls
Rachel Ward, Soraya Shockley, and Meg Driscoll on organizing a union
Daniel Alarcón: dreaming up the ideal audio world
B.A. Parker: getting started without audio experience
Laura Mayer: What hiring managers don’t tell you
Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger: staying fresh while churning out shows
Shima Oliaee: behind the scenes on Dolly Parton’s America
James Kim: Working as an indie creator
Ariana Martinez: standing up for the people behind the mic
Alana Casanova Burgess: working in two languages
Stephanie Foo: The power of a great pitch
Jonathan Menjivar: What people get wrong about being a producer
Kelsey McKinney and Alex Sujong Laughlin on workplace gossip
Mitra Kaboli: red flags and how to spot them
Claire Murishima: life as an early-career broadcast producer
Regina Barber: science communication in audio
Whether you’ve shared this newsletter with your students, forwarded it to a friend, or turned to it for help with your cover letter, I’m so grateful that so many of you have spent time with this work over the years. Thank you for reading.
<3
Alice
This newsletter has rocked. I'm not in audio anymore (making furniture in the triangle now!) and still always read. Best luck on your next ventures!
This newsletter has been so helpful and friendly, and in the time I was working a lot with audio newcomers (before a certain major network stopped offering internships) I shared it with so many people, and will continue to! Grateful for your work on it, and hopeful we'll build better futures :)