This is a first for Starting Out

Plus: how to produce an interview 🎙

Welcome back to Starting Out from me and Transom! 

I’ve got a fun issue for y’all this month, but first, I have one question and one favor to ask: 

The question: who do you want me to interview for the next season of the newsletter? Is there a producer, reporter, host, sound designer who you think has wisdom to share for early career makers? 

The favor: if you’re an established audio maker and see your workplace in the classifieds section with a “no pay information included” next to that posting, I’d love it if you would nudge your workplace on that. Pay transparency is important for equity, especially early in your career. TYSM <3

This month I have a guide to producing interviews, and a really fun interview with NPR’s Claire Murashima. 

My interview with Claire has so many firsts for Starting Out: 

• The first in person interview! Claire is from the same part of North Carolina as me, so I caught her on a visit home and we drank tea on my couch while my dog snuggled up to her. A very cozy vibe.

• The first interview with someone who works primarily in broadcast. This is honestly a bit embarrassing for me — broadcast is such a big part of our industry and I can’t believe it took so long for me to talk to a radio person! 

• The first interview with someone who is early in their career! This is the main reason I reached out to Claire. She’s so talented and is doing fresh, fun work. Talking with her helped me understand better what it’s like to be early career today. 

Alice: What are new things that you want to explore or experiment with? 

Claire: For Father's Day, I did my first non-narrated piece, which means that you ask questions, and then you cut out all of the interviewer questions, and it's just the guest talking. 

That was really fun because it felt like someone telling their story in their own way, I kind of want to do more of that. What else? I want to do more short form with NPR, I want to do more editorial TikToks for them. But I also do want to be on the radio. I think a lot of people on our team do, especially the young producers.

Alice: What do you think are the challenges facing early-career producers right now? 

Claire: My gosh. I'm not sure. It's hard to get our ideas heard. Sometimes, someone more senior will say an idea and it'll just automatically go on the radio, which is fair because I definitely don't have decades of experience, but it's just hard getting our things on the radio.

There's also a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves for pitching. Some people on our team are really good at pitching and that can make me feel like if my pitch is not excellent, then why even try?

So, that's hard. Also working overnight shifts. My schedule changes about each month. There's the 9 am shift, the 3 pm shift, the midnight shift, the 3:30 am shift, and the 5 am shift, the 6 am shift, the Sunday 11 am shift and those are the planned ones. Sometimes they need you to start at 6 pm for a day, and it's hard to have a social group and hobbies and just balance in life, but I'm kind of making the sacrifice of: I'm going to do this in my early 20s, and then one day I won't have to do it. 

Resources

Finally after all this preparation, it’s time to do the interview! 

Before the interview itself you have to do a bit of housekeeping:

First, send the interviewee a reminder about the interview the day before, with all the details they’ll need for the recording. These days there are so many ways to record an interview (in person, via tape sync, in a studio, over video conferencing software) so think through the steps required for whatever method you’re using.

If the interview is happening online, make sure to take into account the source’s comfort level when it comes to navigating the internet. Some might require more coaching, so budget time for that. 

Then, talk with your host/interviewer about how they prefer to be produced in an interview. The methods you’re using to communicate with them will vary based on the medium you’re using for the interview. 

Here are some ways I’ve seen this done over the years: 

In person: 

• The interviewer, who is in a studio, has their laptop in front of them with a Google Doc of questions. The producer communicates with them from the control room.

• The interviewer is in the studio with their laptop and list of questions, but the producer communicates with them via instant message (whether that’s Slack, the chat box in a Google Doc or, God forbid, Microsoft Teams). 

• The interviewer does the interview without much producer intervention, but at the end of the interview, the producer jumps in to give the interviewer additional questions that, for whatever reason, need to be asked. 

• The interview takes place out “in the field” aka not in a studio, where the producer isn’t able to privately communicate with the interviewer. Advance planning is necessary to decide how much time to spend on different topics. At the end of the interview the producer may jump in to ask additional questions. 

Online: 

• The producer communicates with the host in the Google Doc, or via Slack while the interview takes place. This is the only way to do this when you’re producing online. 

Okay but what is the producer doing during the interview? 

Again, it depends on the needs of your production and your relationship with your host. But here’s a list of the kinds of things I might do during an interview: 

• Before an interview starts make sure BOTH parties are rolling tape. The worst can actually happen if you don’t check!

• Cross off questions as the host asks them.

• If the host didn’t ask the guest how to say their first and last name, always make sure at the end to get a pronouncer. And to check in about your guest’s pronouns.

• Take notes on your favorite moments, the ones that are funny, emotional, or otherwise engaging. 

• Keep an ear out for moments where an anecdote or story starts in the middle or end and not the beginning, and gently ask the host or guest to restart that answer. 

• Keep an eye on the time and if we’re running low on time, tell the host to prioritize the “must do” questions. Also, evaluate which questions are “must do.”

• Suggest follow up questions for the host to ask the guest if we need more detail. 

• Nudge the host to move on if the interview is going off track or a tangent has gone on too long. 

• For some interviews, check facts in real time to make sure the host is correct in their questioning. 

• Keep an ear out for anything that might mess with the audio quality (a barking dog, construction, etc). 

• Come up with alternate questions if a particular line of inquiry isn’t working. 

I think about it like being a wingwoman. Your job is to grease the wheels, so that the host and guest have the best conversation possible, but to do it in such a way that the host isn’t distracted or overwhelmed by you, and the guest forgets you’re even there. 

Sometimes a host will go rogue and you are tasked with getting them back on track while the interview is going. This is one of the more challenging parts of the job. Here are some strategies you can employ, featuring some of my favorite producers: 

• Message the host the question you need them to ask, along with the reason you want them to ask it. 

• From producer/host Zakiya Gibbons: “Sometimes if there was time at the end of the interview I’d hop on the mic and join the convo and be like “Hey, producer Zakiya here! Before we totally wrap I just have a couple follow ups,” and then ask the Q’s that weren’t asked just to at least get the tape. If this is a pattern maybe you could build more time into the interview for you to get what you need in the end.”

• From JT Green of Molten Heart: “Post interview, call for a quick post mortem with the host. Bring up that we needed to get TK but I realized we didn’t because of TK tangent (to make aware of the behavior that you would like corrected). Offer a solution (capture in follow interview or assess if the lost questions are necessary for the story and retool).

After the interview

• Make sure you’ve secured the audio files for all parties involved! 

• Inform the guest of the next steps in the process, so they know when to expect to hear from me. 

Thanks to the very talented Amy Pedulla for her help with this resource <3

What’s your best advice for producing an interview?

Classifieds

Internships

Intern, Radio Reporter, Minnesota Public Radio, APMG ($18/hr)

Intern, Media Production and Operations, Minnesota Public Radio, APMG ($18/hr) 

Intern, Programming, The Current, APMG ($18/hr)

D.C. Bureau Intern, Marketplace, APMG ($18/hr) 

Investigative Intern, APM Reports, APMG ($18/hr) 

Podcast Intern, Marketplace, APMG ($18/hr) (You’d be working with me!) 

Fall Internship, Audacy Boston (No pay information shared)

Intern (Latham, NY) (Part-time), iHeartMedia ($14.20 - $15.62/hr)

Intern (Rochester, NY) (Part-time), iHeartMedia ($14.20 - $15.62/hr)

Fellowships

Politics Fellow, Minnesota Public Radio, APMG ($18-$23/hr) 

Fellow, Marketplace, APMG ($18/$23/hr)

Reflect Alabama Fellow, WBHM ($15/hr)

Minow Fellowship in Journalism Excellence, WTTW ($18/hr)

Associate/Assistant Producer

Podcast Associate Producer, Digital Studios, WHYY (No pay information included) 

Radio Production Assistant (Part time), (No pay information included)

Associate Producer (Part-time), Urban View, Sirius XM (No pay information included)

Digital Associate Producer, ESPN Daily, ESPN ($47,800.00 - $64,100.00/yr)

Associate Producer, ABC News Live ($59,100- $81,100/yr)

Part-Time Production Assistant, ESPN (No pay information included)

Associate Producer, iHeartMedia (​​$17.30 - $23.79/hr)

Bonus!

KPBS Assistant News Producer/Penner Fellow Intern, ($16.30/hr) 

If you are hiring interns, fellows or other entry level positions, send your job postings and rates to startingout [at] transom [dot] org and I’ll list them in the next issue. Please note that Starting Out features only paid opportunities. 

Claire Recommends

• I’m loving NPR’s new Body Electric series. I've been following Manoush Zomorodi's reporting for years on Note to Self, Zig Zag and now TED Radio Hour. I like how she draws interesting conversations out of people and my brain is always pinging with ideas whenever I listen to her things.

• It’s been a very pop-culture heavy summer! I listened to a lot of Into It from Vulture and ICYMI from Slate.

• I've also been listening to a podcast called My Sister's Cancer which I actually wrote about! 

• Embodied from WUNC, The Gray Area from Vox and No Stupid Questions from Freakonomics are also in my current rotation. 

P.S. I love…

🤪 this episode of Like A Virgin on fanfiction

🌸 deadheading dead flowers at public parks to save seeds for spring

🐶 how The 13th Step handled sources with loud pets (affectionately!)

🏃 the new Truth Club record

🌳 this Maren Morris song that encapsulates how I feel about this industry sometimes

🥘 having some friends over to make food for the community fridge

Coming up...

Next month: NPR’s Regina Barber on making the jump from academia to podcasting. 

Starting Out will always be a free resource. If you want to support this work you can donate to Transom. The newsletter is edited by Jennifer Jerrett and Sydney Lewis. Interviews are transcribed with help from Elizabeth Kauma.