There is an old anecdote — perhaps a bit of it is true. Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime.
That is more or less how I felt during these past two weeks of podcasting instruction. Having learned how to harness this powerful medium I can’t imagine it not being a part of my journalistic portfolio moving ahead. I have work to do mastering the technology, but clearly have seen the advantages of using it to supplement my skills.
Podcasting is powerful, and as I have mentioned, incredibly democratic. In adding an interview subject this week we extended the power of the medium to something similar to NPR-style radio. How essential might that be in broadening the reach of our podcasts via search engines. My subject this week — Professor Mark Goodman — is a recognized authority on student First Amendment rights; if marketed properly it’s not unrealistic to anticipate Goodman’s interview with me appearing high on a Google search page. Benefits for all.
The addition of an interview subject, of course, adds to the possibility of error, as I learned in balancing and re-mixing the audio in an attempt to create the most seamless broadcast. Mark is in Ohio; I am in New York City, and even the best iPhone technology could not overcome most of the distance between us.
I suppose a face-to-face chat with a shared, high-tech microphone would have been a better way to go. That broadcast inconsistency, assuming it’s noticeable, is the price paid for choosing an interview subject 450 miles away. I will research the best technology for long-distance interviews since the First Amendment is a national priority and experts on, say, religious liberty or free association are as likely to be found in Stillwater, Oklahoma as they are nearby at a Wall Street law firm.
So we learned that podcasting on a subject as broad as the First Amendment brings both interview opportunities and technological challenges. That’s not a bad thing to communicate to the college students with whom I have and might again consult. Vaughn College, for example, is populated by aviation and tech students, and if I can adapt to podcasting, presumably, so can they.
I remember being approached by some well-intended students eager to start a newspaper at Vaughn. I remember thinking, “how quaint.” And how ironic, too: Students, whose tech eagerness includes learning how to “land” a 757 on a simulated runway, wanted to start an old-fashioned print newspaper. Really?
Which brings me to the final point. Despite this two-week primer, podcasting is likely to remain a complementary medium for me. Three decades as a journalist has taught me the medium chooses us, as much as we choose the medium. I still prefer the perspective print provides, which might make me an endangered species. I don’t know.
I will continue to write because that is what I do best. But using my “voice” in another medium ought to keep me valuable both to a content-hungry company and students eager to learn about emerging technologies.
Musings on Media 