Transom→ Exquisitely Challenging: Reporting on Suicide
2021-12-21 Erica Heilman’s story “Finn and the Bell” is the best I’ve heard all year. Yes. It’s that good. The documentary tells the story of Finn Rooney, a young man who was a volunteer fireman and a poet and a baseball player and, as one friend put it …›
Transom→ 2021 Gift Guide
2021-12-14 Last Minute Gift Guide Here are some gift ideas from the Transom crew: items we’d give audio producers we know, or that we’ve had our eyes on for ourselves. We’ve included a range of items, from inexpensive accessories to major splurges, …›
Iffy.news→ Consider the Source
2021-12-13 Anatomy of an anti-vax fact-check: Consider the Source, Check the Site, Confirm the Content. Who made the claim, who published it, where's the evidence? …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 5
2021-12-09 Hiya! Welcome back to Starting Out from me and Transom. A few weeks ago I sent out a survey to hear what’s working with the newsletter so far and what you’d like to see in the new year. Thank you all for such thoughtful feedback! One th …›
Transom→ Darts and Laurels
2021-12-07 Download a transcript of this episode here. I can think of two rock-solid reasons why radio should be a subject for podcasts (and for radio broadcasters, too). And I don’t mean actual radios, I mean radio history and culture — stories about a m …›
First Draft→ False claims and conspiracy theories about Omicron emerge online alongside the new variant
2021-12-03 False claims and conspiracy theories about the new Covid-19 variant Omicron emerged online after the variant was reported by South Africa to the World Health Organization (WHO) on November 24. The WHO said the variant has had a large number of mutation …›
Transom→ What In The World Does An AP Actually Do?
2021-11-30 Defining the role of associate producer can be a little bit challenging, especially at a show like Radiolab, where every member of staff is a jack of all trades. Additionally, I was brought in “temporary,” a contract hire to help exclusively with t …›
Transom→ House of Pod Closes the House
2021-11-23 Cat Jaffee is clear. Podcasting is not about talking into a mic. It’s about listening. Cat’s a firm believer in “a better world through better listening,” as she puts it. As a podcaster, she feels the best content is derived from listening. Cat …›
First Draft→ Misinformation accompanies US expansion of boosters
2021-11-22 As the United States is poised to roll out its Covid-19 vaccine booster program for all adults, misleading information on social media around this latest development is likely to become the focal point of the next round of vaccine misinformation. Alrea …›
First Draft→ Austria’s lockdown for unvaccinated people falsely compared to Nazi policies
2021-11-22 False comparisons have again been drawn between Nazi Germany and Covid-19 pandemic measures, this time prompted by the introduction of a lockdown for people in Austria who are not fully vaccinated. About two million people in Austria, or one-third of t …›
Transom→ The Lake
2021-11-16 Aaron Smale (Ngāti Porou), Host, Researcher, Co-writer: Lake Alice has been on a shortlist of stories I’ve wanted to tell in an expansive way for several years. I’d been researching state institutions that had held children in the late …›
First Draft→ Disinformation actors share misconstrued narratives about coronavirus spike protein to push vaccine skepticism
2021-11-12 Vaccine misinformation concerning the coronavirus spike protein has again picked up in recent days. Vaccine skeptics and deniers have weaponized this medical term to deter people from trusting Covid-19 vaccines, which have been proven effective and saf …›
First Draft→ Facebook comment sections rife with misinformation following Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral pill announcement
2021-11-12 Last week Pfizer published interim trial results for its experimental Covid-19 antiviral pill, Paxlovid, which the company said reduced the chance of hospitalization or death for some adults by almost 90 per cent. The US pharmaceutical giant’s analys …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 4
2021-11-11 Welcome back to Starting Out! My friends in high school were pretty competitive. Every quarter, the class rankings would come out and we’d silently note which friends were ahead of us in GPA. Everyone humble bragged about their AP classes and e …›
Transom→ A Sonic Conjuring (Rerun)
2021-11-09 Download a transcript of this episode here. Take a look at the photo above, the two strips of film from the collection at the Imperial War Museum in London. They document the sound of Armistice Day, the end of World War I, and the silencing o …›
PressThink→ The “here’s where we’re coming from” statement in journalism
2021-11-08 Eleven years ago I published at my site, PressThink, an FAQ about The View from Nowhere. There I tried to explain what I meant in adapting that phrase to press criticism. This post is a companion to that one. But it starts from an opposite end. Not the …›
First Draft→ Videos of anti-vaccine healthcare workers being removed from jobs reinforce misleading claims
2021-11-06 Several videos of anti-vaccine medical workers recording themselves being suspended or fired from their jobs at healthcare facilities have generated significant interest in the past few days. Most physicians and healthcare workers in the United States …›
First Draft→ Boost in vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories as Australia prepares to roll out Pfizer booster for adults
2021-11-06 Australia will begin offering Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to eligible members of its adult population on November 8. News that the country’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), had provisionally approved the Pfizer vac …›
First Draft→ Headlines about Australian actress’s stroke after vaccination fail to mention rarity of the conditions
2021-10-29 News headlines about a UK-based Australian actress who suffered a stroke “after getting Covid vaccine” or “after getting the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine” overly emphasized a single incident without providing important context about the rarity of …›
Transom→ The World Orchestra Is Always Playing
2021-10-26 Download a transcript of this episode here. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me with disdain “I’m sick of how formulaic podcasts have become.” This lament probably started two or three years ago, maybe a little longer. And, it …›
Transom→ Back To Windows
2021-10-19 A reluctant manifesto for the best computers of this moment The most perfect anything I have ever owned is a 2004 PowerBook G4. Its entire chassis is machined from brushed aluminum; even the keyboard is metal, giving each key the perfect key travel, pr …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 3
2021-10-14 Welcome back to Starting Out, from Transom and me! If this is the first issue you’re reading, I’m Alice, a podcast producer and reporter. In the past few months, a lot of my friends have quit their jobs. Hell, I even did it recently. After pr …›
Transom→ From Memoir to Radio Story
2021-10-12 Last year, during the pandemic, Ruby Schwartz says she was questioning everything about her identity and whether she should be an audio producer and reporter. On top of that, she was wrestling with a creative lull. Again, it was the pandemic. Anxiety a …›
Iffy.news→ Mainstream media spreads fake news
2021-10-05 Mainstream media contributes significantly to the infectious spread of conspiracy fantasies. But it could hold the cure. …›
Iffy.news→ (Assume) Everything on Social Media Is Wrong
2021-10-05 Social media's malgorithms spread lies and hate. The platforms are unwilling and probably unable to change. …›
Transom→ Notes On Muxture
2021-10-05 I. Pouring foundation One of my most viewed YouTube videos starts with a chattering 808 drum pattern. As the video fades in, the first thing you notice is a recording studio’s wall filled with checkerboarded golds and browns, evoking the basement of …›
Transom→ Interviewing for Story (Rerun)
2021-09-27 Alix Spiegel is a master of narrative storytelling. Listen to any of the episodes of Invisibilia she hosted or any of the stories she produced for This American Life and, I suspect, you’ll agree. Even back when she was a science reporter for NPR cove …›
Transom→ There’s No Such Thing As A Podcast Emergency
2021-09-21 “There’s no such thing as a podcast emergency.” I first read that quote on Twitter a few years ago, thanks to podcast producing icon Kathy Tu. I have worked on about a dozen productions since then and that phrase has helped me breathe through eve …›
Transom→ Take A Closer Listen
2021-09-16 Meandering musings on audio consumption I. Recently I was listening to the podcast It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, enjoying an episode about monoculture, specifically regarding the Olympics, and (separately) the Jennifer Lopez / Ben Afflec …›
Transom→ The Megan Tan Way
2021-09-14 There’s an illustration I’m sure you’ve seen. Look at it one way and you’ll see an older woman in a veil. Look at the same drawing a while longer and you see a younger woman wearing a hat with a feather plume. Same picture, different image. …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 2
2021-09-09 Welcome back y’all! Or welcome period, if this is your first issue. To catch you up, Starting Out is a partnership between me (Hi! I’m Alice!) and the folks at Transom. We’re glad you’re here! If you frequent a certain corner o …›
Transom→ Mixing Tune Up
2021-09-06 Audio editing is a really weird job. You spend hours staring at a computer, sliding around pictures of soundwaves — it can be hard on your eyes — and your attention is often consumed by the absurd, like “why doesn’t this person ever say …›
Transom→ Sounds Easy, But…
2021-08-31 This is true: I was so smitten by a story from the Kitchen Sisters airing on NPR’s All Things Considered, I brought my radio into the bathroom so I could shower and listen and get to where I needed to be that afternoon. I got delayed briefly because …›
Transom→ The Audio Producer’s Guide To Loudness
2021-08-24 Loudness Loudness is a helpful technology for any audio storyteller. It can help you balance voices to each other, know that your podcast will sound consistent from one episode to the next, or meet a specification set by a distribution platform. When t …›
Transom→ Goldstein on Writing, Fonts, and “The Goldstein”
2021-08-17 It’s hard to imagine an experienced storyteller like Jonathan Goldstein feeling anxious about writing and putting a story together. But, he says the anxiety is always there. Ever since he was a kid and he had a story from school to tell his parents, …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 1
2021-08-12 Hiya! Welcome to Starting Out, a newsletter for people entering into the audio industry. I’m Alice, a podcast producer/reporter and former intern. I’m thrilled to partner with Transom on this project. They are the gold standard in train …›
Transom→ Stand-Ups (Rerun)
2021-08-02 I thought the whole thing was kinda strange. It was some years ago. I was working with a producer and a reporter on a collaboration between the BBC and Marketplace. We were reporting on the Brazilian economy. And, we were about to interview an expert o …›
Transom→ Fireworks
2021-07-19 I called up the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies out of the blue. I had read that Salt, a school in Portland, Maine, was considering adding a radio track to their longstanding writing and photography tracks. I had no background in documentary rad …›
Transom→ Bittersweet News
2021-07-08 Changes at Transom After so many years helping to steer the ship, Samantha Broun and Rob Rosenthal are leaving Transom to work on exciting new projects. At Transom, we’re all about providing people with the tools and encouragement to tell t …›
Transom→ Narrative Justice
2021-07-05 What’s the truest form of journalism? “Letting others speak their own truth… Give them their voice. Letting them speak from their heart… It actually conveys a truer sense of what you’re trying to get the audience to hear in a more pure fo …›