Students produce podcast focused on UW college life
November 16, 2010
While recovering from a sickness last January, senior journalism major Rachel Solomon spent her time snuggled up in bed listening to radio talk shows like "This American Life" and local radio programs. Having always enjoyed listening to radio, the idea began brewing in her head that maybe radio would be a great outlet for her creativity. It wasn’t until her dad said, “Maybe you should start a radio show,” that she decided a podcast was the way to go.
Cassie Hoeprich, left, works with Rachel Solomon on their first podcast about college life, "The Bark & the Bite."
Episode 1 of "The Bark & the Bite:"
She wasn’t sure how to go about the idea at first. “I sat on it for a while, and then realized I didn’t have any radio experience at all,” said Solomon. “So I took a class at Bellevue College and started interning at KUOW. Then I freelanced at KBCS and KPLU. Over the summer I started e-mailing people I thought might be interested in helping.” It was junior Cassie Hoeprich, majoring in Communication and Comparative History of Ideas, who stepped up to the plate and decided to take on this project with Solomon. Together they created the podcast "The Bark & the Bite," which focuses on the college experience. Their first episode, “So this is college,” was uploaded Nov. 3. Their next episode airs on Dec. 8.
“The first episode is very college-centric because we thought it would be a good introduction piece,” said Solomon. But their podcast doesn’t focus solely on college students. “Our stories connect back to the UW community somehow. Whether it’s a family member or friend of someone who is part of the university, or if the subject relates to a passion on campus,” said Hoeprich.
Solomon and Hoeprich have benefited from the tutelage of Joanne Silberner, Artist in Residence in the Department of Communication, who has been working at NPR for 18 years. She has been a great help and source of encouragement for the development of Solomon and Hoeprich’s podcast. “The first time I met with her she sat me down and asked me, ‘Why are you doing this? Why do you like this?’” said Hoeprich. “It’s been a huge gift for us, having this radio mind infusing her experience into us.”
So, why do Solomon and Hoeprich put so much work into creating “The Bark & the Bite”? For the first episode, they had been working since July, doing interviews, logging tape, editing audio, writing scripts, and recording their host pieces. With three to four stories per episode, putting together this podcast has taken up much of their time; hours that could be spent working on class assignments, or just taking time out for themselves. They don’t get paid and they aren’t getting college credit for their work. “I like storytelling, and I just wanted a chance to do that more,” said Solomon. “I really like doing things with my hands and creating a product. Putting it together and having this concrete thing that you can say to someone, ‘I created this,’ makes me feel happy, to be able to deliver the story that brought someone happiness, or some sort of emotion.” Hoeprich also feels the joy of creating the podcast outweighs the work that’s involved. “I think every story is important, and I love hearing them and helping people tell their stories,” she said. “We get the satisfaction of being the storytellers, getting to know our peers, making sure they’re heard and doing it in a cool, creative way. That’s what I told Joanne. She said journalism gives you the right to ask, ‘What’s your story?’”
Putting together “The Bark & the Bite” has been a lot of fun for both Solomon and Hoeprich. With basic tools, they have been able to create a show that sounds just as good as any professional radio production. “You don’t need fancy equipment to tell stories,” said Solomon, who uses her laptop and Adobe Audition to edit the audio. Hoeprich uses the standard Olympus digital audio recorder for her interviews, and their website is hosted on Wordpress.com. Without the luxury of recording their host pieces in a sound booth, Hoeprich says, “You get creative.” Hoeprich painted the amusing picture of how they figured out how to best position themselves for recording their quick back-and-forth host pieces. “We had our recorder, our script, and the microphone. We put the computer and the recorder on this chair and we both sat on the floor facing it, perched up, reading the script,” she said. “We would be reading, but then we would have to stop to scroll down. So our recording was really funny after listening to it. ‘This Is Rachel, this is Cassie, and this is “the bark & the bite.”… Rachel can you scroll down a little bit more? … Ok, today’s show…”
For the title of their podcast, they wanted it to define what their stories are while connecting them back to the community in which they’re told. “I was thinking we would do something with ‘purple’ or ‘husky’. But then I was thinking, ‘Verbs! Verbs! Verbs!’ and I came up with “The bark & the bite” from the saying,” said Hoeprich. “It’s cool because it’s saying, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on, or here’s a snippet of something you may not know about.’ You can plug the verbs into many things.”
Before their podcast went live, they had to have a logo. Luckily talent runs in the family. Hoeprich’s sister, Danica, is the designer of “The Bark & the Bite” husky dog wearing headphones.
Since their first episode aired, Solomon and Hoeprich have gotten great feedback. So far, they have 120 fans on Facebook, and their podcast has gotten over 250 hits. Rainy Dawg Radio has also contacted them, and plans are in motion to stream “The Bark & the Bite” on the website. Hoeprich said, “All of my friends are throwing story ideas at me now Saying, ‘Have you thought about this, or this?’” Solomon says hearing from her peers pays off for all the hard work she’s put into the podcast. “If they listen to it and want to hear more, it validates for us that this is actually enjoyable.”
For the next episode of “The Bark & the Bite,” new volunteers will be contributing their own work. Solomon sent out an e-mail to the English Department looking for recruits who would be interested, and she got a few takers. She looks forward to helping them work on their product. “They’ll interview their friends with a recorder, write a script, and send it to me and we’ll go over it,” said Solomon. “Then they’ll record their narration and send each piece of audio to me and I’ll put it into the program and form the story from there.” While depending on new contributors could either make or break the podcast, Solomon says she’s not too worried about their commitment. “I trust them because I figure if you take time out of your busy schedule and you’re not getting paid, and there’s no class credit, you’re probably doing it because you really want to.” Hoeprich also has faith because as a storyteller herself, she knows that anyone who’s interested in contributing most likely has the passion that’s necessary to do the work. “A story is like treasure, especially if it’s tangible like an audio recording. You hold it and you think, ‘I have to do something with this, I can’t just let it sit here.’ It’s important to you, the journalist, and to the friend or person you’re interviewing,” said Hoeprich. “That’s why we trust them. They wouldn’t go through all that work for nothing.”
The theme for their next episode is “Double Take,” which they describe on their Facebook page as, “Stories about judging and misjudging people, stories about the things that are just beneath the surface, and stories about needing to take a second glance to really understand someone or something.” Solomon is working on a piece in which she interviews a man from Ballard who has been diagnosed with acute open angle glaucoma. “He was in college just finishing his degree, and he started going blind,” she said. “Disability awareness is important, and a lot of people on campus would care about it. That’s such a life-changing experience.” Solomon and Hoeprich are also working on a story about the person who puts up the clever marquees at the Neptune Theatre in the University District, as well as a story on the quirky habits of individuals those closest to them may not be aware of.
Solomon and Hoeprich hope their work on “The Bark & the Bite” will encourage others to become storytellers, and they invite students to step up to the challenge. “If someone wants to try out reporting for radio, this is something that’ll help them, and it’s not an incredibly huge commitment,” said Solomon. For the future of the podcast, they both hope it sticks around. “There are so many untapped people here. If anything, I hope it builds on top of the already existing community,” said Hoeprich.
While they continue to work on their podcast, they’re also busy planning for their own futures. Solomon will be graduating at the end of the year, and she knows that the podcast will be something she can put on her resume when she’s looking for jobs. “I would like to be a producer, working for PBS, or doing documentary stuff,” said Solomon. “Just doing something where you do innovative things instead of by-the-books radio.” Hoeprich is also planning ahead, looking at summer internships in New York City. Once she graduates, Hoeprich says her dream job isto work for StoryCorps. “They’re basically a big oral history project for America,” said Hoeprich. “They set up a story booth and say ‘Tell me your story.’ People going through their daily life, there’s a story going on, there’s a narrative. What is that narrative?”
To contact Rachel and Cassie about “The Bark & the Bite” send a message to: thebarkandthebite@gmail.com.
