No Summer Doldrums for KALW Audio Academy – Powerful Stories Continue To Be Told
By Ben Trefny, News Director, KALW Public Radio
Just a quick update on Audio Academy doings in the last week at KALW.
Cari Spivack (’17) reported a fun and thoughtful story about the National Parks collaboration with the San Francisco Public Library. The piece was shared widely by the SFPL, and it got retweeted by the Parks service, helping it achieve some virality.
Josiah Luis Alderete (’17) story put together a moving audio essay about Alex Nieto memorials. Nieto was killed by four police officers in 2014, and this powerful story told from the perspective of people living in San Francisco’s Mission District captures mood, culture, and the power of protest.
Other fellows from the class of 2017 have work coming up over the next few weeks. Boawen Wang has completed work on a whole show about Bay Area hip hop that’s currently scheduled to air on August 31. Kanwalroop Kaur Singh‘s series of stories about the plight of Punjabi farmers and their migration to California will run in early September.
Jeremy Jue win’s KALW’s daily award for tracking his whole show with his editor Lisa Morehouse.
And Jeremy Jue just recorded voice tracks for a whole show about a letter writing project that helps people review their lives. We’ll hear that one in late September, after he returns from a well-earned vacation!
Before all that, though, we’ll have the chance to hear the work our summer high school interns completed. We’ve scheduled the stories from Kasey Chen, Eloisa Herbert, Susanna Luo, and Allison Aj-Pop Perez to air on successive days beginning their first day back at school: Monday, August 21. Tune in!
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Truc Nguyen (’15), who now works in KALW’s development department, shared a lovely note from a listener about a show put together by our cost of living reporter, Jeremy Dalmas (’14):
“Some months ago while running errands, I was listening to a documentary on the Ghost Ship fire – its context, the history of artist work-space in the Bay Area, and the current impact of housing shortage. I was entertained, educated, and illuminated, feeling connected and compassionate toward the people involved. While I listen to other public radio, I appreciate your locally produced gems. Enclosed is a small donation.”
It’s not just that. This listener handcrafted the card he sent to us, and it’s beautiful. A real gift, and a nice engagement with our community!
Check it out here: Card_ListenerHectorLee
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Finally, I’ve been exchanging some thoughts with Ted Muldoon (’15) who currently works on podcasts for The Washington Post. Here’s some of what he has to say:
“Things have been good at The Post. We just launched the main project I’ve been heading, Constitutional. It’s essentially the follow up on [my previous work] Presidential. We’ve really retooled the format of the show, and I’ve tried to put a lot of production quality into the episodes. As a general format, we open on a heavily soundscaped re-enactment scene (in the absence of archival tape), and I’ve been experimenting with writing my own music. Which, to my surprise, had been really fruitful.
“I’m already starting to think about what to do post-Constitutional, which won’t be until January. But I’ve got some ideas I’m excited about, and we’ll see what I’m positioned to accomplish.”
I had a listen to Constitutional and found it captivating. I can say, too, that a conversation therein about federalism versus states’ rights informed a segment I just made on Crosscurrents regarding regions serving as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. Very interesting to see how things can come full circle.