Good podcasters make podcasting seem easy. But creating one that sounds natural and makes people want to listen takes planning. Here’s a quick guide.
Listen to the “Eyes on Climate” podcast.
This article was adapted from the fifth episode of “EYES on Climate“, a podcast created as part of Empowering Youth through Environmental Storytelling (EYES), a News Decoder project in partnership with The Climate Academy in Brussels. In this episode, host Amina McCauley interviewed Josie Colter, founder and director of Studio Goldstar, a podcast studio producing climate stories with a mission to make the climate conversation something everyone wants to be a part of. They discussed some things people should keep in mind when producing a podcast.
You can find the full episode embedded in the article below. EYES is a two-year project to create a series of classroom modules that educators across the globe can use to teach students to understand and communicate climate change through science and journalism.
News Decoder is piloting this curriculum in schools across the world — from Belgium and the Netherlands to Malaysia and Colombia. EYES is co-funded by The European Union. Let us know if you would like to become a pilot school or if you would like to know more about News Decoder’s global citizenship and media literacy programs for high schools.
Anyone can produce and publish a podcast. But how do you create one that people will want to stream?
To get down to some basics, News Decoder’s climate education program manager, Amina McCauley spoke with Josie Colter, founder and director of Studio Goldstar, a podcast studio that produces stories about climate. Here is some advice for those starting out. For a complete guide on how to make a podcast, listen to News Decoder’s WePod Guide to Audio Storytelling.
Ten steps for creating a podcast
1. Get the sound right. There are two parts to this. First, make sure your recording works. You can’t get more basic than that. Talk to just about any journalist and they will tell you about a time they conducted a great interview only to discover that the recording hadn’t worked. Either they forgot to turn it on or the ambient sound in the room made the recording unintelligible. You can’t have a podcast without a recording.
But also think about the space you’re in. Test your voice and listen to the background sound. Do a trial run to see how it will sound.
2. Have a strong idea. Colter said you should have a strong reason and strategy for why you’re curating and delivering the conversations in the way that you are. “Try and find something that speaks to a truth that you’re feeling right now,” she said. “Maybe it could be frustration. Maybe it could be you feel like there’s not conversations for you. “
Start, she said, by asking yourself what’s missing from the conversation. Answering that question can get you feeling inspired and fired up.
3. Have consistent narrators. People click on a podcast episode only partly because of the topic. There are endless choices of podcasts about our planet.
When someone chooses a particular one it is likely because they connect to the host or the person being interviewed. When they have listened to multiple podcasts featuring the same host, they develop a connection to that person and voice.
“I think they really will come back to a voice that feels familiar to them and, you know, like a friend almost,” Colter said.
Hear the full conversation between Amina McCauley and Josie Colter.
She suggests teaming up with a buddy. “Looking back on all the stuff I’ve produced, I’ve never produced it alone or in a silo,” she said. “You really need to connect with other people. And I think that’s a great way to do it.”
4. Find your mango. Colter said that piece of advice came from climate journalist Katherine Dunn, who runs the Oxford Climate Journalism Network. It means connecting climate to the things that people care about. “Yummy, delicious mangoes are struggling to thrive on a heating planet right now,” Colter said. “So that’s something that actually is under threat. It’s something that people love. The thing I like about it is that mangoes are really visual. Everybody knows them.”
5. Make small splashes as opposed to big waves. You don’t need to think about a massive climate headline, Colter said. It can and should be stories that you’re personally interested in that have a climate element to them. Climate is everywhere, Colter said. “It’s just about finding your route into it,” she said. “Find small ways to connect the dots to climate change.”
6. Keep it simple: Listeners want to feel like they are part of a conversation. So talk like you’d normally talk. “It doesn’t need to sound like a science textbook,” Colter said. “Like we’re not all climate scientists and I don’t think we should feel that we have to communicate in such a way.”
7. Keep it human: We tend to focus climate stories around some aspect of the planet: air, water, wildlife, plants. But it is a mistake to ignore people. “That’s who is mainly suffering and who will suffer,” Colter said. “Nature will go on, humans won’t.” She said center a story around humans and speak directly to the people that your story affects by reaching out to them and interviewing them.
“It’s amazing now you you can pretty much contact anyone all over the world,” she said. “And what I would say is just go for it because you’d be surprised at who replies.”
8: Give people ways that take action. Colter said that you don’t want to lecture people or demand that they change the way they live. But you can make suggestions and give them blueprints of how others have taken action. “It’s very much about taking stock of what’s going on in your life and your community and taking action within that,” she said.
9. Find technology you are comfortable with. There are seemingly endless apps and software programs and hardware you can buy and download and install and use. But you don’t need expensive equipment or complicated programs. There are simple, inexpensive microphones you can buy or use the one that comes on your laptop or phone. You can use free software that called a digital audio workspace. On an Apple device there is an app for recording called Voice Memos, for example. “So you literally just open that, hit go and you’re good to go,” she said.
You will need an editing program. Again there are fancy programs you can get such as Adobe Audition but there are simpler programs as well. Colter pointed to Descript, which allows you to edit the audio by editing the words. “So you can literally highlight a whole sentence and click delete if you don’t want that sentence,” she said. “I think Descript is a really good entry tool if you just want to have a play around.”
10. Publish. Like with recording and editing technology, there are a lot of publishing platforms like Buzzsprout, Acast and Simplecast and all will enable people to find your podcast on Apple, Spotify and other commonly used streaming services. Some are free and some cost money. You might want to explore and compare.
Questions to consider:
1. Why is there more to podcasting than just talking into a mic?
2. What are some ways you can connect to an audience?
3. If you were to create a new podcast, what would it be about?
Thank you for sharing these podcasting tips.