Would a podcast be something for Observant? I’ll be honest, the idea has come up once or twice, but I had never given it much serious thought. But now that we have the expertise in-house – colleague DB was, until recently, a radio and podcast producer – it seemed like the right time to put our heads together.
Trump
It quickly became clear that we had plenty of ideas. “We could give our readers a weekly news update every Thursday morning”, someone suggested enthusiastically. Another idea: “If we interviewed a researcher about the US elections, we could splice in audio clips of Trump.” Or: “We could complement written articles by asking interviewees a few more personal or in-depth questions afterwards, recorded on WhatsApp or a voice recorder.” And: “What about our weekly series where sexologist Marieke Dewitte answers questions about sex? It would be great to have her on the podcast to discuss real-life cases and examples.”
Wait, what? How?
I started to worry a bit. How much of our time would this take up? But DB reassured me that it wouldn’t be too time-consuming if we went about it smartly. For example, a journalist out on assignment or conducting an interview could easily contribute to a podcast. Wait, what? How? Well, they could explain their choice of topic, provide some background information, share what stood out during the interview, or – and this is always the best part in retrospect – talk about anything that went wrong.
That accent
Not everyone was immediately on board. “I became a journalist to write”, was a point that came up. We’re not all eager to be on TV or the radio. I remembered being an 18-year-old student, having to introduce myself in front of a professional video camera. Walk towards the camera, sit down and speak. This was before mobile phones, and I’d only ever seen myself in photos or the mirror. Watching the recording back was a shock. Was that really me, with those long strides and that accent? I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Never again, I decided.
Now, decades later, those kinds of appearances (which thankfully don’t happen too often) are still not my favourite thing, but they’re occasionally part of the job, and you can’t turn them down. And I’ve come to appreciate my accent. So, bring on the podcasts. We’ll be doing trial runs in November and December.