I Had Four Podcast Interns This Semester

I Had Four Podcast Interns This Semester

Let me explain…

I say yes to pretty much any podcast-related opportunity. For better or for worse. (Please don’t take advantage of this, I beg you). So when a dean at the high school I went to emailed me and asked if I would run a podcast internship for four high school seniors, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. What an opportunity!

Aidan, Ben, Noah, and Joey just graduated from The Leffell School this past weekend, which means our internship is officially over. But, we worked together for two months and they learned a ton along the way about the world of audio. So did I.

We visited Glassbox Media, The New York Times audio department, and Podstream Studios. We got one-on-one time with Lauren Passell, Devin Andrade, Jody Avirgan, Zach Moreno, Fatima Zaidi, Alban Brooke, Matty Staudt, and more. Thank you to everyone who helped make this internship such a success!

Plus, my interns launched a podcast: Slapstick Sports.

Read on to learn more about the Slapstick Sports crew, their entry into the podcast world, and how they think they’ll use their newfound skills in the future.

🗞️But first...What is this newsletter?

Great question. This & That shares smatterings from around the podcast and audio world. Think: ideas, resources, events, discussions, opportunities, and more.

It comes out irregularly (AKA when I feel like it). It's my experiment with inconsistency in content creation.

Meet the Slapstickers

I interviewed Noah, Joey, Aidan, and Ben for the EarBuds blog, (which you can read in full here) but I want to share a few takeaways that I loved and that I’m glad the boys picked up during our time together.

I asked them each to share one thing that they know now, as a result of the internship, that they didn’t know beforehand:

Joey: I learned that people in the podcast industry are rooting for each other and want to help each other in any way that they can. It’s not about competing to be the best, it's about growing together as an industry.

Aidan: The importance of connections within an industry. It can be the difference between getting or dream job or being unemployed.

Ben: I never even knew that a podcast can be scripted until we had to script our first episode.

Noah: Learning how much goes on behind the scenes of a podcast, and the benefit of making connections early.

Thanks for reading!

P.s. want more podcast recommendations? I have this newsletter, which is curated by a different person each week, and this newsletter, which is reader-generated.

📊Transparency stats

If you're new to the newsletter, lemme tell you about this section. I share subscriber numbers, as well as open and click rates. Why? It's fun to track growth and be open.

• Number of subscribers: 596

  • Up from 570 when the last email was sent (in May)

• Open rate: 66.3%

• Click rate: 11.6%

• Unsubscribes: 1 from last issue