Major: Honours History
Graduated: 2015
Sound Cloud: https://soundcloud.com/madeline-taylor-3
Instagram: @staunchjitters
Twitter: @mjeantaylor
Meet Madeline Taylor, the vivacious and passionate SFU honour’s graduate. The mermaid-green haired, self-professed radio addict met up with me earlier this week to tell me what it is like behind the scenes in radio and how she became the driving force as Program Director at CiTR 101.9 FM, UBC’s community radio station.
Partway through her honour’s history degree, Madeline Taylor discovered her true passion!
I was studying post industrial and colonialist history, then I discovered feminist theory and queer theory. I had a moment where I thought, “Oh this is what I should have been studying the whole time”, so I just turned all my papers into those to make it relevant.
What inspired you to get into community radio?
Through volunteering. I started out at CJSF in the last two years of my degree. I fell in love with that level of productivity and the turnover, and the adrenaline rush that came with chasing content and explaining politics from the perspective of someone who was trying to shape the media narrative, rather than being so passive in academia.
From there I started listening to a ton of radio, and fell in love with the medium as a whole. I have an app on my phone named STITCHER, where I download and listen to podcasts, and I think I got it in 2014. It tracks the number of hours you spend listening to radio, and I just cracked 1100!
How did you get started in this role?
I’ve become close with some of the people that worked as CJSF, and they recommended me for a job at CiTR. I applied and got it two months after I graduated. I have worked my way up there ever since.
What does your job look like on a day-to-day basis?
As program director, I am in charge of all the shows on the grid. We have over a hundred different shows. They are all volunteer run, and some are run by collectives. I manage them, and support them in creating content. I also report to the CRTC, and SOCAN, who regulate FM airwaves, in order to make sure the requirements are being met. I make sure everyone is filling out their play sheets and playing enough CAN CON. At our station, we have mandates where we have to play a certain amount of FEMCON, which is female content as well.
Sounds like a great position!
It is a fun job and it is different every day! This week, it was all about coordinating content for International Women’s day. I’m doing everything from calling out to volunteers who have produced before, to wrangling content from people who we think would be good for interviews, to coordinating live remote broadcasts from an event.
CiTR has a big day for International Women’s Day.
Every March 8th for Int. Women’s day for the last few years, we kind of kick everyone off air and take over the day. That sounds a little drastic, but we like to prioritize the voice of women, femmes, and trans and non-gender conforming folks.
What was one of the most difficult things about your job, when you first started out?
I’m 26 so learning how to manage people that are a lot older than me and have a lot more experience than I do, while I am learning my job is difficult. I have to try to remember that there is a reason I was hired and that my ideas are valuable, and mostly, I know what I am doing.
Running the balance between being a support and a mentor to people that are just starting out in radio and also recognizing that I, by no means, know everything. That I am in a constant state of learning, and that often means just listening to people’s ideas.
How do you deal with negative news, such as pieces regarding Trump?
I find it useful to keep your focus local. All I can do is voice my solidarity and try to do what I can to get back to my immediate community. Taking care of the people directly around me and making sure that my actions are about community care. Building up individuals within my sphere, who have good, powerful ideas and investing in their art is important. I make sure people have a platform to talk about what’s difficult and important for them in Vancouver. There are so many ideas and problems locally that people are not paying attention to.
For example, the fentanyl crisis, and missing and murdered indigenous women and reconciliation. These things don’t get sexy New York Times headlines, but are super important and relevant and thats where I need to put my attention, because I might be able to actually have a positive impact.
A Message For Women
Our interview ended with the question of why many women lack the confidence to just go for it. While there are many tangible reasons why women feel a lack of empowerment, I felt the take home message Madeline Taylor exuded towards young women is that it doesn’t matter if you have experience or not, you should take life by the horns, jump in and get wet, and any other metaphor that you can think of to just take charge and own these opportunities. Women belong in these roles and often have more qualifications and preparedness behind them in a lot of cases.
Thank you, Madeline Taylor for taking the time to meet with me and share your experiences and powerful messages!
Madenline’s Top:
PODCASTS:
- MPR politics podcast
- Democracy Now
- Rachel Maddow show
- On the Media
- Terry Grouse as an interviewer
MUSICAL ARTISTS:
- Austra
- Horsepower
- Mourning Coup
Photos provided by the interviewee