While you’ve probably heard of Fordham’s infamous radio station, WFUV, you might not have heard of the podcast that accompanies it. Issues Tank is hosted and produced by three Fordham seniors, Zach Atanasoff, Gabrielle McGovern, and Rebecca Lewis. Why should you care? Because Issues Tank is a podcast specifically for millennials. Every episode, which comes out once a month, takes an issue and looks at it from the perspective of a millennial; how we interact differently, how we shape the issue (like our role in the election), and how it’s important to us. They recently produced an episode on cyber security, sustainability, space, and what it means to be a millennial in general. Gabrielle and Zach are the co-hosts of the podcast, which means they find their sources for interviews and narrate each episode. Each of them have worked at WFUV for at least two years where they began their experience with radio and audio. Zach specifically has experience in day of reporting and newscasting. While Gabrielle mainly has day of reporting experience, she worked on a feature story during her junior year that peaked her interest in doing longer stories.
“Doing the podcast exposes you to new people and helped me realize I’m more interested in human interest stories than hard news. I get to learn about people’s opinions and even get to express my own. The podcast is more about a conversation, but can be just as important and informative,” says Gabrielle.
On the other hand, Rebecca’s experience at WFUV allowed her to become somewhat of an expert at using pro-tools, which is what makes her skills as producer so valuable. She’s in charge of editing the interviews and essentially making it into one complete episode, which may involve adding music or sound effects. As for the show topic, they often get inspiration from their classes, personal interests, and simply brainstorming ideas amongst each other. The production of one single episode could take as little as a week or as long as month. “It really depends on how quickly we narrow down the idea and if our interviewees are available,” says Gabrielle.
“A lot of times it ends up being close to the wire. I could be at the station for 10 hours straight while editing,” adds Rebecca.
Of the four episodes they’ve produced so far, Zach and Rebecca agree that their favorite episode was the one about space. “It was an opportunity to discuss something a little more speculative, but also concrete,” says Zach. They had an interesting experience finding the right sources for this particular episode. While they eventually found a source who wrote a book on what alien life would look like, they had also spoken to someone who had his own alien conspiracy. They all agreed it was the most “out there” theory they’ve heard of. Gabrielle, on the other hand, found that the “New Gen on the Block” episode was her favorite. “It had really great voices. I learned to try to keep finding the most colorful voices and sounds because it helps set the scene.” Which aligns with one of their goals for Issues Tank. “Something I’d like to see in future episodes is to find a new and interesting sound space so people can tell what’s going on in the scene”, says Zach.
“And getting more people to tune in and listen is always a goal,” adds Rebecca. Regardless of the number of people who download it, they hope that whoever is listening, enjoys it.
You can listen to Issues Tank on iTunes or at issuestank.com. The next episode on locker room talk will be airing on December 1st.