Podcast Interviewing Basics

In today's episode, Owen presents a recording of a program that was done at the library in June. The program was titled Podcast Interviewing Basics. The aim of the program is to inform people of some of the skills and knowledge needed to be a good podcast interviewer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello and welcome to the Huntley Area Public Library Podcast. I'm your host, Owen Masterovich. Today I present to you a recording of a program I did here at the library titled Podcast Interviewing Basics. It was recorded here in the Haple Recording Studio in June. And if you're curious about attending similar programs in the future, pick up a copy of our newsletter. In it you can find all the upcoming programs and some specifically tech focused programs, which is where you can find most of the programs I do. Well, anyway, I hope you enjoy the recording of today's program, Podcast Interviewing Basics. Enjoy. So today we're going to be talking about how to get started with podcast interviewing. I'm going to do a whole lecture, it'll probably be something like 20, 30-ish minutes. And then I'll play for you an excerpt of an interview that I think is a good example of a great interviewer. And then the class will basically be done at that point. But for those that would like to stay and try practicing on the microphones, we have here. We have some headphones and microphones. You could practice interviewing each other or even just to hear your own voice on mic. It's also kind of showing you the kind of equipment we had we have here at the studio. So if you had a podcast and wanted to record here, this is the kind of equipment you would be working with. But yeah, that's what we'll be talking about today. I just want to begin with, I guess, what brings you all in here today. Are you all uh creating your own podcasts? Why why are you all here? Is there anyone that would like to volunteer? Yes.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

I thought it would be like cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, for sure. Well, hopefully it will be cool. Can you raise your hand as well?

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Um I'm getting into voiceover and part of the group that I'm working with, they believe very heavily in podcasting to get your voice out there and to use it for advertising.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Interesting. Okay. I can I can see why that might be true. Sweet. Well, yeah, what's up?

SPEAKER_03 2:35

I was just gonna say, because what they're doing, they said that the industry is changing to the point where instead of you getting an agent and finding something, people are actually starting to search social media and searching out people who can read.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

That's interesting, right. Frequent guests on shows or whatever. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Well, hopefully you all will be able to take away some interesting tips uh or how to at least just get started with this. Um so let me begin. And like a lot of things, I'm gonna begin with the history of it, the very beginning. Um so y'all may be aware that podcasts began or they began to become prominent around like 2010-ish, was like really when it started to blow up in everyone's feeds and everyone was listening to podcasts and whatnot. But believe it or not, this this medium of podcasting or broadcasting is much older than just 20 years. Uh, it really goes back to radio broadcasting, which is the early 1900s. In a lot of ways, the format is no different from what it was then, uh, except that it was live rather than being recorded ahead of time. So, a lot of what I'm talking about today, it's not a recent thing, podcasting. It's it's really coming from a tradition of radio, um, as well as an even older tradition of journalism. So, when we're interviewing people, really you're you're kind of being a journalist a little bit, and journalism goes as far back as the written word. So, podcasting may be a little bit older than you realized. It is also a recent thing at the very same time, because a podcast is specifically referring to uh the digital form of it. But all the tips I'm talking about today will apply to podcasting or radio, or maybe even written interviews, so keep that in mind. Alright, so with podcasts, there's kind of different interview styles that you'll see uh depending on uh the podcast. So probably the most common thing you would see is maybe the more serious journalistic style of interviewing. Something like NPR. Um, you know, they're they're interviewing people trying to collect information that is for the good of the world. That's kind of their purpose. But there's also a more kind of comedic style of interviewing, or maybe a little bit lighter heart interview. So like there's a lot of comedy podcasts out there. I would put them into that category. They're serious interviews, but they're a little more light-hearted, they have humor. Um, it's about like the conversation. Uh, and to that end, there's also very loose interviews that exist out there. I mean, I'm sure you you all have probably heard of podcasts where it's a group of five dudes and they're all just talking about random nonsense. That totally exists, and then I'm not I'm not bogging on that. I actually really enjoy some podcasts like that. So, what I'm trying to get at is that you can approach this from various different um points of views, from a very serious thing to a more loose, we're hanging out here. Um so there's no right or wrong way to necessarily do this. Um that's why I'm going to be uh mainly focusing on the more serious style of interview, just the kind of traditional radio style interview today. Now, what does it take for uh what does it take to interview someone? Do you think you could do it? I I personally feel I haven't even really met all of you fully, or I've met some of you, but I feel that just seeing you, you're probably gonna be pretty good at interviewing right off the bat. Because all this really is is talking to someone, and if you're able to conversate with somebody, you probably have most of what it takes to be a good interviewer. As long as you can keep up a conversation. And at the very least, if you maybe you're not a great conversationalist, these are things you can learn. Uh you can be prepared ahead of time. Um, it's something that I think you all are capable of, at the very least. Um yeah, and it just takes time and practice to develop this skill. It's something that it is hard to master, but it is also something easy to learn. Alright, so that's kind of the uh the preface, if you will, to podcasting. Let's now get in the nitty-gritty details of how we can actually get started. What does it take? What are the steps? So I like to think of step one as being actually booking the guests for your interview. Before any of the actual interview starts, you need to find someone who's willing to be interviewed. Um if you've never done this before, like you've never interviewed a stranger before, I would actually recommend to you to maybe start with interviewing someone you do know. So it could be a friend, could be your partner, it could be your mother, it could be a variety of people, but someone that you have a rapport with, someone that you know will be a good interview, that's probably the best way to start out. Because it is a bit of a scary thing. And if you're going in with someone you've never met and you're also learning how to do all this at once, it could be a bit overwhelming. So take it easy, you know, start with the easiest thing and then work up to harder interviews. That's what I would recommend. And also, you may know some interesting people, you know. Like first look to your own life to see, oh, who would be good for an interview? Maybe my friend Matt is actually really cool and it would make for an awesome interview. So you may be surprised, you may already know some really interesting people that could be interviewed. Um, let's move on to actually interviewing someone you don't know, because that's probably uh what you would largely be doing if you had a podcast and you're interviewing people. Um you can reach out to those people in a variety of ways. Probably the best way is you know talking to you people you know and saying to them, do you know anyone that would be good for this interview? Getting a recommendation from someone is a great place to start, and you already have this mutual connection. So it's a great way to get connected with a person you don't know is via mutual connections. Word of mouth is always a good way, a good approach, but also with our modern age, we have the internet and we have social media, so reaching out to people on social media or their websites tends to be a good approach, you know, finding their contact information. And you may be surprised to find that people tend to be pretty eager to be interviewed. Um, it's kind of because this is a way of promoting themselves. So uh really this is a space where they can promote what they're up to, who they are, and as long as it's free to them, you know, like it's only 30 minutes out of their day, you know. So you gotta think that you kind of have the power in this situation. You're you're offering something to them. And oftentimes people are very excited about that. I know in in college when I did my interviewing course, every week we had to interview someone for 15 minutes live on the radio, and we'd have to book the guests the previous week. It was very stressful, but it I got really excited about it, and I decided I'm gonna reach out to people that I don't think will say yes. You know, I I ended up reaching out to all these musicians I loved, thinking, oh, like, who knows, maybe they'll say yes. You'd be surprised, almost every single person I reached out to said yes. Because, again, I'm giving them a space to promote themselves. A lot of them had like records coming out or different things that they wanted to promote. And it it ended up being great because I got all these contacts from people and I got to chat with some of my favorite musicians. So you'd be surprised. Uh sometimes just going for it, people might just say yes. Um, all right, let's see here. As well, um, something to keep in mind is not everyone is very good at being interviewed. It's almost like just as hard of a skill to be interviewed as it is to interview people. So keep that in mind when you're booking a guest. Um, if your guest is particularly shy, it could be a bit of a tricky interview. Um, it's kind of hard to pull things out of people, you know. And as well the opposite. Some people talk a lot. Some people, it's hard to get them to stop, or you'll ask them one question and it's an hour before you get to get the next word in. So you'll want to keep those things in mind, get a sense of what this person is like if you can. Um, and that's where the next step kind of comes in, and that is research and preparation. So this is like all these steps are really important, but research and preparation to me is what is always stuck out as being particularly important with interviews. Um, so the way I normally start is I, if this is a guest that is sort of well known or like at least remotely well known, there's probably information online about them that you can Google. Again, social media, their website probably has a lot of good information. But as well, you know, if they've been interviewed before, that's maybe your best resource you could get. Because someone has already gone through this and interviewed this specific person. They have all the questions they wrote out that you can now use as sort of a guide for yourself. You can hear what questions worked well and what questions didn't work well. So definitely if you're able to find a previous interview that someone's done, that's going to be like your holy grail of information. Um then another part of research and preparation is something I like to call the pre-interview. Um, so this is something that is optional to some people. Um I know not every interviewer does this, but to me the pre-interview is pretty important because it's a space where you get to talk with that guest before the actual interview takes place. Oftentimes it's just over the phone, like anywhere from a five to 30-minute conversation, where you're basically able to establish a rapport with this person. Um, you're able to see what your chemistry is like together, see what kind of things they want to talk about, like what are what is important for them to talk about, or like what are important things that they want to talk about in the interview? What kind of topics are they hoping to cover? So it gives you a chance to kind of collaborate on this interview with someone else. I would definitely recommend doing the pre-interview. Of course, some people are busy, they don't always have the time available, so another option is just having them send an email with some notes, basically, like a bulletin list of different topics they want to talk about. Um there's a guy who who records here in the studio named Ron Giordano. He has a show on Huntley Radio, and yeah, every week he'll bring in a bunch of guests and they'll sit down and do an interview. But he always has them send a list of topics ahead of time. He doesn't do the pre-interview thing, but for him, it seems like that having them send maybe five topics ahead of time is a good guide for him to base the interview off of. So there's a couple different ways to do that, but definitely reaching out to your guest, making sure they're kind of aware of the things that are going on in this interview is a good idea. Alright, so that's kind of concludes our preparation and research end of things. Now it's time to actually start developing the content for this interview. So that's writing the questions that we're gonna ask. Um I think it's really important to have a list of questions. Um it's kind of something you can use when you really need it. You know, obviously, as a person, you're probably fairly good at improvising conversation, and that can get you pretty far. But it is nice to have a set of questions that you can pick from that you know will work well. Um I recommend having more questions than you'll think you think you'll need. Um so back in college when I was doing 15-minute radio interviews, I'd probably prepare something like five to eight questions. That tended to do pretty well for that length. Um, eight was even maybe more than I needed. But you'd be surprised some people answer things quicker than other people. Um as well, sometimes people will answer your question with the answer of a different question, if that makes sense. So, like they'll answer your first question and somehow they already answered three of the other questions you had without you asking. So that can be frustrating and definitely having an extra list of questions. Not a bad idea for sure. Now, at the same time as having that list, don't rely on that list. You know, the last thing you want is to come across like you're reading off of a piece of paper. That doesn't really feel like a conversation. You know, for a lot of good interviews, to me, it feels like the interviewer is a part of that conversation, uh, is in it, is listening, is being attentive. So keep that in mind. These are kind of your guide for the interview, but they're not your manual for how the interview should go. You know, be willing to change things up, to improvise a little bit. That's just how interviews go. Alright, so now let's get into how we could kind of create some questions. And um there's a tool that journalists use a lot, which is called the five W's of Journalism, which is who, what, when, where, why. Maybe you've heard of it before. I guess how is probably also in there. Who, what, when, where, why, how. Um, this is something that journalists use, particularly in their lead paragraph of an article. They want to, in whatever story they're writing about, they want to get to the who, what, when, where, why of the story within that first paragraph. Um, it's useful for journalists in that way, but for me, with writing questions, I've always found it useful as a tool for writing questions. So let's say I was interviewing a wastewater treatment plant manager or something like that. I don't know. And so now I can look at my who, what, when, where, why, and I can think of his profession and say, okay, who? Who are you? You know, that's an obvious one. Who do you work with? What uh what is so important about a wastewater treatment plant? Um, what caused you to get into this industry? Uh when did you first get into the industry? You can see, and so on and so on, how it these can be a helpful tool for just kind of leading you to some interesting questions. Um as well, it kind of gets you to see all perspectives of a story or a topic when you think about the who, what, when, where, why, how. Um, and story is like so important to interviewing. Um, because that's the thing that really grabs people to be interested in listening to that interview. Um, is there something, is there a story that's kind of you know, yanking at your heartstrings or is really funny? You know, these are the kind of things that make an interview interesting. Um, so story is something you should always be thinking about when you're writing a question. Like, will this cause this person to start talking about this story? Uh that kind of thing. Story is just like so important to um having an interesting interview. And now um, as well, when you write your list of questions, I would recommend actually reading them out loud ahead of time, making sure like they sound normal. Because it's easy to write stuff in your head, and then you go to say it out loud, and you're like, oh, oh, oh, I'm now stumbling over all my words. It's helpful to try to write things how you might actually say it aloud, what how your voice actually sounds. Um, so for sure, try that. Try practicing saying your questions aloud. And then finally, on the writing question side of things, who is your audience? This is maybe the most one of the most important things is who is listening to this podcast? What is their perspective? What's their background on this topic? Um, it's likely, in fact, it's probably a guarantee that they know less about this topic than you do. Uh and you kind of want to act as if you're coming from their perspective rather than from the expert's perspective. Um, obviously, you've prepared and researched for this interview, so you probably know some stuff, but you want to make it seem like you don't. You want to kind of play dumb in the interview. You probably know the answer to whatever question you're about to ask, but ask it as if you don't know the answer. That would be my recommendation. Alright. Now I'm moving kind of quick here. Is there anything people want me to cover? Okay. Sweet. Alright, so now I want to talk a little bit about. We're we're getting into the interview now. I want to talk about the interview structure. So most interviews have a sort of structure to them. Umil to how you might structure an essay. Um, a lot of people learn this in school. You know, you have an introductory paragraph. You have your body paragraphs, however long. The introduction is kind of like your intro to the podcast, and the body is kind of like the entire interview, if you will. And then you have your outro, which is your space to kind of wrap things up to conclude on the interview. Um and then in podcasting, it's also your space for for promoting whatever events or things they have coming up, promoting the person, giving them that space to kind of say what they're all about. That's oftentimes what podcasts do. So just to re reiterate, you got your introduction where you're uh introducing the show, introducing yourself as well, introducing your guest. That's probably important too. I mean, just uh having that space to fill your audience in on who is this person? You know, like why should you listen to them? Why are they important to listen to? Why are they the expert on this topic? Then you have your body of the interview. And oftentimes with the interview itself, I try to write questions in a way that kind of conveys a certain arc to the interview. You can kind of think of it like a memoir. Oftentimes, in someone's memoir, they'll start from the origin point of their life. And then they'll move forward and eventually get to the present time. And then maybe they'll talk about the future eventually. So that's one way of thinking about it, from origin to present to future. That's where the topic of conversation could go. That's just one way to do it. You know, that's not a hard and fast rule. But certainly that's a uh a structure that works pretty well. Alright, so that's the kind of the structure of how an interview can go. You know, having the sort of arc to your questions is nice. Now let's let's kind of wrap this up with just some important interview tips. So I think a really important thing is be a good listener, be attentive, you know, respond to your guests' responses. You know, follow up on what how they respond. Maybe come up with a question in that moment that you haven't written down. Um, this will feel more conversational, it'll feel more real. Um as well, uh uh try not to interrupt your guest. You know, give your guests the spake the space to speak. You know, really you were here to be interviewing them, so give them that chance to speak. And you may also find that sometimes when you use silence when you don't speak, it forces people to fill the gaps in the conversation. You know, it really scares people into talking. That will be a very useful tool for you, especially with the more shy people. If you ask a question and they answer it briefly, and then you just don't say anything, they'll they'll probably feel like they have to keep answering it. So that's certainly a tool you can use. I've certainly used it quite a bit.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

That's an interrogation technique.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

It is, but it works very well. And it works very well. Um, and I mentioned this before, but stories are very interesting to people. Um, it's what what brings people into to interviews oftentimes, um, as well as structuring your interview to have a sort of story arc to it is gonna be a good way to try to uh bring the audience in and be interested in hearing it. Um as well, encouraging any sort of anecdotes from a guest is is definitely helpful. Again, it's just speaking to people with actual human stories, you know, that's much more interesting than just asking, you know, facts about someone, you know. Alright, so that's kind of the conclusion here of our um lecture. Here, are there any questions at the moment just from what I've talked about thus far? Okay, great. Now I'm gonna move on to our example here. So this example comes from the guy I mentioned earlier, Ron Girodano, who comes in here and records. Um he's a fantastic interviewer. I he uses a lot of things I've been talking about today, and uh, I mean he's just very swift with his interviewing, uh, and he's just very confident, and you can tell even with very few questions, he could go into an interview and do very well. So I it might be a good uh good thing to hear of an expert uh doing it well. And then after this excerpt, we'll listen to it, we'll reflect on it a little bit, and then um you guys can feel free to leave if you'd like, or have a chance to play with the microphones and headphones and maybe try interviewing each other. But here is the excerpt. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

We're listening to 101.5 FM, your Huntley Community Radio Station. Our guest today is Claudia, and you may know Claudia from Marcus Chocolates on the square in Huntley. So, Claudia, welcome to Around Town. Thanks for being back.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Oh, Ron, good morning. It's great to be back to um here in the studio with you, and it's great to say good morning to Huntley.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Well, you know, uh you always know when Claudia is around because she just has the fragrance of donuts. That's right. We call her the fragrance because she radiates donuts. Wonderful. The uh and you know, she's been a proud supporter in Huntley for the business people and nonprofits, and uh and it it's really great what she does for the folks in the area. The uh and she does things within budget, but we've got things coming up that are very, very important, like Valentine's Day, right, Claudia?

SPEAKER_02 27:00

That's right, right. I'd like to just uh touch on one thing about supporting all our nonprofits, just uh a really great story I I want to share with you. Um when we first opened almost 10 years ago, people wanted to leave tips for our staff. And that really took me, we had never really collected tips, but when you're a coffee shop also, besides the donuts and the chocolate, people feel like, oh, we just want to get rid of our loose change. So we put out a coffee cup on our on our little counter in those 10 years, and we just decided, I actually decided, you know what, I don't want to have to deal with trying to divvy up tips during the day. That's you know, I don't know how much this is gonna be. By our employees giving up those tips, we have donated two to four hundred dollars a month to the uh Grafton food pantry since we've been open over ten years. I think that's remarkable. And I think the employees deserve a huge pat on the back for doing that.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Absolutely. And you know, right now couldn't be a better time because uh what people are are going through right now are struggling to make ends meet and uh just just to get food. And and the food pantries I know have doubled and tripled the amount of people they have coming in through the food pantries these days.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

They have. And cash, they really have um a much increased buying power when we give them cash, but anyone gives them cash. And our our customers are really generous because they know it goes right to the food pantry.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

Well, the food pantries in this area are supplied by Northern Illinois Food Pantry. And Northern Illinois, uh, when I had those folks on, they said for every dollar they're able to get eight dollars worth of groceries. Exactly. So it goes a long way. Then it that one dollar goes a long way.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

It does. So I thank everyone that's contributed any kind of cash change or dollar bills to our little coffee cup because it has really amounted to a great gift.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Absolutely. And for you as a business person, how are things going with milk chocolate and dark chocolate?

SPEAKER_02 28:38

You know, all the chocolate is is we the supply is back. The supply was getting really um difficult for a while. Prices have been all over the map. You know, a case of bulk chocolate to me went over a went up over a hundred dollars over a six-month period. It's slowly coming down, and that's the different like ruther events where the chocolate um the cocoa bean is actually grown. Things are stabilized right now, and I hope they last because it's hard for a small business to absorb changes like that, and it's hard for to pass those costs along to your devoted customers.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

Well, that's that's true, and it makes it very difficult for you, but you've been so far doing a great job because uh you know the you've got repeat customers and the couples that customers come there for the first time are are just amazed at what you have there in that shop. But anyway, with the Valentine's Day coming up, you're all prepared, you're ready to go. And um the is there anything special this Valentine's Day you might add that you didn't have the other Valentine's Day?

SPEAKER_02 29:34

That's a good question. Um I think we're we're just gonna stick with trying to have the best possible strawberries that we can. Strawberries are another thing that have like been all over the map on pricing and quality. Yes. So we just want to ensure the best quality ever um and the best service that you know you don't have a long wait in line, you can come in and out and we can just streamline the whole process for our customers.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Just out of curiosity, how many strawberries do you go through, Claudia?

SPEAKER_02 30:00

It's about 35 to 40 flats, and a flat is about eight pounds, depending. That's a lot of dipping. It's a very lot of dipping. Oh boy, good thing you've got help. Yes. Yes, I can definitely never ever do it myself.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

So with the Valentine's Day coming up and uh the punchies coming up, uh what hours are you open and what days?

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Nor are normally we are closed on Mondays, but um for like we said for punch case we'll be open that Monday on the 16th. Uh normal our normal store hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday, Saturday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. We have a wonderful after-church crowd on Sunday mornings that come in as family groups or just to catch up with their friends.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

Oh, that's great. Well, we want to thank uh Claudia from Morkus Chocolates for being here today, and uh remind you folks you've been listening to 101.5 FM Huntley Community Radio. Go to HuntleyRadio.com, click on shows, go to around town. You find this show and many others. Claudia, thank you again for being here today, and I'm looking forward to your chocolates and your donuts.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Ron, you're a pleasure to always talk to, and thanks for having me on again. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

Have a great day, folks. Thank you. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

All right, so that was that was our excerpt. Um that actually came from like a 22-minute interview. So I I edited that down to five minutes, but um to me, I think Ron showcased well a few different things. So I think he was a well-researched guest. He clearly already knew the person. I'm sure he's had many chocolates himself from Marcus. Um but he also he was a listener, he was attentive. So every time Claudia uh brought something up and had a response, he often had a response to her response and even had a follow-up question. So, right in the beginning, she immediately comes in talking about um the tip jar uh that's going to the organization. Um that was not even a question that Ron asked, and yet he encouraged that, and he followed up with two additional follow-up questions. So, something to keep in mind, those follow-up questions are really helpful as well. I was hoping to showcase the kind of arc of it, the intro, middle, how we kind of let uh Claudia give all the information about um her organization right at the end, and then he ended it um with an outro theme that he normally uses. So hopefully that was a good example for you. Um if you're curious to hear more of Ron's shows, you can go to the Huntley Radio website. Uh I believe you if you just search Huntley Radio on Google, it'll say shows under their website, and then you can go to Ron's show if you want to hear more of his shows. But he's very good at it, definitely a person to look up to as far as uh interviewing skills. Now that's that's the end of it today. Are there any questions at the moment? Anything at all?

SPEAKER_05 33:08

I do. Yeah, sure. So will you say what would you recommend the time uh for an interview usually will be?

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Sure. So I think it can depend greatly on the podcast itself. Um if it's a more conversational, loose thing like I was talking about in the beginning, sometimes those can be as long as even two hours. People are really willing to listen to kind of nonsense for a long time. But like an interview that has a lot of heft to it. Um, what I tend to peep see people do with more serious interviews is something like 20 to 30 minutes. It's just hard to keep the energy going with a really serious topic, in my experience, beyond like 30 minutes. Um, but it can it can vary greatly. Um, as well, like your audience is is important to keep in mind too. So, what are they willing to listen to? Are they willing to sit through an hour-long thing? Or are you promoting towards kind of busy people that can only digest the 10-minute thing? That makes sense. Hopefully that answers your question.

SPEAKER_05 34:13

Yes, it does. I got one more question. Yeah, sure. So um let me see. So um interview. So, in your experience, what is the most successful podcast that you have come across or that you might recommend or that you have experienced?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Like successful meaning listeners, like listenership?

SPEAKER_05 34:34

It has more, um, I'm pretty sure, you know, as you're starting, it it takes a while. Yeah. Like what type of uh style would you say are more like success, successful sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Again, it it can really depend. You know, I I myself I'm a big fan of comedy podcasts. I I'm a big fan of comedy. So for me in the comedy world, I I've been seeing that podcasts are I mean, it's the way most comedians seem to make money these days is via a comedy podcast. So that's it's popular in that realm doing the kind of long, longer form comedy style podcasts. But um, I mean the most successful podcasts out there are probably like the NPR podcasts. The thing with those is that they have like six producers that that create them, they're very well-made, well-crafted things. Those are probably the most popular podcasts. Things like that or the daily, the New York Times, the daily. Um, but as far as like what one person can achieve, I think the most success you could probably get is tapping into a sort of niche genre. Um, that's sort of what I try to recommend to people. So trying to do a more niche podcast, you're gonna reach more specific people that are maybe more devoted fans than if you had a more general-based topic podcast. Because it's like, how do you promote yourself? Who's gonna listen to this if it's more general topics? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Whereas if you had a knitting podcast, you know, all the local people who knit, they're gonna all love it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Yeah, no problem. Any other questions out there? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

One of the things I detected, I'm I'm gathering from Ron, I bet he's very well read.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

For sure. So Ron is well read. He is an author as well. He's also just a very conversational person, you know. When you walk in the room, he's also Italian, so I think this is a part of it too. He's immediately busting your balls when you walk in, so he's making jokes left and right, and that's kind of his style towards interviewing, is almost a comedic approach, even with more serious topics. And it helps because it it puts the person at ease. They know that, oh, I'm in the presence of someone who's a little goofy. You know, so like I think that shows that even in a more serious interview, still have moments of levity, have moments to take a laugh. You know, that's important too. If it's just darkness the whole time, that may be a bit unlistenable. I don't know. But yeah. Any any other questions out there? Okay. Well, great. Um, I think we can call it here for our class, but I have this set up for you all to kind of take turns trying it out. If you'd like to try to interview each other, you could. But um, yeah, get a sense of what it feels like to be on mic. I not everyone has experienced this. Um, it can be a bit of a jarring experience for some people, but that was the recording from our podcast interviewing basics program. I hope you enjoyed. And if you'd like to attend any of our programs in the future in person, check out huntlelibrary.org for more information. See you next time.