The podcast squad: Ambahr, Thalia, Ysa, Jonah, Alejandro
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This project is based on the 17 different propositions California's were asked to vote on this year, 2016 November 8th. We decided we wanted to make it easier on voters this year... instead of reading an absurdly long voter's manual and spending hours researching about these ballots... we did it for them! And turned them into a series of fun, engaging and informative podcasts. These podcast include interviews with tons of people being affected by these propositions and experts on the topics ranging from marijuana legalization to the death penalty. In the period of this project we became citizen journalist by informing ourselves on politics, gaining interviewing and writing skills and adapting to public speaking!
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click on the link to see our website! This is where you can access the actual podcast and read whats its about !
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In the first days of preparation for this project we had a guest, Scott Lewis the editor and chief of The Voice of San Diego (news organization) come into our class and witnessed an interview between him and out teacher, and even asked him questions ourselves. Here are my messy notes on the interview and the interview map my teacher prepared, a skill we mastered well throughout this project. From his interview we learned a lot about him and his background, how he got where he was and tips/tricks for our podcasts. I learned a lot from this interview, and got a good idea of the affect I wanted my podcast to have and what people should take away from it . I learned to be open minded and in order to be a successful journalist, you have to know you're going to be wrong at times.I would say it sparked a fire in me that made me more passionate about journalism, even considering it in my future.
I apologize if the image is difficult to read or blurry! So our next stage in the project was getting assigned a proposition to do the podcast about.. and me along with my group got assigned Proposition 64, the legalization of marijuana for recreational use for adults 21 and up. And we continued by becoming informed geniuses on our proposition. In the picture to the left you see a page from a packet where we filled out most of the basic information like arguments FOR and AGAINST our ballot measure. Other pages you would see a list of people against it or for it and all the different type of people who will be hurting or benefiting by this proposition passing. Here is the point where we were learning all the basics about proposition 64, an important stage in our overall project. Alright so something that majorly contributed to making this podcast possible to finish on time, as weird as it sounds was checklists! We went through them daily, checking in with the group on what we're going to be woking on, what needs to get done etc. So here we have one of our last little checklist before launching our podcast where we see things like revising our webpage or listening to our podcast and go over some questions to ask ourselves. Seeing these tasks that needed to get completed helped us use our time more effectively, and know if were behind and have to speed it up or not. So..."props" to checklists . |
My whole group was initially for proposition 64 from was we already knew, so we wanted to do a podcast originally about the good side of marijuana, "convincing " people to vote yes . But we soon realized that would far less interesting... coming in a podcast already trying to prove a point and not accepting you might be wrong, so thats where our burning questions come in.... instead of doing a podcasts that tells people to vote yes, or vote no, we wanted to answer a question that will leave people confused, truly making them consider weather it was a good or bad thing so the decision was all on them. These burning questions ended up being "wheres the revenue going? what businesses will be affected?" Now that was something we believed would captures peoples attention, and it captured ours as well. Please feel free to click the link above to read out pitch on the podcast.
Next step, finding people to interview. We reached out online, emailing and calling people in the marijuana industries. We later ran into Roland Shaw, a vice principle in Denver, Colorado (where marijuana is legalized) and set up an interview map (link above) unique to him, where we asked about his experiences before and after the legalization. Then I emailed Cat Packet, campaign coordinator for marijuana reform and we set up an interview over Skype and wrote an interview map that we all created together.
I found Roland Shaw because he happened to be visiting High Tech and was kind enough to let us interview him on the spot. Cat Packet I found as I was watching a youtube video of an interview with Lynne Lyman, a woman involved in the cannabis industry and after emailing her Cat Packer agreed to meet up for an interview over Skype instead, and said she worked close with her. I conducted the interview with the help from my group using a Blue Yeti microphone connected to the call. After the interview we had to "log" the tape. To do this you listen though the interview, taking rough notes on everything that you hear.That will later remind you what was said in the interview and you see what you have to work with later on. Kind of like laying all your puzzle pieces flat on the ground, seeing every piece and option you have to work with, instead of having them jumbled on top of each other,having to constantly sort through them and making it easier to miss something important. |
After all our research, all our interviews and logging them it was time to write the script for the actual podcast. I went ahead and wrote the base of the script and had my group edit it and add, and take away. Unfortunately they fought hard to remove a lot of my puns from the podcasts, sorry guys!... So actually writing the script was probably one of the hardest part of this podcast, the logs helped a ton! And so did our script outline above. We made lots of modification and switching things around in order for it to 'flow'.
to set custom HTML
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So once we had everything and all that was left was editing, it was quite harder than I expected. I came in not knowing one thing about editing and came out a pro, mastering Audacity in no time...almost, it took me a few mess ups before I got the hang of it. To bad those mess ups involved me almost deleting everything. It was stressful how time consuming editing was, we wanted everything to sound great and sometimes things weren't quite adding up while editing and we had to re-shoot. I had LOTS of fun actually speaking in the podcast and reporting everything, and the other two host, Thalia and Jonah were amazing!I remember talking through the microphone confidently,I really felt passionate about my proposition, I felt like telling these people about it, I wanted our words and the things we discovered to be heard. It came to the point where just one segment wasn't enough, with all the information we found out I wanted to create a second one! I could not have been more proud on how it turned out despite the long hours after and before school to edit and record... hearing the completed podcast after was totally worth it .
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So this was my first exhibition here at High Tech High and I loved it! I remember being exited for our podcast to be played, I remember hoping these people would be more informed on proposition 64 then they were before they heard our podcast, or that it would make them conflicted about something, or at least that they take some final thought with them. As they called our group and we sat on the stage, I remember taking the "president chair" because it was decorated as a room in the white house and smiling as our podcast came on. My smile stayed on my face as I heard all my group mates talk, as I talked, as the funky music played in the back, from the introduction to the goodbyes I smiled. I was so proud of us and myself, After it played the audience asked a few questions that I wish I was a little more prepared for a few of those .My first project here at high tech was such a victory and left such an impact on me, as I mentioned before it, a little seed representing my passion for journalism sprouted.