Sound School Podcast
The Backstory to Great Audio Storytelling, hosted by Rob Rosenthal, for Transom and PRX.
- Update frequency
- every 14 days
- Average duration
- 22 minutes
- Episodes
- 364
- Years Active
- 2011 - 2025
Two Years of Reporting Whittled Down to Fourteen Minutes – Elissa Nadworny
This is the first episode of the Sound School Podcast (formerly HowSound). It's still from PRX and Transom. Rob's still the host. And the show is still committed to digging deep on the backstory to g…
00:23:37 |
Tue 30 Aug 2022
Wolves, Horses, Boars, Birds, and Bugs
Field recordist Melissa Pons says one of the most important elements of recording soundscapes isn't the gear -- it's you. If you're humble and connect to how the landscape makes you feel, your record…
00:16:46 |
Tue 16 Aug 2022
Tips For Interviewing Shy People (Especially Nuns)
Some interviewees are shy. Others guarded. Yet, you need to talk to them for a story. How do you help them open up? Erika Lantz and Elin Lantz Lesser have a lot of ideas. They spent the better part o…
00:34:13 |
Tue 02 Aug 2022
Nausea, Forehead Mics, and Immersion
Almost every reporting trip has its pitfalls. Andrew Leland's recent story for Radiolab had more than most: He reported people with disabilities participating in tests for travel in space. Along with…
00:18:17 |
Tue 19 Jul 2022
Share the Script?
For more than twenty years, radio journalist Laurel Morales followed the rules: Don't share scripts with sources. Laurel now produces the podcast "2 Lives" and she's tossed that rule out the window. …
00:19:58 |
Tue 05 Jul 2022
Delicately Revealing Your Identity in the Story
Ben Calhoun, formerly of This American Life, sat for two hours staring at a Google doc trying to figure out what to say. It was a delicate piece of writing about race and his own identity. Ben unpack…
00:22:45 |
Tue 21 Jun 2022
Who Am I To Be Here?
Back in 2007, when Andrea Silenzi was a rookie reporter just learning the craft as a student, she reported a story about a woman dying of ALS. It was not easy to report and she regularly wondered "Wh…
00:14:46 |
Tue 07 Jun 2022
Producing YA Fiction
Hillary Frank says middle school can be brutal. The bullying, the harassment, the homophobia, the racism, the sexism... it's all there, along with the complicated emotions of pre-teens. "Here Lies Me…
00:30:05 |
Tue 24 May 2022
Collaboration Is the Only Way Forward
Davia Nelson, one half of the legendary Kitchen Sisters, shares the pair's incredible news: The Library of Congress will acquire the Kitchen Sisters' archive, decades of innovative audio work. Davia …
00:21:52 |
Tue 10 May 2022
More Darts And Laurels
Rob doles out another collection of darts and laurels on this episode. Darts for missing credits and superfluous sound effects. Laurels for stupendous production values, character development, and ju…
00:23:25 |
Tue 26 Apr 2022
Thinking in Scenes
One of the most helpful tools for organizing a story is a "scene chart." Think of it as an outline for the "chapters" in an audio story. Rob dissects one of his favorite audio stories, one he's used …
00:24:05 |
Tue 12 Apr 2022
Remember to Breathe!
A breath may seem like the most insignificant detail in an audio story. But, Rob says breaths are incredibly important when you're editing. All you have to do is listen to stories where the breaths a…
00:09:25 |
Tue 29 Mar 2022
Engage Listeners To Build Trust
Vermont Public Radio reporter Angela Evancie says with the decline in trust of the media, the best way to build back that trust is with listener engagement and podcasts like the one she produces: Bra…
00:17:28 |
Tue 15 Mar 2022
Radio Silence (Rerun)
Silence is often viewed as a no-no on the radio and in podcasts. Silence sounds like something's wrong — the radio station went off the air, the podcast paused. But, what if a story is about silence?
00:12:18 |
Tue 01 Mar 2022
Audio Message in a Bottle
Audio producer and sound artist Kristina Loring was walking the beach with her dog when she stumbled across an actual message in a bottle. That moment led to an unusual audio installation involving b…
00:17:57 |
Tue 15 Feb 2022
Al Letson’s Covenant with Listeners About True Crime Stories
Al Letson set his sights on true crime storytelling in an unusual way — with a covenant for listeners in the true crime series he reported for Reveal, "Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe." …
00:30:31 |
Tue 01 Feb 2022
Navigating Tricky Story Dynamics
When the story is about a family (and also not about a family), but the parents are divorced, and the kids and their father haven't spoken for years, how do you, as a reporter, navigate those tricky …
00:26:00 |
Tue 18 Jan 2022
So You Want To Start A Podcast, Eh?
Producer Nina Porzucki is giving audio producers a gift on this episode — she's sharing a work in progress, a first-draft pilot for a podcast. Nina lays out how she got to the pilot stage and now, wh…
00:22:46 |
Tue 04 Jan 2022
Exquisitely Challenging: Reporting on Suicide
Erica Heilman's story "Finn and the Bell" is the best I’ve heard this year. It's a painful, graceful story about a young man's suicide in rural Vermont. Erica's heart is in the piece; you can hear it…
00:33:52 |
Tue 21 Dec 2021
Darts and Laurels
Rob offers darts and laurels for stories he's recently heard — what's good, what's not so good. On the list, productions from "Kids Short Stories," "Nice Try," "Demented," "The Skewer," and others.
00:27:54 |
Tue 07 Dec 2021
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