Susannah Broun

Fresh Air is a WHYY radio show and podcast that is distributed through NPR and hosted by Terry Gross. The show is done in an interview format with guests ranging from actors, musicians, authors, politicians, diplomats, and more. The show is pre-recorded and edited to be released daily on weekdays. Terry Gross is famous for her extreme talent as an interviewer and her ability to gain powerful insights through her thoughtful and probing questions. The show follows current events and pop culture moments while being a platform for celebrities to be heard like never before. Recorded (although it is currently virtual) and based out of Philadelphia's WHYY, the show is a wonderful example of the success of public radio and the transition of radio to the podcast format. 

For my placement at Fresh Air, I was able to shadow the production team through the entire production process of the show’s episodes. This generally included research, logging interviews, and editing. Each week I would meet with producer Heidi Saman who taught me the ins and outs of the audio production world and I was able to witness the fast-paced environment of a daily show. I researched guests by watching the content they made, interviews that they had previously done, or work they were generally involved with. Part of this research included looking at the lengthy documents put together by the production team that gathered all of the career histories of guests and general topics to cover in the interviews. Producers could use the knowledge to inform the edit and to suggest questions for Terry to ask in the interviews. I got to sit in on the interviews that occurred (virtually) and write logs during the live sessions. This meant that I would create transcriptions (not as exact as some transcriptions but enough for me to follow along with when looking back) as the interview took place. It was important to record these interviews with accuracy, time stamps, and notations of when breaks were taken. This was necessary when it was time to make cuts so that I had a connection to the interview text and an understanding of the flow. Making paper edits for Fresh Air was my favorite part of the placement. I would indicate the edits that I would make to cut the interview from a 90+ minute interview down to a 40-minute episode. Heidi would then talk through how my edits compared to the edits that the Fresh Air producers decided on. It was through this process that I learned how to make these difficult choices that create the style of the show. I began to gain an ear for what would make an interesting segment, what sort of answers make good concluding pieces, when questions and answers were not quite captivating enough, and many more elements of the editing choices. This process got easier each time I edited an episode and I began to separate what I found personally interesting versus what would make sense in the narrative flow of the interview. 

Each element of my placement taught me something valuable about the field of audio production and gave me important insight into the world of Philadelphia media. It is evident that Fresh Air is a show based in Philly in part because of how the storytelling differs from the sort of production that might come out of a Hollywood or New York show. There would be many times when we would cut something such as an actor plugging their new show and instead include a fascinating personal narrative. It is these sorts of decisions that give Fresh Air its unique voice. It is an established and famous show that celebrities are excited to participate in but also is not part of the “celebrity industry” in the same way as other media outlets. I believe that its Philly location plays a big role in this distinction. Fresh Air is a show that amplifies very personal stories and is not at all a superficial talk show. The unique style of the show fits the format of public radio as celebrities being vulnerable creates a “for the people '' ethos, just like public radio. This placement was an exceptional experience that increased my passion for audio production and storytelling.