I was in a “burn it all down” kind of mood…
[Note: This is my final assignment for Newmark J-School’s Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program. It’s a summary of my 100-day journey. You can read about other projects in the program here.]
It’s a pretty helpless feeling to watch the podcast company you helped build from the ground up go through three rounds of layoffs. Thankfully, I suppose, I was watching from the sidelines. I left the company just before the first round. I couldn’t have predicted how bad it would get, but I left because I was unhappy with the direction things were going and I was ready for a change. I’d seen systemic problems not just at my company, but across the podcast industry: a tendency toward excessive growth, which felt unsustainable, and a decision-making structure in which the people who knew the most about making podcasts were not the ones making the most important decisions.
I was motivated to do something about it, but at the same time, I was lonely. I missed my former colleagues and I knew I couldn’t tackle full systems alone. The first thing I did was to revive the blog I’d started back in 2007 and port it over to Substack. Then I trained for and ran a marathon. (Here’s why I did that.) And then I applied for the EJCP program. I didn’t have a very clear project in mind, but the program seemed open to ideas, and I was excited about the prospect of using those 100 days to form my ideas into a more coherent shape.
One of our first tasks was to think about our values — not just related to our projects, but to our whole lives. This was a revelation. I had spent so many years working for others and executing what was important to them, I had never really stopped to think about what was important to me. Over the next two weeks, I got to know some of the people in my cohort and my smaller learning group. We were assigned a mentor and we were introduced to a series of guest speakers who challenged us to find new ways to approach our problems and expand our thinking. In week three we were encouraged to get to know our audience, which happened to coincide with the Resonate Podcast Festival, a conference of my peers where I had memorable conversations that helped shape my idea further. I realized then that this idea was not just mine, but belonged to a whole community of people who were excited about making change in the podcast industry and who were enthusiastic about what I was working on. The edges of my idea were starting to come into focus.
I want to build a support network for creators like me who want to make a sustainable living doing their craft without the volatile forces of profit-driven business models determining what shows they make, how fast they make them, and who they make them with. So I started to look more closely at media cooperatives.
There are a handful of media cooperatives already out there. For example — the Associated Press! There’s also Defector Media, 404 Media, Hell Gate, and Maximum Fun — proof that it’s possible to band together with like-minded creators and replace systems that benefit only a few with collaborations that support the many.
Over the next few weeks of the program, I let my imagination run wild. I fantasized that every show that was canceled in 2023 would regroup in this cooperatively-run network. I imagined reinventing podcast sales in the style of Cutco knife sales with a grassroots sales force spread across the country and the proceeds being split equitably across the network. I invited my growing Substack readership to “join the revolution” and I imagined that we together could re-envision the business of podcasting and begin to raise enough money so we could all guarantee ourselves sustainable employment from here on out.
As the 100 days comes to an end, I remain clear about where my values are and where I’d like to take this vision. But the execution will take time: to plan, to organize, to collaboratively write a robust and coherent set of by-laws, to FIND FUNDING. So in the meantime, my EJCP mentor suggested that I continue to do what I’ve always done in my career, this time in the form of a consultancy. This will allow me to share what I’ve learned about podcasting over the last 20 years and help others with all manner of show building and problem solving while also earning a living. And meanwhile, I can continue to spread the gospel about the value of cooperative ownership and collective decision-making.
So let me take this moment to officially announce the expansion of my offering from a Substack to a podcast consultancy offering the following services:
- Show Development
- Story Editing
- Show Running
- Management Training
- Project Staffing
- Production Doctoring (general troubleshooting and solving production issues large and small)
My hope is that by offering these hands-on services, I’ll be able to raise enough money to continue working on the larger industry-shifting vision I started out with. My wild and scattered ideas are beginning to take root in more solid ground.
I’m so grateful to Jeremy Caplan and Ambreen Ali for giving shape to this incredible program and for bringing together such an inspiring group of attendees and guest speakers. These last 100 days have set me on a path I’m excited to continue. You can follow my progress on the Freelance Cafe Substack. I also thank my fellow cohort members, especially my small learning group and mentee group Ashlyn Lipori-Russie, Ali Al Ibrahim, Jazmin Goodwin, and Ryan Restivo, who is definitely joining the revolution.
