Spotlight on: Eric George
“If you can write a long read, if you can write a book? You can write a podcast.” Our interview with a two-time Walkley-winning podcast producer.
Winner of Radio/Audio Feature category at the 2018 Walkley Awards
Kylie Stevenson, Caroline Graham and Eric George, The Australian, “Lost in Larrimah”
The Australian continues to cover the ongoing investigation into 70-year-old Paddy Moriarty’s disappearance from Larrimah in the Northern Territory — population: 12. Kylie Stevenson and Caroline Graham’s reporting uncovered new leads and advanced police enquiries. They conducted more than 30 interviews, recorded 40-plus hours of tape and reviewed thousands of pages of documents. But this captivating podcast was not just an investigation, it was a deep, earnest dive into Larrimah’s history. A sincere tribute, not just to a person who disappeared, but also to a disappearing town and the way of life it represents.
How did you become involved in this story?
Kylie and Caro pitched the story to The Australian. Gemma Jones, one of the senior chiefs-of-staff then, actually got the pitch and was talking to them about it, and Gemma came to me. We were only a couple of months away from launching Teachers Pet, so there was only a narrow window to do Larrimah. I had questions around the logistics, but I liked the story. It was really fresh, original, and they’d done most of the work already. So I said let’s give it a whirl. It was pretty wild turning it around in the time that we had!
How long was that?
It would have been two months tops. We rolled out the episodes over about two weeks, we were releasing three episodes a week. Realistically, from the start of production to release wouldn’t have been much more than seven weeks. Basically when it came to us they had this very long master document with the whole story. It wasn’t scripted, but it was telling the story. The way it was published was pretty close to that.
That was a reason I could see we could do it, even with the tight time frame.
Often the challenge of longform storytelling is the macro structure, working out how to piece it all together, but they had a strong idea of that from the beginning.
All the principal recording had been done when they came to us, they’d done all the recording themselves. Once I got involved we did a small amount of pickups as we went along, little interviews that we needed, but 95% of it was brought to me. It was the first time I’ve worked like that. I’ve usually worked with it from conception. It was quite interesting.
Have you been much involved with the aftermath of the story? What impact did the podcast have?
We ran into The Teacher’s Pet pretty soon after. And also soon after my wife and I had our first child. So that’s not something I was very involved in. Kylie and Caro pitched some further pieces to the paper, there was a long feature in the Weekend Australian Magazine and some other stories that ran after the podcast.
What made you want to be a journalist?
Curiosity. My undergraduate degree was in actually in winemaking so I’ve had a circuitous route. I studied journalism as a post-grad. But it’s a job with a great diversity of work. So I suppose it was a personal curiosity to learn about things and communicate stories, talking to people, that’s what I love to do and this way I can do it for work.
I suspect more people go from journalism into wine than the other way around…
I don’t know which one is a worse idea, financially.
You’ve worked on other Walkley-winning podcasts like Bowraville, so you’ve been at the forefront of this evolution we’ve seen of print publications moving into audio storytelling. What has that been like? Would you have predicted this shift five years ago?
It’s taken me by surprise. I was a podcast consumer long before I was a podcast producer. On broader industry scale I find it quite surreal! I can remember a time in my life when I was the only person who knew what podcasts were. It’s a massively growing medium.
Before Bowraville we did some small things at The Australian, little experiments. But Bowraville was a pivotal project for us. It was a terrific experience. Dan Box is an incredible journalist, I really admire him. He brought a background in radio journalism to that project, having worked at the BBC. I had my own perspective as podcast consumer. But it was pretty wild, we were making it up as we went along. It was ultimately really rewarding.
And it’s fantastic to see The Australian and other outlets resourcing podcasts in the way they have. Seeing it as a vehicle for telling important stories.
What do you love about audio/sound design and how can it deepen the impact of journalism?
I have always enjoyed that audio is one-to-one communication. I always liked listening to radio, radio plays, it feels very immediate. Especially when you listen through headphones, as many people do with podcasts, the story is something in your head, and there’s power in that.
It’s interesting, I know Dan [Box] says storytelling is storytelling regardless of medium. But I think there are some stories podcasts do better than others. It’s the power of people telling their stories themselves. They use their own voice, and it allows those at the core of different stories to share their own experiences. That’s the heart of production, and the podcasts that have done this well are the ones that have resonated. People feel like they’re riding along and hearing from the people who matter most in the story.
What are you most proud of about the stories you’ve told?
First off I want to say — I don’t see myself as someone who’s telling the stories. As a producer my role is more about facilitating. Kylie and Caroline, Dan Box, Hedley Thomas, Great Bearup — they’re the ones telling the stories. My job is to help them do that. Having said that, when you take a story, whether it’s an unsolved murder or a financial crime, and you create an audio world that brings a sympathetic story to life… That’s probably the most gratifying part.
More broadly… Podcasts offer an opportunity to broaden the kind of voices we’re hearing from. This is a format that’s great for niche narrow-casting, telling stories and sharing information for really specific audiences, and that’s really commendable.
Do you think that diversity of voices is because the barriers to entry are low for podcasting — you don’t need a lot of expensive equipment, or access to a major publisher, to get a podcast out there?
Sure, but I also just think it’s the nature of the format.
It’s huge that podcasts are so accessible to produce. But they’re also well-suited to delivering stories to particular audiences. Not every podcast has a huge audience, but they can still find an engaged community.
The internet, social media, online forums; the way people can find things now means there doesn’t need to be a huge audience to justify making a podcast. And it’s a great way to bring people together.
What’s your message to Australians about why quality journalism needs their support?
I think we’re at an interesting point in media. Podcasting in particular is an interesting one where it’s generally free to consume. People are so used to enjoying things without having to pay for them, they may not think about the effort that goes into making them. And podcasts like Larrimah, Bowraville, they’re incredibly laborious to make.
It’s unbelievable the amount of work that goes into making these things resonate with an audience. So recognising that work, and supporting it, helps sustain stories that matter. And that support helps give audiences the stories they’re interested in, too.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Just getting back to your earlier question, about the shift for print publications into podcasting.
Often I hear from print journos who are concerned they’re not suited to making a podcast; they think it’s got to be like radio and they don’t have the skills for that. But I think so much of what makes a great podcast is already there in a print journalist. If you can write a long read, if you can write a book? You can write a podcast.
Most journalists are storytellers and they’re good at drawing out people’s stories from them. They can structure a story. With a podcast, they can then deliver that to a substantial audience that has a hunger for great stories. The more great journos in Australia who embrace the medium, the better off we’ll be. There’s a lot of low hanging fruit that I see, and I hope we’ll see more journalists embracing the format of podcasts.
Eric George is a multiple Walkley Award-winning journalist and multimedia editor at The Australian, where he launched the paper’s push into podcasts.
The 2018 Walkley Award for Radio/Audio: Feature was supported by Griffith University.
