Podcasts: New Wave of Modern Therapy

The range and scope of narrative podcasts can make it difficult to go beyond big names like The Moth Radio Hour and Serial. But tonight, Maya Goldberg-Safir ’12 from Third Coast International Audio Festival is bringing the event Podcast Therapy to campus.

Goldberg-Safir and producers Alex Kapelman and Whitney Jones from Pitch, a podcast about sound and music, will be at the program tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Gamut Room to introduce people to podcasts that they can enjoy and might not otherwise discover. The event, Podcast Therapy, provides a space for conversation between the “therapists” and the participants. In these conversations, participants share a problem or a concern they’ve been harboring and are then prescribed podcasts to their problems.

It is part of the Meet the Press series that brings working journalists to the College.

“Historically, Meet the Press has brought working journalists into our community so students and faculty can interact with the people who deliver the news to us,”  Sue Halpern, the main organizer of Meet the Press and director of the Narrative Journalism Fellowship, said.

Although the series has mainly brought in traditional journalists, such as New York Times reporters and New Yorker writers, it is expanding to include audio journalism.

“The explosion of audio storytelling is one of the most exciting consequences of the Internet,” Halpern said. “It’s a way for people to connect with one another, and Podcast Therapy is a great way to showcase the range of radio work being done all over the country.”

While the name of the event may bring to mind a doctor’s office, it is far from the atmosphere the event takes on. “It’s like going to the Moth, with a Moth vibe about it,” Goldberg-Safir said. “Any question works, and it’s all about having fun with it.”

There’s no limit to the type of questions that are asked. While the question of going to graduate school has come up at each of Goldberg-Safir’s Podcast Therapy events, a past participant was troubled that his girlfriend’s cat didn’t respect him. In response, Goldberg-Safir pulled out a segment from the podcast WireTap that featured Godzilla’s thought journal when he decided to start losing weight.

Until now, Podcast Therapy has only been done in Chicago bars. As such, it’s structured to be a light-hearted event where conversation is fostered over food and drinks. Bringing the event to Middlebury, Goldberg-Safir hopes to recreate this atmosphere.

“It will be in the Gamut room for a more informal setting,” Goldberg-Safir said. “We will also be serving podcast food, such as cereal for the podcast Serial,” she laughed.

Radio productions and podcasts have come to the forefront recently as a versatile medium through which to communicate and tell stories. Today, there are increasing opportunities to create such audio works and also just to sit back and explore existing podcasts.