Fixing it in post

For such a young medium, podcasting has already developed such distinct cultural markers; the close-mic breathy voice to mimic intimacy, the affectedly natural banter to start the episode, the fourth-wall-breaking nods towards the production and editing that goes into it (‘we’ll fix it in post’). It might be a certain vocal intonation, a well-worn inside joke that only the true ‘heads’ will get. It’s a language of its own.

In 2020 I faced my clichéd destiny and became a podcasting guy, for a couple of episodes at least. First Word Problems, the BSP’s in-house podcast, is run and hosted by students at the Bowen Street Press and focuses on issues relevant to emerging writers and editors.

(You can find us on Spotify, please subscribe to my Patreon for exclusive episodes). (We don’t have a Patreon, sorry).

Along with my co-hosts Haydn Spurrell and Rosalind Hardy, we spoke to an editor who had been involved in workplace organising at Penguin Random House, a writer–journalist, and a novelist.

It’s eerie how naturally you slip into the ‘podcast voice’ once you’re on mic. The podcast voice is probably different for everyone, an amalgam of whatever you’ve been listening to lately. You might sound more serious if you’ve been listening to politics or true crime, or perhaps you’d adopt a casual banter if you’d been listening to improv comedy. Listen to enough podcasts, and you’ll develop your own voice when it’s your turn to get on the air.

Anyway, I tried to sound like the laid-back public intellectual I always wished I could be, like a less incendiary and much less erudite Gore Vidal. Instead, I think I ended most of my sentences with an apologetic ‘does that make sense or…?’

I interviewed an editor because I was interested in workplace culture at major publishing houses. She’d worked at Penguin, Random House, and Penguin Random House (post merger). I thought that if I navigated the conversation delicately, I might be able to bring up wages and working conditions, topics an editor could be hesitant to discuss in a public forum with a modest listenership.

Instead, she spontaneously brought up a union-negotiated enterprise bargaining agreement she had fought for—while introducing herself. You can hear me in the recording scrambling to re-orient the order of my questions—I’d been saving the best to last. I’ve spent time working in call centres, making hundreds of phone calls a day. I know a thing or two about call control, is what I’m saying. Yet there’s still a chaos to the flow of conversation that feels like riding a riptide out to sea, regardless of how organised you are.

On the next episode, I guested with co-host Haydn Spurrell and we talked about books and High Street Northcote for over 10 minutes, again mimicking our favourite podcast hosts. We were criticised by our production team for running too long, and they were right. We were just having fun, making content that we’d want to listen to. My favourite podcasts are the boring ones where you can pretend you’re just hanging out with your cool pals. ‘Parasocial relationships’ is a buzz phrase on Twitter and other online spaces, the term for the strong connections you feel to online personas who you really know nothing about. Funny how even the idea of an audience listening in makes you behave differently …

It’s a fun persona to wear, and I’m glad the BSP gave me the chance to run overtime, to speak chaotically and to ‘fix it in post’.

© Bowen Street Press