Robin Linn ’02 Saldanha got her start at NPR. Now she produces several successful podcasts and audio shows.
If podcasting is under the umbrella of audio entertainment, Robin Linn ’02 Saldanha is holding on to the handle. As someone who’s spent her career producing, editing, and writing content for outlets like NPR and WBEZ Chicago, Saldanha has experience in nearly every part of the audio entertainment industry. The connection between listeners and audio media is a relationship she reveres, and it’s why she ultimately shows up to her computer every day: “If you think about it, you’re traveling around your day with headphones in, washing your dishes, commuting, whatever, and you have this companion — the conversation is just between the two of you,” Saldanha says.
The Birth of an Audiophile
Saldanha first became interested in audio during her senior year at Colgate, which coincided with 9/11. She remembers being in her apartment in the days following the attacks, and her five roommates were glued to the TV. “Typically, college seniors aren’t watching CNN all day, every day,” Saldanha says. “But that became the thing to do, and I was just really repelled by it. I didn’t have the language to figure out why.”
She developed that language with the help of John Knecht, Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of art & art history and film & media studies emeritus. Throughout her time at Colgate, Saldanha took several media studies courses with Knecht in Little Hall. She realized that watching tragedy happen in real time — and the rhetoric around the event — bothered her.
When Saldanha retreated to her room, she started turning on public radio. Growing up, her family listened to talk radio — “I’ve always liked spending time with people’s voices. I think it’s uniquely intimate,” she says. The audio version of the news felt more authentic to her, and she was soon streaming NPR at all hours. On a whim, she applied for an internship at the media organization during her senior spring, eventually working on the hit show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. “I’ve been doing audio ever since,” Saldanha says.
Now, as an independent contractor, Saldanha is the one making audio shows happen, from her Evanston, Ill., home.
Read about a few recent projects:
- And Nothing Less hosted by Retta and Rosario Dawson
Saldanha wrote and produced this official podcast honoring the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, hosted by two actresses. It was the first time Saldanha had written and produced content for hosts with whom she’d never worked, which posed a challenge. “You are trying to get in someone’s voice and want it to sound natural, but we’ve only had a single conversation before I’m writing words for [them] to say,” Saldanha says. “It [requires] a great deal of trust.” - Obscure hosted by Michael Ian Black
In this podcast, the comedian reads classic literature like Wuthering Heights, making jokes along the way. Behind the scenes, Saldanha does precision work — “I just make it sound better,” she says. That includes the scoring, voice amplification, and audio transitions. - Axios Today hosted by Niala Boodhoo
Producing this news podcast requires Saldanha to work within a flexible schedule — but she likes it that way. “Yesterday at 10 at night, we were putting out a show about our former president for this morning,” she says. With young children, she values having time during the day to spend on other activities. “For me to have no flexibility during the day and have to work outside the house, at this point, Obama would have to call me to do that.”