{"id":5879,"date":"2021-02-09T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=5879"},"modified":"2021-01-28T14:37:31","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:37:31","slug":"the-storytellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2021\/02\/09\/the-storytellers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Storytellers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alumni create genre-spanning podcasts.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the past few years, podcasts have become more popular than ever: According to Statista, there are an estimated 88 million listeners, as of 2019. Read about five alumni in the world of podcasts, and discover new shows to stream on your drive to work (or as you work from home).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young, Black & Brave<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Illustrations by Katriel Pritts<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Portia Flowers \u201902<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 10 words or fewer: <\/strong>Hosts rate how movies portray Black women<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the podcast:<\/strong> During a transition from a research career to science policy work, Portia Flowers \u201902 took a break and started ruminating on all of the things she wanted to do but previously didn\u2019t have time for. Podcasting was one of those longed-for hobbies, so she started Young, Black & Brave<\/em> with her graduate school friend Cynthia Dorsey. (Additionally, Flowers hosts the podcast Hillman Class Reunion<\/em> about the sitcom A Different World<\/em>.) With a shared interest in film, specifically how Black women are portrayed in Hollywood, the pair discusses a different movie each episode and rates its level of inclusivity using their Dorsey\/Flowers test. Based on the Bechdel test, which measures the representation of women in fiction, the Dorsey\/Flowers test looks for attributes like whether a Black woman has a speaking role and whether she lives until the end of the film. \u201c[It\u2019s] so basic, [but] you wouldn\u2019t believe how many films don\u2019t pass with flying colors,\u201d Flowers says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those low-scoring films? Boomerang<\/em>, starring Eddie Murphy and Halle Berry. \u201cIn a lot of these films that are considered to be excellent \u2018Black movies,\u2019 the men tend to be a little more fleshed out … if we\u2019re going to call it a Black movie classic, who\u2019s it a classic for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Son of a Hitman<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Jason Cavanagh \u201904<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 10 words or fewer: <\/strong>Journalist travels through Texas researching notorious hitman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the podcast: <\/strong>Though Son of a Hitman<\/em> is his first podcast, Jason Cavanagh \u201904 is no stranger to building a show. A longtime nonfiction TV producer who worked on projects like Moonshiners<\/em>, The Real Housewives of Atlanta<\/em>,and several shows for the History Channel, MTV, and CBS, he\u2019s a skilled interviewer familiar with what it takes to produce a compelling piece of entertainment. So, when a colleague mentioned the storied Charles Harrelson, a hitman who claimed to be involved in the JFK assassination (and who happened to be actor Woody Harrelson\u2019s dad), Cavanagh knew he had a good story on his hands. \u201cHe\u2019s this larger-than-life villain,\u201d Cavanagh says. \u201cHitmen capture the popular imagination in fiction all the time, whether it’s Pulp Fiction<\/em> or No Country for Old Men<\/em>.\u201d (Woody coincidentally plays in the latter.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Murders at White House Farm<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Lauren Bright Pacheco \u201990<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 10 words or fewer: <\/strong>A family is murdered in England. Who did it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the podcast:\u00a0<\/strong>The story, with many twists and turns, focuses on a family killed in their home near Essex, England. Lauren Bright Pacheco \u201990 narrates and interviews guests for each episode of the show, a companion piece to the HBO special of the same name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bright didn\u2019t need to cross the Atlantic to make the podcast happen. \u201cThere\u2019s been this huge push of technology in the field of remote interviewing,\u201d she says. With the technology they used for The<\/em> Murders at White House Farm<\/em>, it sounds as if two people are sitting in the same room \u2014 even though they were actually in different countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A self-described recovering TV producer, Bright was the special features producer for the Dr. Oz Show<\/em> for years before moving into the podcast space. That\u2019s also where her true crime focus began. \u201cThere was a voracious appetite for true crime, and [Oz\u2019s] show ended up focusing a lot on the mental health aspects of crime. So I started doing more and more of it.\u201d In addition to The Murders at White House Farm<\/em>, Bright has produced other true crime shows for iHeartRadio, like Murder in Oregon<\/em> and Happy Face. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says she wasn\u2019t podcast savvy when she started out, and because of that, Bright didn\u2019t feel pressured to recreate other successful shows. Instead, she relied on her interviewing know-how and years of production experience to create compelling stories. \u201cI\u2019ve been forced for so many years to condense stories into small packages and condense people into little sound bites. [So this has been] really liberating for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aron and His Dad<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Larry Goldman \u201976<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A feel-good father-son podcast with hosts Larry Goldman \u201976 (father) and Aron (son), in which they discuss musical tastes and chat with fun guests. Not to be missed: Each host has an episode with his high school pals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pod115<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Adam Paul \u201989<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a director, an actor, and a writer, Adam Paul \u201989 knows a thing or two about creating. Now, he\u2019s brought that knowledge to higher education as a theater instructor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, creating Pod115<\/em> with students in his podcasting class. The show, a thrilling story of college students whose podcast is taken over by an alien in the Nevada desert, was inspired by Paul\u2019s love of Orson Welles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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