Written by Maximillian Dunham
The start of the 2016 academic school year marked the establishment of Catalyst Radio, a multi-faceted radio journalism program. Catalyst Radio, the newest branch of the Catalyst newspaper, will offer a wide variety of shows from sports reports to comedy shows and engaging news stories.
Last year, junior Zach Zuckerman took a radio journalism class during Block 5 with Visiting Professor Peter Breslow, a senior producer at National Public Radio (NPR). Zuckerman had been interested in radio journalism as a career; however, it was a project in Breslow’s Radio Journalism class that prompted him to bring radio journalism to Colorado College. For the project, Zuckerman and his partner covered the Breckenridge Snow Sculpting Championships.
“We worked really hard to get my first legitimate story that I thought could be aired on KRCC or could be aired on NPR,” said Zuckerman. “It was an amazing feeling to do all that hard work, come back with a good sound bite and make a good cut.”
From there, Zuckerman met with junior David Andrews, the Editor-in-Chief of the Catalyst to pitch the idea. Zuckerman saw Catalyst Radio as another outlet that would allow journalists to create good content and connect with the CC community. Zuckerman has a strong vision for the Catalyst Radio, and with several different projects in the works, Catalyst Radio is already off to a strong start.
“Eventually we want to get to the point where we’re covering live events like the Marlon James talk. We have a girl, Anne Marie, who wants to do more of a narrative episodic piece which details CC’s water use. We’re gonna have man-on-the-street coverage during the election out there interviewing voters,” Zuckerman explained.
Zuckerman is aiming to expand Catalyst Radio in any way that students want to take it. The most important quality in being a successful radio journalist, according to Zuckerman, is passion. It was this passion that originally led Zuckerman to pursue his idea and establish Catalyst Radio.
“This summer I worked for a podcast called the Moth,” said Zuckerman. “I was their multimedia intern and at that point I said, ‘this has to happen.’”
Zuckerman started uploading his own content this past spring but now anyone with an idea for a podcast is able to work with the group to turn their vision into a reality. Some of the first students on campus to utilize the newly established radio division of the Catalyst are juniors Nathan Makela and Andrew Braverman. The first episode of their podcast, “Sluggish Lazy Stupid and Unconcerned,” is available now on SoundCloud. Braverman and Makela’s podcast originated after testing out Facebook’s live stream feature.
“First week of school, Andrew Braverman and I were joking around with the live streaming feature on Facebook and we were like ‘we should do some kind of comedy live stream every week,’” Makela said. “We approached Zach because we knew he was trying to start this whole radio journalism thing.”
Defined by Makela as a “topical podcast that is interview oriented,” the duo has a loosely structured format for their show. They will choose a topic for each episode and interview a couple people from the CC community. In addition, Makela would like to have a special guest on each episode to talk more formally about the topic.
Makela has several goals for the podcast, the first of which is to be heard.
“We want to turn it into something people know about,” said Makela. “We want people to send in ideas, we want people to provide feedback, we want constructive criticism and we want to talk to people because it’s almost like you’re having a conversation with the whole school.”
He also wants to give CC students the opportunity to hear different perspectives from people they may not normally engage with.
“I love the idea of having community voices highlighted. I want everybody to have that opportunity to hear people speak in a more intimate setting.”
Creating a more fluid dialogue throughout the community is an effect Braverman and Makela strive to produce through their podcast. Braverman and Makela both encourage anyone with an idea to pursue it and make their podcast come to life.
“I’d say the biggest thing is don’t feel like you need a background in radio journalism and also, have fun with it,” said Braverman. “I guess it’s technically work but when I go from work or studying to working on the podcast it just feels like I’m learning about something I’m interested in. It’s like a study break.”