Making of: Podcasts and Oral Histories

By Al Preston

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            Ever wonder how some podcasts are made? Or how we put together an oral history episode? Well, it can sound rather simple and at stages it is. However, it is very time-consuming and a lot of work. At the same time, it is also very rewarding.

            For a regular podcast episode, the first step is finding a topic. Because we also utilize a blog format, we have to decide if something would be better suited for the podcast. For that, we mostly chose topics that would be easier to listen to rather than read. Topics with a lot of heavy information or something that would be too long for a blog post, it becomes a podcast! Histories that have story telling elements, like the story of someone or an event, can be great for a verbal form of storytelling.

            The next step is doing research necessary to properly tell and explain the topic. If you know where to look, this part is pretty easy. The hard part is writing the script. Public facing informative writing can be very difficult. You don’t want to be too long winded but still provide information. You also don’t want to talk down to your audience. Podcasts can also be more conversational which can be difficult when the narrator is essentially dumping a bunch of information on the listener.

            Some podcasters, to achieve that conversational tone, will only have a bullet point list of things they want to talk about and then just talk about those things without directly reading them off of the list. For the most part, folks able to do that either don’t have a lot of filler words like ‘um’ in their speech or they are able to easily remove them from the final audio because they have so few of them. I am not one of those people.

            I have a tendency to lose my train of thought or go on unrelated tangents and awkwardly circle back around. I’ll mispronounce words I’ve said a million times and I have many filler words. I’ll even occasionally switch the order of words around which can make things very confusing. So, without a script, I end up doing a lot of editing later. I write one to keep myself on track and make my work easier down the road. Plus, if I write a script early on in the process, I don’t have to add an additional step to transcript the podcast to post alongside the audio.

            I don’t read the script in one take either. Once I have the script, everything is spelled out clearly so I don’t trip myself up later, I make the font bigger and double-space the lines. Then I hit record on Audacity (a free audio recording and editing program) and then don’t stop until I’ve gone through the entire script.

            If I mess up or realize I’ve made a mistake in my script, I pause speaking (not the recording), fix the mistake or reread the line a few times in silence, then try again. These pauses also help in the editing process later. They let me know where I need to edit and give me room to make the edit sound smooth. Once it’s all edited down, I have the episode!

            Surely there are better ways of doing all of this. I have a Snowball microphone that I use, and I sit in my wife’s closet to get the best sound quality I can. Audacity is a great program and its very user friendly, I’m sure there are better ones, but that’s the one I have. Even the process could probably be done differently, but this is how I like to do it. This is the most effective method for me.

            That’s a regular episode, oral history episodes are a little different. I still do the research and write a script. There are some introductory things I need to say before starting the episode, like who’s talking, why are they talking, how I found them, things like that. Just some context for the listener before they hear the stories. I’ll also give warnings just in case the interviewee says some things that might be a trigger for some people.

            Additionally, if there are things that the interviewee says that an average audience may not know about, I like to give some context either at the beginning, end or between interview sections.

            Like all things on this site, these oral histories are edited. Each one is about two hours long and not every story will matter to everyone. It could be a long boring listen that way. So, when putting together an episode, I’m looking for a throughline in the interview. Stories that are related if not connected.

            Those stories I’ll string together, sometimes, depending on how the interviewee speaks, I’ll also edit out long pauses or confusing phrasing to streamline the episode. Every post and episode we make has a message or point that it is trying to convey. With every oral history, we try to do the same.

            Editing the oral histories is simply to compile similar stories in one oral history. I’m not changing what the person is saying or how they want to convey their story. Instead, I’m making more accessible some of the connected stories they shared with me, not all of them.

            Whole, mostly unedited oral histories are available by request. Temporary links to the oral histories will be presented to those who wish to hear or use them for their own research or curiosity. I say mostly unedited because some of the interviewees wanted parts of their stories to be restricted or locked for a set amount of time. Those who ask for an oral history will be made aware of the timestamps of the restricted parts and the audio will simply be blank for that time stamp. Or even have a name blocked out. When the restriction lifts, the oral histories will be given out fully unedited.

            I hope this gives some insight into how we make certain things and why! As always, if you have some interest in the oral histories or the things we do, feel free to ask questions, we’ll do our best to answer.