Will Hot Docs Podcast Festival Cure Our COVID Winter Blues?
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I want to say Happy New Year to you all but… is it?
This new year doesn’t feel quite as bright and shiny to me as new years past. It’s hard to stay optimistic while case counts climb, schools close and healthcare workers are stretched beyond what a lot of us can even imagine. It feels… not great!
I haven’t quite had the energy to be bummed out by yet another lockdown because I’ve been in bed sick with a cold all week. Certainly, the day will come that I feel stuck and claustrophobic and bummed out that I can’t see my friends, but isolating is a lot easier when you’re actually sick and don’t want to get out of bed anyway. Having nice people around to bring me cold medicine and groceries so I can make my favourite feel-better soup made what could have been a very crummy week almost pleasant.
Part of my attitude around these latest restrictions was, perhaps, influenced by a podcast episode I listened to on New Year's Day, which I’ll tell you about later on.
Before we get to that — it does seem like we’ll be more or less stuck at home for the next little while, which means that the Hot Docs Podcast Festival, which runs from January 26 to 28, will be fully online. They’ve announced the lineup, and it looks amazing — lots of hosts/producers from shows that we’ve recommended in this very newsletter will be there — and you can access the Creators Forum with a festival pass.
And an online festival is totally the cure for the COVID winter blues… right? RIGHT?
Sigh.
2022 is coming in HOT with collabs already… The Winnipeg Free Press and the Narwhal are teaming up to hire a Manitoba environment reporter. It’s a full-time, permanent position with a salary range of $60,000-70,000. Apply by January 13.
CIUT, the radio station run out of the University of Toronto, is hiring a station manager. Apply by January 12.
The Toronto Star is hiring a podcast producer for a full-time, three-month contract.
Queen’s Park Briefing is hiring a reporter for a full-time, six-month contract.
Calling all Rachel McAdams in Morning Glory wannabes! Rogers Sports & Media is hiring a morning show producer for K-Rock 105.7 in Kingston, Ont. I recognize that there’s a more recent reference readily available with The Morning Show Apple TV+ but I’ve only seen a few episodes. Both of those are about TV morning shows, and frankly I think it’s time for a gossipy movie/sitcom about morning radio.
Hello! Canada is hiring two positions: an associate editor/staff writer and a fashion and beauty editor. There’s no deadline listed, but both jobs were posted on January 4th. Be the early bird! Catch the worm!
Vox Media (vox.com, New York Magazine) is hiring a bunch of podcast positions, including editorial director of news audio.
Okay, this course is by no means inexpensive (it’s $399 CAD) BUT it’s cheaper than j-school and for that reason, I’m including the seven-week Pandemic University course on making freelance journalism your full-time job with Omar Mouallem. With topics like workshopping front-of-book pitches and learning about contracts and copyright, it covers valuable information. It runs Tuesdays from 7:00 to 9:30 pm ET from February 19 to March 29.
New Year’s Day always makes me feel existential in a way I’m not entirely comfortable with. There’s something about the arbitrariness of a new year falling in January, which never felt right to me. The desire to change ourselves, better ourselves, become something new, seems incongruous with the winter mode of being — nesting, resting, enjoying the comfort of the company of good friends rather than going out and making new ones. So I went for a walk to cure my existential woes, and called upon one of my favourite podcasts to accompany me.
A friend of a friend recommended On Being with Krista Tippett a few years ago, and since then, it’s been the show I turn to when I’m looking for conversations that really breathe, that take me somewhere new. There are episodes I’ve revisited and recommended to others — Alain de Botton: The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships, Helen Fisher: This Is Your Brain on Sex (I know this seems like a theme but the Helen Fisher interview helps me to imagine a life in community vs. in a nuclear family), and Esther Perel: The Erotic Is an Antidote to Death. Okay, fine, there’s a theme.
But the episode I listened to this week diverges from this theme — it was a conversation with author Katherine May on How ‘Wintering’ Replenishes. It explores the idea of leaning into winter’s restorative properties, rather than trying to fight them, but also the metaphorical idea of winter — those times in our lives where we’re being called to retreat inward. Spring does follow, and with it comes rebirth and renewal (hello, why are we not doing resolutions in the spring? It makes no sense) but first comes the work of hibernation.
Sabrina Brathwaite wrote about the challenge of how audio editors can only work with what they have up on the blog, and that all you can really do is your best. It’s a good reminder for when a client asks to bring in a sentence that simply wasn’t there, or when you’re working with tape that sounds like it was recorded in a tin can. You can only do what you can do!
We want to hear from you! What are you looking for in your podcast news? Let us know on Twitter, Instagram, or by email at info@vocalfrystudios.com.
Thanks to Emily Latimer for editing this newsletter, and to Katie Jensen for designing it.
We’ll see you again on January 14th. Until then, here’s an update from producer Katie Jensen’s dog, Dolly, being psyched about life during a hike.
Yours in friends and fries,
Michal
