How To Pitch A Podcast         In A Pandemic

When I joined the team of podcast, I did not have any knowledge about producing a podcast, let alone writing a script. Prior to attending classes, we were told to listen to the StartUp podcast by Alex Blumberg because we were going to produce a podcast similar to his.  I listened to StartUp and it was interesting.

On our first day in class, meeting via zoom meetings we were told that we are going to embark on a journey to produce a podcast about a podcast that we will pitch to the school of Journalism and Media Studies to convince them to join the podcasting revolution. After hearing what we were going to do, I was intimidated because I had never done something like that before but also excited to
learn new skills.


                                             Show page

I worked with Sibusiswe Kumbaca and Garfield Khanyile in creating the show page. I was a very interesting process. I learnt so much from it, as to deciding on color combinations, managing content sucg that it looks nice and appealing and lastly just working on Wix websites in general. The show page can be accessed on How To Pitch A Podcast In A Pandemic wixsite.




                                                       Episode one

This episode is produced and presented by Noxolo Manyati and Sakhe Tshoni, titled "why a podcast about a podcast, which is centred on the first week the students are told that they are going to create a podcast about a podcast. For this episode  I prepared the package (edited it) of our first class meeting where our Lecturer Jeanne was explaining the idea to us and also went around like the rest of my classmates to ask people what they think about the idea of producing a podcast. 


                                                   
                      Episode two

This episode is produced and presented by Nwabisa Nkani and Yandiswa Calane. This episode is titled 'In search of African storytellers'. We were tasked to find African podcasters, the storyteller I found is Rasmus Bitsch, a podcast pioneer; I also did a recording of myself in which I was reviewing a podcast I listen to called First Perso, produced by Jane Morgan and presented by  Marianne Thamm, 


                        Episode three
 




I was partnered with Grafield Khanyile. We scripted, produced and presented the episode. It is title "Living up to a Legacy . The episode is about living up to a legacy of the Rhodes Journalism Review. We embarked on a journey of trying to make sense of  what it means to  produce a podcast in the spirit of Rhodes Journalism Review.  Packages on the show included interviews with the editor of RJR, Prof Anthea Garman, and Brian Garman, a designer of the RJR.Asking them what would an audio version of RJR sound like? What would be the equivalent of RJR’s innovative visual presentation? Then, in the spirit of living up to a legacy, Noxolo spoke to Steven Lang who is a journalist, audio storyteller, and team member of the HTPPP, He shared his hopes of what a audio version of RJR would sound like.



                                                           Episode four

Is produced by Sakhe Tshoni and Sibusisiwe Kumbaca, which is the behind the scene episode for the content we were gathering for the pitch, titled 'working on the pilot episode'. I worked with Sakhe Tshoni to explain our experience of finding journalists and media editors to interview. I also made a voice recording of myself reviewing episode one of  MyOnlyStory, a podcast by Deon Wiggett which deals with the sensitive topic of sexual abuses on young boys by their teachers. 



                                                        Episode five

Is produced by Noxolo Manyati and Yandiswa Calane which is the behind the scene of the pitch episode, titled 'The pitch'.  For this episode I conducted an interview with Thembeka Bukula, a PhD student who is writing her thesis research around the Rhodes University name. The interview was centred on finding the  the debates around the name from someone who is more knowledgable about the topic since in the preparing of a pitch  to the Journalism and Media Studies school pitch for  a podcast we (HTPPP team) decided to that the podcast should not associate with the 'Rhodes' name.


                                                         
                        The pitch 

Because the end goal was to pitch to the Rhodes Journalism and Media Studies  school to join the podcasting world, for our pitch that was conducted on the 3rd of November, hosted by me and Garfield Khanyile. Sibusisiwe Kumbaca and Nwabisa Nkani produced the Pilot episode which was produced to demostrate what the Africa Media Review podcast ( as we called it) should sound and look like.  I, Zisanda and Sakhe Tshoni were tasked with covering the cstory of media coverage of the 2021 elections. We were tasked to interview journalists and media house editors. We managed to find Redi Thlabi, a journalist, anchor who facilitated a discussion of independent candidates on eNCA and Raymond Joseph who is a data driven Journalist. I interviewed Redi Thlabi and Sakhe interviewed Raymond Joseph.