NPR is giving people 65 and older a chance to tell their stories. The Senior Podcast Challenge invites older Americans to share the experiences and memories that have shaped their lives.
Will Davis, director of WYSO’s Eichelberger Center for Community Voices, spoke with the journalists behind the initiative, Janet Woojeong Lee and Steve Drummond, about why they created the challenge and what kinds of stories they hope to hear.
If you're 65 and older and have a story you'd like to tell, the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO can help. We're offering a free workshop Sept. 16 at the Union Schoolhouse in Yellow Springs, where seniors can develop their story ideas and learn the basics of podcasting. Find out more and register online at wyso.org/seniorpodcast.Space is limited, so sign up soon.
This story has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Steve Drummond: This builds off of the Student Podcast Challenge that we've been running at NPR since 2018. Over the years, we've had tens of thousands of students from around the country send in audio stories on all kinds of topics.
And over the years, we've noticed that some of the best podcasts from our students are ones in which they've interviewed their elders — a grandparent, a combat veteran or a family member who was involved in a historical event.
We've heard wonderful stories like that, and that sort of planted the seed for Janet and me some years ago of saying, geez, we should try to hear from this generation directly. And this year, we've decided to open the competition up to people over 65, another unique and distinctive group of Americans with particular issues, and, I'm certain, particular stories that they want to tell.
Janet Woojeong Lee: It's also, for us, just a cool opportunity to hear from a demographic that we don't usually cover. And any stories that excites them — it's truly an open prompt. We always say, tell us about anything you are passionate about.
It's something that could inform our journalism, for sure, but also just a good, I think, cool opportunity for folks to share whatever story that they've been trying to get off their chest, or passion projects if they are journalists and have their own projects. So yeah, I think it's kind of like — I'd like to think of it as a win-win.
Drummond: But also, in this current climate, I think this is a fast-growing and huge group of Americans who sometimes feel their voices are lost and not heard in the national discussion, and they face unique and very particular issues that affect them deeply, whether that's adjusting to retirement or the isolation and loneliness that some people feel after the death of a spouse, or the challenges of health care and health care costs, and the loss of mobility and all the issues that aging people are struggling with.
But also a lot of exciting things, too. There are new careers and grandchildren and travel and romance, and we're hoping to hear those stories, too.
Lee: I'd like to think any ordinary life story is something that we are excited to hear and is a great audio story.
But some tips, if helpful: I think it's helpful to kind of go back to your roots of being a student and spend a little time maybe writing a script or an outline, thinking about what are the absolute parts of your story that you have to include. It's an eight-minute length limit, so it is a little tight, so you have to be a little strategic about making sure you get all the best material within those eight minutes.
And if you need a little help with any of this or are a little newer to audio storytelling, we have a ton of resources available on our page, which is called the NPR Sound Advice page, where you can find truly everything from picking the right story to how to record on your iPhone to putting everything together using sound and audio editing software.
Drummond: Yeah, I think there's an expectation sometimes that people think there is a lot of fancy equipment and expensive microphones required to make a podcast. And for me, it's kind of a democratic process. Especially in the last few years, the technology has become available so that many people can make a good podcast in their basement with little more than a cell phone to do the recording, a smartphone and a laptop, and some simple editing software.
