From multimedia journalism to branded podcasts to live events, storymaking is pushing the boundaries. Now more than ever before, independent producers are in demand. But in order to succeed in a quickly evolving and growing media space, independent radio producers need to do everything from editing to branding, live event planning to contract management, and fact-checking to sound design. Over the course of this week, you’ll learn skills from an interdisciplinary group of specialists that will help to position you for the bright and exciting future of radio.

Full Spectrum will expand your definition of what storytelling can be, while imparting concrete skills to add to your producer tool kit. Lead instructor Chiquita Paschal will draw from her work with various shows and production houses, from Gimlet Media to BuzzFeed. She will head an interdisciplinary group of accomplished specialists to take you on a journey from storytelling to interactive design to composing. Our instructors come from WNYC This American Life, Latino USA, independent backgrounds, and beyond.

The week will be a combination of hands-on instruction, workshops, lectures, pitch sessions, experiments—and even an excursion or two. We’re looking for producers with the desire to expand their skills and their minds.

Lead instructor Chiquita Paschal will draw from lessons learned from her work with various shows including Malcolm Gladwell’s new music history podcast, Broken Record, Gimlet Media’s Peabody Award-winning history show Uncivil, and Another Round from BuzzFeed.

Chiquita Paschal is an award-winning journalist, editor and podcast consultant who specializes in developing and producing podcasts about art, culture and politics. Her production and editorial experience includes hard news, talk shows and highly-produced narrative storytelling.

She helped produce Gimlet Media’s Uncivil, which won a Peabody in 2018. Previously, she was a member of the “Pod Squad” at BuzzFeed where she produced a variety of shows, including Another Round and See Something Say Something. Chiquita became skilled in the rigor of production by reporting daily segments across public media, from NPR’s Morning Edition to PRI’s The World. She began her career as an arts reporter in New Mexico, and as editor for youth media organization Generation Justice at KUNM.

As a consultant and freelance editor, her recent projects include Essence’s celebrity pop culture interview podcast Yes Girl, politically engaging shows by women and people of color like Democracy in Color with Aimee Allison and Hysteria from Crooked Media. She has also developed independent shows about art and culture such as The Witch Wave and her own pilot about the creative process called Spark!

In addition to the art of podcasting, Chiquita loves to talk business. She was the founding Program Manager of PRX’s Podcast Garage, and a coordinating judge for Radiotopia’s 2016 Podquest competition, where she counseled the early development of the Peabody- nominated show Ear Hustle. In 2013 she served as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Executive Fellow, where she developed strategy, research and business models for the then-emerging podcast market.

Originally from Philadelphia, PA, Chiquita graduated Hamilton College in Clinton, NY in 2010 with a degree in art and philosophy. She currently lives in Brooklyn. You can connect with her on Twitter @ChiquitaPaschal, or by email at [email protected]

Christopher Allen is a founder of UnionDocs and is currently the Artistic Director. After graduating from Columbia University and studying at Trinity College Dublin, Allen worked as a social entrepreneur, documentary director, and new media artist. His individual works and collaborative projects have been exhibited at the MoMA, Harvard’s Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, the Volksbühne Theatre, DirektorenHaus in Berlin, Independent Film Week, Sonár, DIVA, and Conflux Festivals, among many other venues. He directed the interactive documentary Capitol of Punk, which was part of “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the Museum of Modern Art, and he is currently in post-production on the feature Diamond Vehicle, shot in Tibet, China, Nepal, and India. Christopher was founding-partner of Counts Media, and played a leading role in the invention and execution of many art & entertainment concepts there, such as The Ride NY, a live theatrical and cinematic experience on the streets of the city, and Yellow Arrow, a place-based storytelling project exhibited online and in galleries and museums internationally.

Oluwakemi Aladesuyi is an economics and culture reporter and indie audio producer. Her work can be found at Gimlet Media, NPR, and elsewhere. She is an International Center for Journalist (ICFJ) Burns fellow in Berlin, Germany.

Julia Alsop is an award-winning journalist and radio producer. Her work focuses on creating immersive worlds to tell intimate, narrative-driven stories. She’s helped produced and develop shows for NPR, PRX, Red Bull Radio, Refinery29 and TED.  She most recently helped sound design Spacebridge for PRX and is a long time collaborator of the Peabody-nominated Radiotopia podcast The Heart, a groundbreaking series exploring sex and power.

Emanuele Berry has told tales from the mitten state, wandered around St. Louis with a microphone, and taught English in the Vegas of Asia. She currently works as a producer at This American Life. Most recently she was an editor on The Nod and StartUp at Gimlet Media. In the past, she worked as a producer/reporter at Gimlet on The Nod, Undone and StartUp. Before joining Gimlet, she told stories as a public radio reporter, covering everything from the World Dwarf Games to protest in Ferguson, Missouri. Emanuele is a 2014 AIR New Voices Scholar. She is also the recipient of a 2015 Fulbright award to Macau, China.

Megan Detrie is the senior producer of a new Marketplace podcast. She’s had a lot of different lives in journalism: She helped launch BuzzFeed’s See Something Say Something and the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor. She was the multimedia producer at the Atavist Magazine, and spent almost a decade reporting from the Middle East and North Africa. 

Alvin Melathe is a freelance audio producer who has produced stories and shows at Gimlet Media, Freakonomics, Slate, and This American Life. Most recently, he was the lead producer for Charged a six-episode mini-series about the criminal justice system with Emily Bazelon of The New York Times Magazine. Before he worked in audio, Alvin worked variously as a community organizer, writer, video producer, and farmer’s market goat cheese salesman. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Transom Story Workshop.

Veralyn Williams is a Peabody and Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist who has been tackling questions on identity, social norms, and community since she picked up her first microphone in 2004. As Producer of Radio Rookies, a youth journalism program embedded within New York Public Radio’s narrative unit, Williams teaches young people to report radio documentaries inspired by their own experiences. Previously, Williams was a member of Slate Magazine’s podcast team. While there she launched and produced Slate’s film and TV podcast, Represent, revamped Slate’s feminist podcast, The Waves (formerly Double X), and produced the inaugural season of Panoply’s Family Ghost. Williams has also worked as managing editor of Brooklyn Deep, a digital investigative news, analysis, and data website chronicling neighborhood change in Central Brooklyn. Through all of her endeavors, Williams aims to amplify perspectives often forgotten in the media.