#SenecaProud

Pat Perdue  00:00

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue and I want to introduce you to my latest podcast. This is a co-production between my company YCastr and Seneca College in Toronto. Seneca College is a really great school. I know because over the past couple of years, I've been teaching some marketing and business and customer experience courses there. People come to study at Seneca from all over the world, which makes it a hotbed of innovative thinking. And a big part of that thinking is driven by our amazing faculty, many of whom are well like me, professionals, who are thriving in their own businesses, and teach at Seneca as a way to share their passion for what they do. But needless to say, I've been hugely inspired by the people I've met. And what happens when I get inspired? Well, apparently, I launch a podcast. So here we are. Welcome to the Seneca Proud podcast, where I get to introduce you to some of Seneca College's amazing faculty. So subscribe, download and join me as we meet some of the super inspiring folks who teach here at Seneca College in Toronto. I'm Pat Perdue, and I'm glad you're here today.

And welcome to the Seneca proud podcast. This is the official Seneca College podcast. And this is episode one. Ah, all right. I'm Pat Perdue. And together we're going to be talking with Seneca faculty finding out about the courses they teach. And we'll also be learning about who the faculty are, are prospering a huge amount of talent and real world experience into their classrooms. And it's going to be really, really interesting finding out all about that. And my guest in today's episode is certainly a great example of that. Amanda Caputo is an instructor at Seneca College's School of Media, Amanda helped to design and teaches two courses that we'll be talking about today, advanced storytelling for audio platforms. In this course, students get to advance their skills in radio, news. And in podcasting, (Amanda knows something about that she wrote a whole book on it), we're going to be talking about that. And also they explore how to use your voice to engage the audience. Students conduct interviews, practice advanced writing, and audio editing and way, way more. Amanda also teaches and helped create the Introduction to the Integrated Newsroom. The students in this course get to work together in an integrated news environment.  Preparing stories for multiple platforms, they line up research and produce TV and radio newscasts, and provide digital content online and social media. And again, tons more. This is where Amanda and I started our conversation. I was really curious about the integrated aspect of the newsroom. 

So what makes the newsroom integrated? Here's Amanda to explain.

 

Amanda Cupido  02:50

Well, just the way the newsroom and news coverage in general has been evolving, it's become, quote unquote, integrated because we're referring to the multiple platforms and outputs that stories are being shared on. So we're looking at digital storytelling on social media and on websites and blogs. We're looking at storytelling through television, newscasts, traditional television, and we're also looking at storytelling through things like radio and podcasts. And so this integrated newsroom puts all of that together. And it's culminating all of the foundational pieces of storytelling and news coverage that they've learned up until this final year in the program. And then they're allowing it allows students are really, you know, share their story on all the platforms but tailoring it and tweaking it accordingly.

 

Pat Perdue  03:42

Nice. And when a student starts your course, they have a sense of what they're going to expect. And when they've completed your course they know what they got. Is there a difference between their expectation? Like what surprises them about your course specific with the integrated newsroom?

 

Amanda Cupido  03:58

I think a lot of them don't really know what to expect with integrated newsroom. What they know about newsrooms is what they've either seen on TV or heard about, but they haven't actually been immersed in it. And so it is very busy. It there is a lot to do. And there's no real specific order in which they have to do it. And they just have to get it all done by the end of the class. And I think some of them don't even know how that's gonna happen. 

 

Pat Perdue  04:23

So it sounds like you're expanding their comfort zones, like their first charitably really, really challenged in ways that they're, they're not used to being challenged in

 

Amanda Cupido  04:29

Definitely. Yeah. And so a lot of the feedback has been as we're rounding out this semester, right now has been, you know, I've learned so much it was so hectic, but I learned so much and yet that there was a little bit of this messiness into how they actually act. They know how to tell the story, but it's, you know, executing it all at the same time and finding their own workflows. And again, like you said, putting them in that stretch zone, so that they are you know, knowing where to push themselves when to ask for help. And when They just gotta like put their head down and execute, so that they can meet their deadlines. 

 

Pat Perdue  05:04

Got it.  So if I'm a student right now, I'm considering I haven't enrolled in Seneca yet, or I'm just considering what courses to take, walk me through a little bit of a, of a synopsis of the kinds of specific things I might be experiencing, specifically, still with integrated newsroom.

 

Amanda Cupido  05:21

So you're getting the foundational pieces of knowing how to do a weather newscast for TV. And that is everything from putting together the visuals, to writing the script to working in front of a green screen and getting coached on your performance, both your verbal performance and your physical performance. And your written performance, of course. So there's like these foundational pieces that once you get that and walk away with that, like you are going to have a really great demo, and you could go and pitch yourself to be a weather newscaster. But then, on top of that, whether it's looking at okay, how else are we telling a weather story. And this is just one example of one, you know, niche topic that we cover within integrated newsroom. So then we're looking like, Okay, if you're going to tell the weather on social media, on Instagram, you're not going to put up your former weather newscast. But maybe you're going to put a poll and say, you know, have you busted out your winter jacket today. And then you might integrate the results from that pool in a web story about weather, where you're talking about the trends overall in the season, right now you're putting in some pictures that you've you've collected. And then you're integrating the results from that poll and embedding that poll straight into into your web story and having a more holistic written piece that people can engage with. And it's maybe not even necessarily going to be, you know, tied to a newscast just for one day. But people can enjoy that story, even for the week because it's a bigger picture, look at the weather as a story. And then of course, going further into radio. How does that look? What does that look like in a radio newscast? Right? So taking that same foundational piece, but writing a 32nd tight script, 20 seconds, maybe and encompassing the weather forecast all in one go. And so it really is no easy feat. No. But then, but you're able to walk away being a true, it's a true storytelling feat. Yeah. And truly being able to cover each of those bases. And then what you end up with is not only the skills to do all of those, but then you actually walk away with an understanding yourself of what you liked the best, what came easy to you, what did you need to work at, and then it might also help nudge you in a certain direction with regard to what you want to pursue beyond school.

 

Pat Perdue  07:39

Cool. And it sounds like it equips people in a couple of ways. Of course, it equips people to be ready to be weather person. And also it equips people to get comfortable with social media interaction and really get some responsiveness, some genuine engagement. So it's no longer a one way conversation. But it's really more of a dialogue.

 

Amanda Cupido  08:02

Exactly. And that's where social media and the news is moving anyway, because we're so used to pumping out news. And you know, using it as exactly like what you said a one way stream of conversation, but you can further stories by making it a two way conversation. And there's sometimes really great characters that emerge from social media, just like they would emerge from walking down the street with a microphone in your hand, you're essentially walking around with a virtual microphone in your hand in the, you know, in the space of the internet. And so why not use that, to pull in voices and pull in other acts or angles to a story.  If you can, you will often or from time to time, have your students step out of their comfort zone in order to grab some of these stories. 

 

Pat Perdue  08:39

What's one of the things that you find that your students are initially most challenged with in terms of doing and then after they get after they get a chance to do it? They're like, Oh, actually, that was pretty cool.

 

Amanda Cupido  08:59

I think some of I think one of the most challenging pieces in writing a curriculum that's really up to date, and getting them to try things that are so new and innovative is that there is no standard that's out there right now that we can look at and go okay, that's exactly what we want to mimic. Now you guys do it. What we're actually doing in the classroom is taking the best pieces from multiple channels, multiple news sources, and saying, Okay, what, what worked the best let's take all of those best practices, and make our own way of storytelling. And so we're actually defining storytelling, digital storytelling in the industry as a whole some of the things coming out of this class or have not been done before. And it's incredible. And I think that can kind of be hard for students to wrap their heads around at first when they're because they're sometimes used to just seeing something and then replicating it. Whereas now, they're actually being put in the driver's seat and helping to define how storytelling is going to evolve. So when they go to the newsroom, they're going to actually be bringing a whole new set of skills and can be looked as true innovators.

 

Pat Perdue  10:01

So if it sounds like Amanda really knows her stuff, well, she really knows her stuff. Here's a little bit more about Amanda Cupido.  She's the author of a book on podcasting, called, Let's Talk Podcasting, The Essential Guide to Doing it Right. And I tell you, I wish I had this book a few years ago when I started podcasting, highly recommended.  And she's the Toronto Public Library's first innovator in residence for podcasting. And before that, she worked as a major market radio producer, reporter, and news anchor, Amanda has a Bachelor of journalism degree from Ryerson University, safe to say that when it comes to media, Amanda knows what she's talking about. 

Let's go to the other course that you that you are teaching and that you develop you really brought into Seneca to do this one is the Advanced Audio storytelling. Let's talk a little bit about that. And how that is differentiated from the integrated newsroom.

 

Amanda Cupido  10:54

Yep. So Advanced Audio Storytelling, it was a part of the radio stream of classes. And so they had some podcasting integrated into this class previously, but I was really brought in to freshen it up and add podcasting in a more intentional way. And really, to really, you know, push, push the students, again to doing things that are truly innovative in that space, and be producing audio pieces that can actually be pitched to news organizations right now. And so yeah, I was I was brought on to help rewrite some of that curriculum. And that included having them create a mini series, learn about podcast teasers, and the importance of tailoring things to certain audiences, and the use of music. And so we're really having some great conversations around all of these components of audio storytelling.

 

Pat Perdue  11:48

That's really, really cool. And the neat thing about audio storytelling as a audio storyteller myself, I'm just going to be self referential, is that you get to do it all, right?  You get to choose your music, you get to choose the, you know, there's so many you have so much control over the specifically with podcasts over the podcast content.  Is that something that you can transfer to your class?

 

Amanda Cupido  12:11

For sure. And I mean, in multiple ways, not only the content itself, where I mean, part of the class is that we do an in-class pitch for what they want their podcast miniseries to cover, but then they're able, they're able to really hammer down on the angles that they think are the most important to include in this miniseries. So we, we get to hash out what the story looks like and make sure that it really makes sense in a cohesive story as a whole. But on top of that, I think a lot of times students are really used to working within very specific parameters. And that's important in some sorts of storytelling. For instance, in radio, everything is “to o'clock.” And so they're very used to saying, Well, what's my time limit on this? And okay, it's five minutes, I'm going to cut it to five minutes. Whereas when we're talking about podcasting, the beauty of this medium is, there is no clock, we're not running, we're not going to commercial break and traffic at a certain time and a certain hour. And so my answer to that is you give this story what it deserves. And I might give them a really broad parameter, and I say, this episode needs to be between five minutes and 20 minutes. And they're like, What? But I said, No, but it depends how you're editing this piece. Because if you're gonna have a really slickly produced tight, almost like a mini doc, then it can be five minutes, and you can get a lot across in that time. But if you're gonna have a roundtable and maybe a more of a chat, cast style, and maybe you're going to need 20 minutes to set it up to have that conversation, and then, you know, to do some follow up after that. So I give them that that real flexibility, because that's what the medium lends itself to. And so we're really, we're broadening some of the parameters and getting them to think outside the box.

 

Pat Perdue  13:47

That's really, really neat. So I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked about the integrated newsroom course, what would bring somebody to the Advanced Audio storytelling? If they're thinking about their career, if they're thinking they're just wondering what they're curious about, what are some of the things that they really should consider that might attract them to the Advanced Audio storytelling course?

 

Amanda Cupido  14:07

So I mean, this course is a mandatory part of the journalism curriculum. But what I will say is that sometimes students are coming into the class taking it because they feel like they have to take it but leaving with a completely different mindset about audio storytelling, which is, which is great for me to see. I'm seeing, you know, students at the end saying I actually want to pursue this now. And I was just taking this because I felt like I had to. So even just that is a real, it's a real win. But students who come in, you know, really intentionally wanting to pursue this from the beginning. I think a lot of them are already podcast listeners and are excited to make their own. I think so. Some of them I've seen have already had a podcast, they're coming in, they've already made their own before, but now they're just learning how to really be intentional with their editing, honing their skills and storytelling and they're able to actually make their own side projects even better.

 

Pat Perdue  15:02

Nice. And I have to say, I love your enthusiasm. And you come to this from the world of audio storytelling. This is this is kind of the thing that you do.

 

Amanda Cupido  15:12

Yeah, exactly like my background is in radio. And I worked as a producer and a news anchor and a reporter and major America radio stations in Toronto. So my love for audio definitely runs deep. And then I started producing podcasts very early on while I was still in radio, and it kind of just naturally happened. But now I find myself producing several podcasts for thought leaders and branded podcasts. But really championing storytelling throughout all of that, and being able to play examples even within class within my own work and pulling up the behind the scenes of here's the audio I was working with to put this together. Here's what my editing session looked like. You hear the final product, but hey, the behind the scenes was messy here. Here we go. Right and we get a real look at what it takes to produce some slickly print, you know, slickly produced audio. And so I think even that component really translates well to the classroom.

 

Pat Perdue  16:06

And what's the surprise that they have there? Is the surprise that it's harder than they thought it was, or it's a lot less glamorous and slick than they thought it was, or more accessible than they thought it was? Walk me through a little bit of that part.

 

Amanda Cupido  16:18

I think you get a little bit of both, actually, some of it is they're impressed with how simple like a simple interview can actually be turned into a really beautiful audio piece, and you can sell it for, you know, a good chunk of change. And then at the same time, a lot of the pieces, especially one assignment in particular that I do pull up my own behind the scenes. And we play a little game in the classroom is Guess how many edits was in that clip of audio. And so I play a clip of someone speaking and then I actually just get them to guess how many times you think I had to make a cut in that. And usually they're going one, maybe two, and I was like that was 13 edits, right?  And then we actually get them to work with a piece of audio, and we play it in the class. And everyone has to guess how many edits went into it. And so even just things like that, I think it really does broaden their horizons into how much work goes into making something that sounds so simple and so easy to listen to, and how much work can actually maybe go into making it sound that smooth.

 

Pat Perdue  17:19

And people don't even hear it. Like you're saying, “um” like crazy, and I'm gonna have to take them all out. I'm just kidding. Oh, no, I don't think you said a single “um.” 

 

Amanda Cupido  17:35

Um, is natural, I say embrace them, don't edit them out. Okay.

 

Pat Perdue  17:38

So, so one last question. But it's for both of your courses. Where do you see them going in the future? If I'm thinking about taking the courses, but I'm not going to be really emerging into these careers for a couple of years. How do you see your courses evolving?

 

Amanda Cupido  17:55

I can't help but think really, really far ahead into the future. And this comes with me thinking ahead. And podcasting as a whole? Sure, I think there's so much potential with what we can do with audio storytelling and editing software. And I think right now, we have this real two dimensional, so to say style of telling audio stories, but with virtual reality and 360 video, I can't I you know, I would not be surprised if that sort of 360 audio editing became really popular in the podcast world. And we're not there quite yet. But I bet we're gonna get there where you're going to be able to start playing with spatial awareness through audio editing. And if you want to make it sound like someone's, you know, on top of your head, and you're going to have some sort of wearable technology that is going to allow you to have a really immersive experience and audio. And then I would hope that the class then continues to evolve with that sort of evolution. And students are able to produce many documentaries. In 360 audio sense, that would be amazing.

 

Pat Perdue  18:59

Really interesting, almost like being at a party with a lot of interesting simultaneous conversations going on. And I can move from conversation to conversation. Yeah, that sounds really, really cool. How about the integrated newsroom? Where do you see that going?

 

Amanda Cupido  19:12

I think the integrated newsroom will, honestly, the grads that are coming out is going to start defining the way news is told in Toronto and around the world, honestly, I think they're going to be actually setting new standards that we will then be able to champion in the classroom because as I said, right now, there is no real standard that we can hold up and say, let's try to do it like this. And this only, I actually think our grads are going to define the media landscape as we know it, and we will soon be able to hold up and say they learned this integrated newsroom. Let's try to do it or maybe, dare we say do it better, right and change it again. But I do think that there's going to be some evolution in the way that media is just via media as using social media channels as a whole and we're going to really be able to proudly hold up our Seneca grads.

 

Pat Perdue  19:59

Sounds like a plan. Well, Amanda Cupido, thank you so much for joining us today.  On enthusiasm alone, it sounds like your courses are awesome to take,  but you're definitely the real deal. So I'm very envious of your students being able to sit in your classes. So thank you so much for joining us. 

 

Amanda Cupido  20:17

Oh, thanks. Hey, Pat, you could come in sit in the class anytime.

 

Pat Perdue  20:21

Thank you. I just might take you up on it. Yeah. All right. Well, have a great day. 

And thanks again for joining us. Such a great conversation with Seneca faculty member Amanda Cupido from the Seneca School of Media. I'm so grateful to her for sharing her knowledge and her enthusiasm. It's no wonder for students love her classes. Amanda's contact info is in the show notes. Feel free to send her a tweet because I know she's super active on Twitter and hey, who doesn't like to get a tweet? If you liked this show and haven't subscribed then subscribe. The SenecaProud podcast is available everywhere podcasts are available. And while you're at it, head on over to iTunes and leave us a rating and a comment that makes it way easier for folks to find us. I'm Pat Perdue and you've been listening to the Seneca proud podcast, the official podcast of Seneca College. Until next time, stay Senecaproud.  See you later.