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Interview With Liz Covart Of The Ben Franklin's World Podcast
August 16, 2016
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Liz Covart loves history -- especially the Revolutionary War and early Republic periods. She launched the podcast Ben Franklin's World to allow other history lovers hear from professional historians, and the podcast is downloaded tens of thousands of times each month. I asked her a few questions about her podcasting journey...
1. Tell us about your podcast, Ben Franklin's World.
Ben Franklin's World is a podcast about early American history. It's a weekly show that features interviews with professional historians about different topics in North American history between roughly 1492 and 1830. Episodes run about 45 minutes in length. It's the podcast for people who love history and for those who want to know more about how historical people and events have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
2. How did you first get into podcasting?
I came to podcasting as a listener. In 2012, I started listening to a couple of podcasts about writing and productivity. Within a very short time (a month or two), I became a "podcast junkie." I couldn't find a history podcast I wanted to listen to on a regular basis. I'm a professional historian with a Ph.D. in History. I wanted a podcast that offered conversations or narrative-based histories, not lectures. I also wanted a podcast that covered my favorite historical topic and period: early America. Unable to find my dream podcast, I decided to create it. After about 18 months of researching podcasts as a form of digital media and what it takes to produce a high-quality podcast, I launched Ben Franklin's World.
3. Your Doing History: How Historians Work podcast came about through a partnership. Tell us the story behind that podcast.
Doing History is a podcast series that explores different aspects of how historians work. I produce it in partnership with the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and episodes in the series have aired on Ben Franklin's World on the last Tuesday of each month throughout 2016. The Omohundro Institute is an organization known for helping historians produce some of the best and most innovative scholarship about the history of early America. They also publish the leading journal about early American history: The William and Mary Quarterly. Our partnership started because I asked them for help with Ben Franklin's World in June 2015.
Ben Franklin's World experienced very quick growth; it grew from 288 downloads in October 2014 to around 41,000 downloads per month in August 2015. (Today it averages over 68,000 downloads per month.) As downloads of Ben Franklin's World increased so did the amount of e-mail and attention I received. Potential sponsors inquired whether I would sell them ad space and my fellow historians asked me if I would feature them on the show and write reviews of their books. I started Ben Franklin's World as a fun outlet for bringing well-researched history to people who loved history. I never anticipated that it would become the popular and effective media outlet for disseminating serious scholarly history that it did. So I didn't know how to answer these questions. I didn't know how to run a podcast as both a business and as an outlet for scholarly history that my colleagues would respect. I contacted the OI for help. They offered advice and gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of how they run The William and Mary Quarterly. With their help, I was able to figure out how to run Ben Franklin's World in a professional manner.
Doing History was born out of the conversations I had with the OI. I mentioned how listeners were asking me detailed questions about how historians work and how historians know what they know about the past. As part of the OI's mission is to create better understanding of the work that goes into producing excellent works of history, they suggested that we partner and produce episodes that answered listener questions about how historians work. We surveyed listeners, went through their questions, and came up with a 14-episode editorial calendar to answer their questions. The series has been so popular, we might do a second season.
4. You've now produces over 90 episodes of Ben Franklin's World. How has your podcast production process changed since the beginning? What lessons have you learned?
The biggest lesson I've learned is that quality matters. I've always been a proponent of good content and good audio quality, but producing a podcast has taught me just how much the quality of both matters. I want Ben Franklin's World to create wide awareness about early American history and to demonstrate why the work historians do is vital to society. These goals are much easier to achieve when listeners spend most of their time engaging with the ideas guests are discussing. Poor audio quality and not taking the time to edit your content so that it flows well distracts listeners from fully grappling with the ideas and messages you want your episodes to convey.
I do a lot more hands-on editing now than I did in the beginning. I've always worked with a professional audio engineer and have always had a hand in editing the show, but now I work with Adobe Audition and make a lot more content edits.
I listen to every episode before I post it. Over time, I started hearing places where I could have moved information around to improve the flow of the story or places where I could have cut information that distracted from the main point of the episode. For example, if a guest mentions a concept like the "task system of slavery," but doesn't explain what that means in their initial answer to a question, I'll ask them to define it in a follow-up question. When I edit, I'll move their definition into their original answer so that listeners can follow along and enjoy each and every episode of Ben Franklin's World without much prior knowledge about early American history. Historians do this kind of editing work when they write; they move paragraphs and sentences around to improve readers' experiences.
5. Your podcasts have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. How have listeners found out about your podcast?
Most listeners find Ben Franklin's World because another listener recommended the show to them. Its growth has been a grassroots effort. I don't pay for advertising. I know podcasters love to ask listeners for ratings and reviews in the show, I ask listeners to recommend the podcast to friends, family, and acquaintances instead. I make this same request when listeners contact me.
The growth of Ben Franklin's World proves why quality matters. Listeners love that the show has great content and that it's easy to listen to. That's why they're willing to share it with people they know.
6. What advice would you give to aspiring podcasters?
My first bit of advice would be to jump in because it's a lot of fun. You should pick a topic you're passionate about and think about how you want to convey your passion to listeners. A key feature of a high-quality show is preparation. Take time to think about the format of your show and all its segments before you start recording.
My second bit of advice would be to join at least one of the wonderful and supportive communities of podcasters as soon as you make the decision to podcast. You will find a lot of different podcasting communities on Facebook where you can meet new friends and ask questions both as you get started and as you grow as a podcaster. You should also make it a point to attend podcaster gatherings such as Podcast Movement, Podfest, or a regional gathering such as Podcast Mid-Atlantic. These events are great and they are places where you will find inspiration for your show and information on ways you can improve it.
7. What do you think your fellow historians will be saying about podcasts 200 years from now?
Two hundred years from now, historians will say that podcasts and digital media helped keep traditional historical scholarship -- books and articles -- alive. They will report on how podcasts were the perfect media for the mobile age of the 21st century and that they allowed ideas about history to reach more people than ever before. Future historians will also note that because of their popularity, podcasts helped society think historically again. Podcasts helped those who lived in the 21st century better understand the world they lived in because their favorite history podcasts taught them how their 21st-century world came to be. As they better understood why and how people of the past reacted to particular situations, those who lived in the 21st century were better able to respond and react to their present and as a result tensions between countries softened and societies around the world improved.
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