Sarah Burke: Women In Media

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Women of ill repute with your hosts Wendy Mesley. And

Maureen Holloway  0:05  
Maureen Holloway. This episode of women of ill repute and the women in media podcast was recorded live off the floor. At the soundwave summit in new indie podcasting summit in Toronto. You'll be hearing a live audience so things may sound a little bit friendly. Here we go.

Wendy Mesley  0:28  
Thank you all we were wondering what on earth we were getting ourselves into in the back of the tackle tackle, but but here we are, and some

Maureen Holloway  0:36  
moonlight lounge, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Sorry. It's the how when we Yeah,

Wendy Mesley  0:41  
feeling very lounging. I think that this could be a very important moment for all of us, because we're about to learn from Sarah about how a podcast actually works. We learned this evening that we actually have no clue. So we brought clipboards and we're gonna start we're gonna do an actual podcast

Maureen Holloway  0:57  
because we thought that would make us look really impressive. And I have my son's U of T clipboard. And I don't know if you can see this. How many of you can see this? This is the University College literary and athletic society.

Sarah Burke  1:15  
Does anyone know their Instagram?

Maureen Holloway  1:17  
But their their logo for those of you at home as you see l it? You could? And nobody at one point went maybe we should three things this anyway, we have no weapons in

Wendy Mesley  1:30  
the class. So yeah, we're going to do a podcast, we're going to talk to Sarah and so it'll get like a little bit official.

Maureen Holloway  1:37  
So we're very happy to be here. Maybe more happier than usual, because we've had margaritas which we don't normally do. A picture, a whole picture. So we have special guests every week. We love all our guests equally. They're all great. But we have invited Sarah Berg to join us and do all the heavy lifting. Because no one knows more about podcasting than Sarah. She

Wendy Mesley  2:01  
is increasingly becoming a face a person a name to be reckoned with in this industry. And Sarah started doing a podcast called women in media. And now she's running a network called women in media.

Maureen Holloway  2:14  
Let me tell you about Sarah. Women and media is a home to seven podcasts, including the Jann Arden podcast, trust me, I'm a decorator with Debbie Travis and Tommy Smyth. And Sarah also teaches a course in podcasting in Western University. So she's Professor Sarah Burke, if you don't mind, amazingly, you can take it University. Sarah knows more about this than anybody. And we thought we would talk to you tonight about this about the challenges. I don't know how many here actually have podcasts? Show of hands, please. So maybe a dozen? How many would like to have a podcast? Okay. Don't be shy. But we're going to talk we're gonna get right down to the nitty gritty about who should have a podcast and who shouldn't. And Sarah is going to be very upfront about this. So for those of you listening at home, we have a live studio audience. So if there's time, at the end, we'll take questions not only about podcasting, but anything you want to ask us. Hi, Sara,

Sarah Burke  3:11  
thank you for having me. I don't think it's a surprise. But I admire and look up to you both. So sitting here with you, you know, you've been on my podcast, but no being on your podcast. This is kind of cool. And by the way, we're putting it out on both feeds. So I love this for us. All right,

Maureen Holloway  3:26  
I'm going to start with a statement and I'm gonna get you to react to it. All three of us started podcast because we were disgruntled broadcasters that we do have in common. Yeah. And I don't think we're the only ones. So that's one reason to get into podcasting, because you're fed up with broadcasting or the traditional medium. What are some of the other reasons why you got into this? Why somebody might want to, I'm going to

Sarah Burke  3:48  
throw it the C word community, not the other C word. I used it dinner.

Wendy Mesley  3:54  
Because after a Marguerite

Sarah Burke  3:55  
community, you know, I think a lot of people go through relatable things. And whether it's a podcast about women in the media and entertainment landscape, or what you guys talked to people about women who have carved their own path, right, like, I think sharing those stories and community can be wonderful. And without a time limit or a little clock blinking at you is really nice. Or some man telling you that your break was too long. It's good.

Wendy Mesley  4:23  
Yeah, no, we love not having the overlords

Sarah Burke  4:25  
as we as if you had a lot of blinking clocks at CBC there.

Wendy Mesley  4:29  
Were there were a lot of meetings, shall we say? But yeah, but beyond that. I'm just wondering whether because we started out doing women of ill repute, so women who were controversial for some reason, but there were mostly women that we admired. And then we thought, this is a little limiting. So then we widened it up to do a whole bunch of women. And then we thought, well, this is a little limiting. So then we widened it up to now we do we do, man we do, man

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
I knew this was gonna come up.

Wendy Mesley  5:03  
So do you find it at all limiting to do women? And I'm thinking

Sarah Burke  5:06  
a lot about that right now. I think you'll agree with me maybe everyone in the room to podcasting changes every day, what you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing, who's respected, who's not. It's all it all changes from day to day. And I do think that we're living in a more fluid chapter of the world right now. And the word woman or we're or women, to group people can be a limiting, right. So I've definitely been thinking about that. And I'm working on a plan for that, that I'm not ready to share yet. But I am excited. I'll tell you, I'll give you a little sneaky picky. I have three new podcasts joining the network this month, and one is a podcast called Layton 88, the year 1988. And it's about the queer experience growing up in Alberta in the late 80s, when we didn't have language to talk about some of those things yet. So

Wendy Mesley  6:04  
I remember the 80s but you probably don't. I

Sarah Burke  6:07  
mean, I was born in 87. Guns and Roses Appetite for Destruction. Sarah Burke Samia. Yeah, but that's where, you know, I just hope to for the network to be a very inclusive and welcoming and safe space for stories from gender diverse people to use their platform. Okay, so

Maureen Holloway  6:25  
one would want to start a podcast because you want to connect with people, you want to share your your interests, whether it's birdwatching, whether it's crocheting, or whether it's finding a cure for cancer, or or there can be no, there's no shortage of reasons to start a podcast. There are reasons not to do a podcast, and I'm going to kick it off by saying, if you want to make a lot of money, that's quite serious. You think I'm gonna start a podcast? Unless you're the smartlace. Guys, or unless you're Joe Rogan? Yeah. And even they didn't even know going into it, that it's gonna be so successful. It's not this is not, in fact, it's the opposite of a surefire way of making a living. So who should do a podcast?

Sarah Burke  7:08  
Someone who has something unique to say, for starters, can I go back to who shouldn't do a podcast? Because sometimes it's easier to identify who shouldn't I feel. And I do think that podcasts have become, you know, something that comes out of a marketing budget sometimes, and that can be really cool. It can really like, give a human touch to, you know, say a company that doesn't have like, a brand voice, right, branded podcasts are really big right now. But if you're in it for ego, it becomes clear so quickly, because you're not even considering your audience, like the audience is still the reason. And that's what we have in common with broadcasting. And maybe that's where broadcasting is losing right now. You have to give your audience more credit. And you have to think about that. It's not always about you. Yes, maybe when I got into this industry, I was excited to be on the mic and in the spotlight. But now it's about the audience round of applause for the audience.

Wendy Mesley  8:12  
But how do people find you because that's, that's been our biggest problem is that we have great guests, and we have great conversations with them. And it's lovely, and everybody who listens to the podcast goes, Oh, this is amazing. But most people don't like in this room, perhaps didn't even know that we exist. So how do you get the word out? Well,

Sarah Burke  8:32  
community I'm coming back to community for this pod swapping, you know, what we're gonna do even with this podcast episode that we are taping right now, sharing audience, right. And whether you have someone who has a huge social media profile, or someone who's been in a film, or someone who's written a great book, the idea is sharing audience and sharing community to get the stories told in both places. And that's how I think a

Maureen Holloway  8:58  
podcast grows. I gotta add to that, that when Wendy and I started this, when he was like, let's do a podcast about women and we're gonna call women of ill repute. We're gonna have like Jane Fonda and Cher. Yeah, there's they're coming on. Yeah, I ran her when she's still waiting. And we didn't have Pamela Anderson on. She was maybe our most famous person. We've had a lot of famous people. We've also had a lot of people who are not so famous. And more often than not, their stories are more interesting. It's true. The famous people's we all know their stories, right? But the ones that we sort of discovered like that no one's ever heard of that have come on. And we've had like Chelsea, for example, we've just Chelsea Wakelin, who's an author, not going to get into her whole story, but her husband died. She wrote the most amazing book called The ruins of Lz. Jane, she wrote us and say, Would you read my book we read we thought she

Wendy Mesley  9:48  
was so funny. She's so funny. And we was so it's about somebody dying. Well, her husband

Maureen Holloway  9:54  
dying of an opioid overdose and it was hilarious, and she was a great guy. And no, no one had heard of her. So my point is, if you're gonna do this thick, you're gonna get Cher and Jane Fonda on what maybe you can, but they're not going to tell the most interesting stories. It will be the people that you that's what I love about podcasting is that you're gonna be surprised.

Sarah Burke  10:16  
You know, one thing I'm noticing with, you mentioned, trust me and my decorator. So that's the podcast on the women in media network hosted by Debbie Travis and Tommy spine. They've had some great guests they've had Rachael Ray, the episodes that get the most action are when just the two of them are sitting there yammering on about whatever it is that they loved. They just did a hilarious episode together in Tuscany. Debbie lives in Tuscany, Italy, Tommy's normally in Toronto, but he was overseas. And you know, hearing them clink their glass, you know, sitting side by side and Debbie, tell them about what you did in the Rose Garden in the famous palace. And it's called 101 ways to get arrested in Europe with Debbie Travis, and you should listen to it if you get a chance. But what does that tell us? You can have all the famous guests in the world, you can have celebrities, but if two people have chemistry, and they can share great stories just together. That's enough.

Maureen Holloway  11:08  
What have you found with your own podcast and the one that you're on with Jan and the ones that you produce? What are some of the weirdest moments or funniest moments or saddest moments? Because that's what podcasting it anything can happen. I think that's where people listen, but what's your experience

Sarah Burke  11:24  
some resistance to change in like, if there's a guest, let's say, perhaps a veteran broadcaster, who's not used to the idea of being on video, and treating video as a live environment? Almost even though there's no like TV studio? What do you mean? So like, with Jan, we filmed the video with Debbie and Tommy, we filmed the video. And the idea is to be able to share clips after right. But sometimes like a guest is like, Oh, do you have to release the video? And it's like, well, we're promoting what you're doing. And you look great, but people are still very, I think some people are not used to the idea of of that spotlight sometimes. And you have to respect it when that happens, of course.

Wendy Mesley  12:03  
Well, I'm just going to pitch in with a couple of things that have really struck us. We're still waiting for Jane Fonda. She's she's she's coming, apparently, but we have been refused by a couple of people and a couple of people who have said yes have not shown up and other people. We've had technical failings like nothing Oh, yeah, nothing, nothing is normal. So you just have to be prepared to improvise. And I'm, I'm finding that that's the biggest problem these days with legacy media is that it's, it's feels canned. It feels so

Maureen Holloway  12:38  
feels Yeah, contrived and artificial. The

Wendy Mesley  12:41  
moment I've been all set, and we're, we're ready. And so where's the person? Where's the person? Let's give them five minutes. Let's give them 10 minutes? Well, I'm

Maureen Holloway  12:47  
gonna say Carol Pope St. Carol posted this up three times. Like we said, she's out. So yeah, that kind of thing happens. It was like why

Sarah Burke  12:56  
but a parallel to even when I was saying about like, you know, Tommy and Debbie having the most action on episodes that are just the two of them. You know, I could be in a ballcap Jan's in her hat. Like, sometimes those episodes again, where it's just the three of us, me, Caitlin, and Jan and like, we're all kind of essentially in sweatpants. Those are the videos that resonate the most on YouTube. And you're sitting there thinking like, oh my god, we all look like crap. And but it's again, when you're when you're authentic, I think in the conversations you're having, it's gonna hit in a different way.

Wendy Mesley  13:28  
Well, it's weird that we we've been able to do our podcast with a ring light that I bought at the local Dollarama. And the microphone that was shipped to me, and that's, that's about it. And Moe is the technical wizard.

Maureen Holloway  13:43  
This is so funny. I don't know, how did that happen? I don't know. The technical person. How did I end up being eaten alive on that? But seriously, how did that happen? I'm so we're so lucky to have this the first time. This is an interesting thing about podcasting in our group. We So Wendy lives in Prince Edward County and east of Montreal. I'm in Toronto. Matt Cundill, who runs her production houses in Winnipeg, Aiden, who works for Matt Aurora, Aurora, our Chase producer Jet Belgraver lives in Invermere BC. Yeah. And we've never met. Well, we met yeah, I've never met Matt. We met Aidan today. And our social media person is Montreal. That's one of the great things about doing a podcast is you can get your friends from all over the world or not even your friends people that become your friends. And you could all work together on a project and not be in the same place and I mean, you can do that a lot of things but with podcasting you put on a show

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  14:50  
the women of ill repute.

Wendy Mesley  14:53  
So what have you learned like what what works and what doesn't work? Is

Sarah Burke  14:56  
this is this the opening for otter? We've been, we've been dying. Okay, so when you're running a network, you have some changes that happened in like, you know your time management, basic business stuff. I have a transcription service. Otter AI anyone know otter in the room? Yeah. So I start using otter and it can take notes for you, but it's mostly for me for transcription for episodes, because we're all concerned about accessibility in the room, right? Yes, so anyway, little did I know I somehow connected my calendar to otter and I learned from Moe and Wendy today that my my otter asst joined a meeting. I did not yesterday. I'm feeling like my otter is going wild.

Wendy Mesley  15:43  
Notes.

Maureen Holloway  15:44  
So where are we at yesterday, Jordan Jordanna. Katz, who's our marketing rep who's actually in this room as well. So we're Jordan or the meeting with Amanda? From soundwaves? Yeah, who's put this whole thing together. And kudos to Amanda for that. And there's Sarah, via otter. And that's kind of cool. Sarah's not there. It's not there. But her honor is and I brought it up to date. She said my otter went to a meeting. So weird world we live in a well,

Sarah Burke  16:17  
when when someone books like a call with me, you know, it'll join the zoom that I'm hosting and just like anyone else joining the zoom, you have to admit the otter and I've been like deny I don't need you here deny. I couldn't control

Maureen Holloway  16:30  
No, you can't control your otter and that's a that's a sign of things to come.

Sarah Burke  16:34  
So I when we talk about AI, this, this actually frightens me a lot. There are things I'm leaning into with AI. It is great when you can't remember what happened in an episode that was recorded. That was an hour and a half. And you're like, Oh, great. You do have to edit what it says. But AI can be helpful. I just don't think it should join meetings without you know.

Wendy Mesley  16:57  
So what have you What have you learned, like, we're learning that it's a hell of a lot of fun. And but a hell of a lot of work. Way more work for the people really love it. And they listen to it. But but it's, it's, it's, it's an awful lot of work. So what works, what doesn't? And how do you get rich.

Sarah Burke  17:17  
Almost it off nonchalant, one after the other. What works on the network, there are so many different voices and people from different backgrounds, like you know, from a psychotherapist to a woman who just escaped an abusive relationship and wants to build community around that and talk about how she got out like Jan art and brings a completely different type of storytelling to the table where you do not talk about what you're going to do on the episode before you join the show. I find the variety and dynamic of topics and, and hosts like the most exciting part of it. And I'm really excited about some of the new podcasts coming. For that reason, especially. But you know, here, I'll tell you the scary thing I've learned. As soon as I like started putting all my marketing together for the launch. You know, I pride myself on working with a lot of diverse individuals and all my work before this network. And then my marketing goes out and I'm looking at all the faces and they are all white people. Right. And I think being aware of it is like the first piece and also you can't force everyone you love to do podcasts at the same time. You know, I'll use this week as an example. One of my indigenous colleagues was in town, Ken Wheeler. She has this fantastic podcast about Indigenous storytelling from the matriarchs, and it's called the anti app. And we've been talking about this forever. And she's like, Yeah, but at least you're aware of it. And at least you know, we're talking about it. And at least you're trying to support individuals from diverse communities to do things like podcasting, right? That's where, you know, what I'm learning is that, again, the privilege of holding a microphone, it used to be exciting for me to hold the microphone, but now I'm kind of looking at who should be holding the microphone other than me, well,

Maureen Holloway  19:02  
that goes back to how we started this who should be doing a podcast and who shouldn't. And that's a really good point, the privilege of it Wendy and I, who are a little bit older than Sarah and probably everyone in this room few years. Only a few years, we started where you know, it was you were so privileged and so honored and to be plucked from the masses and to be given an opportunity to talk and hear your own voice. And we did it for 40 years. And now I realize I'm so tired of me. I know it sounds weird, but I want to hear about other people and other people not like me. And that opportunity is in podcasting. And it has not existed in traditional broadcasting up until now and this is why I think this is such an important medium because anybody can do it if they're willing to put the the effort in. Yeah,

Sarah Burke  19:56  
I would say the first lesson I learned in doing my PA cast. I think what I just shared is more maybe from the network perspective. But when I started my own podcast, I've learned a lot about listening over the last like five years where I don't think that was like my goal at any point in my broadcasting career. And then it like, of course, you want to listen when you're doing an interview. I don't mean it like that. But it's

Wendy Mesley  20:20  
been I think it's really important to me, because there's been there's been a lot of change. I'm just curious about in the blurb for your podcast, it says that it's a very male dominated industry, because one of the changes has been in and I think we've moved way beyond women getting ahead, women ever but you're still saying that it's a male dominated industry? Well,

Maureen Holloway  20:42  
I mean, smartlace and Joe Rogan made if you look at the big podcasts, the biggest, the ones where they are making tons of money, they are predominantly Well, American, white men. Yeah, so I guess, you know, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Sarah Burke  20:57  
Okay, so I'm not gonna name names. But I was listening to a podcast, of course, I think it was about two weeks ago. And I was listening to these, these two men discuss Taylor Swift, not the pregnancy rumors, not that, but just about her tour that she was doing and how obsessed people are with her how crazy the fans are. And I kind of sat there. And I was like, It's hilarious. How on your podcast, these two white men are like tearing down what a women what a woman is doing. I'm like, Oh, it's just over here now. You know? Yeah. And I found it funny, because there are industry leaders, the two people that were having this conversation. And I was like, I don't even understand why this is in this episode, to be honest, like, what was the point of it? I couldn't understand. And that's where when you show up to the mic, another thing I think I've learned is like asking yourself, why are you there today? Yeah. What are you showing up for? And sometimes it's a person sometimes it's an underrepresented topic or voice. Sometimes it's, well, that's

Wendy Mesley  21:57  
the same thing that I always applied to news is like, tell me something new. Tell me something. I don't know, the same thing in a podcast. It's like, and it can just be the relationship between the two decorators who never talked about decorating.

Sarah Burke  22:11  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's yeah, part of the time, it can be that

Wendy Mesley  22:14  
but part of it is also just providing something new and interesting. Yeah.

Sarah Burke  22:19  
And on the money topic, because I breezed right by that. So just to come back around. I think the monetization piece lives in in you. And if you care about your podcast, and you have to be selling yourself, we've heard that a million times, right. But I do think that the deals being made where, you know, the host is more involved and more willing to hear what a client or a sponsor is excited about doing. I feel like there's always a better shot there than if there's like middlemen. And I say that because I think, you know, we've been told how sales work in this industry, which is still new and growing. But I think there's so many ways to do monetization. I think you could be doing a combination of things. We both have worked with salespeople. I think you guys if you walked into a relationship from your broadcasting career and showed up on a doorstep and not feel like you'd

Maureen Holloway  23:13  
be able to do it, too. So we haven't done that. We've been doing this for two years. And we've just discovered especially today, there's so much that we haven't been doing so veteran broadcasters. We have about three minutes left. So we're gonna throw things out to you. If anybody has any questions, and if not, we're just gonna keep talking ourselves. But does anybody have anything they want to ask us? Yes, yes, that Jasmine?

Wendy Mesley  23:38  
Yes. Jasmine

Sarah Burke  23:39  
is one of the producers for women

Wendy Mesley  23:41  
to me. I just met Jasmine earlier this evening. So they come to the microphone

Sarah Burke  23:45  
so we have you what's

Speaker 1  23:46  
the one skill that you've picked up in podcasting that you didn't have back in your broadcasting days

Maureen Holloway  23:52  
bookkeeping tactical tech I've since I've apparently the recorder it's a recording producer. That's what I picked up what have you picked up windy, nothing. Marine. You pick me up I guess Sarah, what you do everything.

Sarah Burke  24:11  
I kind of learned that there's, again with traditional media. I feel like it's been a very siloed approach. Sales is over here. Promo is over here. You know, productions over here. I think you can learn anything you want to do and you can do anything you want to do. Because I didn't do all these things before.

Maureen Holloway  24:29  
Yeah, you got to do it all you have to be able to sell you have to be able to find guests if your podcast is guest based you have to write if you haven't written before, you've got to operate a board or whatever the equivalent is move forward to podcasting that would be me there do books we've got to do. We had to file a tax return which was sad and

Sarah Burke  24:48  
I haven't had to look up like on YouTube how to like do things but or you take a course or whatever it is that you do like coming together for something like Soundwave Summit is great because You might have, you know, three of the five things figured out and you're like, I just want to find out like industry best for A and B. And that's where events like this and being in community, again, thrown out the C word again. I will also say actually that the podcasting community feels very connected and not as competitive as broadcasting, you would never have podcast networks coming together to put together a sound wave Summit. You would never have well, Canadian Music Week movies.

Maureen Holloway  25:28  
Yeah. But that's not Oh, yeah, that's such a warm, embracing, you know, all the radio stations and all the people just love each other and wish each other well, I love Canadian.

Wendy Mesley  25:42  
TV. But yeah,

Sarah Burke  25:43  
I just think that there's nothing that we can't kind of accomplish together and the community that's building in podcasting, because the industry changes all the time, and we do have to lean on each other to figure it all out is beautiful part of it. We've

Wendy Mesley  25:56  
got room maybe for one more question, if

Maureen Holloway  25:58  
anybody have a burning question? Oh, you even the back.

Wendy Mesley  26:03  
So that's interest? You're you're not on a microphone, but so I'm gonna rephrase your question. It's how do you how do you make it authentic? So

Sarah Burke  26:10  
how do you know you're

Maureen Holloway  26:13  
telling me when you were talking about Tommy and Debbie, and you could be talking about your their decorators, but the moments of authenticity are when you catch people off guard when you we learn half one of our best guests that we doored she was jetlagged and exhausted, and just herself and you don't? It's going back to something that Sarah said earlier about this not fabricated this is what we love about podcasting is we feel like we're actually hearing from people the way they really are, as opposed to it's less performative. We've interviewed some actors and broadcasters that have come on and still play the same part that they do. And it doesn't ring false, you know,

Wendy Mesley  26:56  
a couple of people who have come on the show and not not very many, because I think we tend to try and break those walls down. But yes, the more the more famous people come on with rehearse answers, and we're not at all interested. Yeah, and I don't think our audience is at all interested in that anymore. And so it is about finding an authentic voice there.

Sarah Burke  27:15  
I feel like a lot of people have in our industry have done media training. And it's not that they're scripted, but they they feel like they have to operate with like a box or a boundary. And, you know, sometimes someone will contact me after an interview and both responses sometimes it's thank you for making me feel so comfortable to like talk about that, or sometimes Jen Valentine is great example of that. And then sometimes it's like, oh, I want you to take out this and I want you to take this take out this like you get it's not anything that

Maureen Holloway  27:47  
shouldn't be taken out but it's it's real. Yeah. Well,

Wendy Mesley  27:49  
it's because people have personal obligations and have made promises or or they have have it on paper that they weren't allowed to say something that they said

Maureen Holloway  27:58  
yeah, we'd love to tell you what those hurt but that was

Sarah Burke  28:04  
respecting Yeah,

Wendy Mesley  28:05  
we've got to wrap up

Maureen Holloway  28:07  
our website is women of ill repute.com on all our episodes are up on that all at FM Sara's website is women

Sarah Burke  28:14  
in media don't network or women immediate.ca For just the podcast but it's all on both

Maureen Holloway  28:20  
pages. It's all there and we will be putting up this episode on both our pods once again thank you to Amanda and the team for putting this together. Thank you all for being here. We really appreciate your interest and good luck with all your podcast dreams

find out more about boring Holloway that's me and Wendy Mesley And the women of ill repute as well as Sarah Burke and the women in media network and podcast all in the show notes for this episode. Our websites are respectively women of ill repute.com And women in media dot network subscribe follow wherever you get your podcasts you can also leave a review and connect on our socials. Thank you for listening.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  29:12  
Women of ill repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. With the help from the team at the sound off media company and producer Jet Belgraver.