Outside Voices Interviewee Information

Things to know before we hit “record” on your episode!

We’re excited to collaborate with you!

Thanks again for your interest in being on Outside Voices, a podcast that shares the stories of Black, Indigenous, and people of color about our relationships to nature. If you’re reading this page, you’ve hopefully already connected with Sarah Shimazaki about your episode.

Take a look at the information below and if you have any questions after reading, please reach out via email (sarah@resource-media.org). We look forward to getting to know more about you and helping to share your story with our community.

Our Approach to Interviewing & Editing

Our vision is to work together to produce an episode that honors your voice and the unique qualities you bring to the outdoors and this community. Our process is deeply committed to ethical storytelling and we aim to create a safer podcasting environment with open communication before, during, and after the interview process. After the interview is complete, we work to make the end product one that is representative of what you want to share with our community – be it professionally, personally, and/or creatively.

We take your opting-in with weight and gratitude, and our hope is that what we make together is something you’re proud of. So, while we’ll be asking you the questions, we aim to approach every episode with the basic belief that you have a great deal of power in using your voice.

With that in mind, we’ll keep the conversation casual and organic, so if things come up that you didn’t plan to share and don’t want to be aired, you can let us know and we will remove from the final cut (more details are available in our podcast consent form).

After your conversation, we edit the podcast with the goal of highlighting the core themes you mentioned wanting to discuss in your pre-interview. Sometimes, sections of the conversation are summarized or cut for brevity. As you’ll read in our consent form, you may listen to a rough cut of the episode before it’s published to ensure that you’re comfortable with the end product.

Lastly, we like to make the most of our listener’s time, so if you (or we!) have any awkward coughing or long pauses to think about your responses to questions, that’s a-okay. We’ll be editing that stuff out. Verbal fillers (um’s, like’s, sort of’s, and so on) will also be cut if they are easy to remove and would otherwise distract from your message.

We want you to sound like you, and we also want listeners to be able to get to the heart of what you’d like to share in the short period of time we have.

Consent

In order to complete an interview, we ask that you read and review our podcasting consent form to ensure we’re all on the same page in terms of our interview process, where your voice will live, and how the episode will be marketed. Find it, learn more, and sign here.

We’re here for any questions you have!

Withdrawing Consent

After interviewing: you can withdraw consent at any point in the process up until 5 calendar days after interviewing and we will not air your episode. You may email your interviewer or indicate your withdrawal here.

After your episode airs: you can withdraw consent in a limited capacity. You can make updates to your consent here.

How to “Dial In”

Zencastr

We use Zencastr to record all podcast conversations (if your computer has Google Chrome or Firefox browsers). We’ll send you a link, as well as an email from Zencastr that provides simple instructions for optimizing sound quality and connection.

Alternative: Zoom

Check to make sure you have a good internet or cell phone connection, and when you’re ready, ring the host up via a pre-determined method.

How We Make Your Voice Sound Great

The platform we use for our chat will record our entire conversation. However, we also optionally ask that you record a backup as well.

Recording your own audio creates really crisp sound on your side and will dramatically increase the quality of your episode. Plus, there’s no special equipment required. You can use the mic already installed on your computer or smartphone!

Here’s how to record audio on Quicktime for Macs:

Open Quicktime (already installed on Macs).
Choose File > New Audio Recording.
To change the recording settings, click the arrow next to the Record button. Then choose your microphone (the one on your computer, unless you’re fancy!) and recording quality.
To monitor audio while it’s being recorded, use the volume slider.
Click the Record button to start recording. Click it again to stop recording.

Have a Windows device?

Go to your start menu.
Search for “Sound Recorder” or “Voice Recorder”.
Open the free, already-installed app.
Record your voice using your computer microphone.

You can also record on a phone, such as using the “Voice Memos” app on the iPhone. After the interview concludes and you save the audio, you can send it to sarah@resource-media.org via any file-sharing service that works for you. Dropbox, Google Drive, and WeTransfer all work great (among any others you like to use!).

Some Thoughts on Background Noise

You can connect with the host from anywhere that’s relatively quiet. It doesn’t need to be a soundproof box—just not a coffee shop or a busy street, etc. We trust you to use your best judgment.

Our podcast is supported by advertising. Each episode takes time to plan, produce, edit, and share with our community and we at Resource Media seek out advertising to support our work. The ads don’t overlap with interviews or the main Outside Voices podcast content, nor do the advertisers have a say on what is shared on the podcast episode you’re in. We do our best to vet advertisers to ensure they share our respect for people, place, emotion, and environment.

Last thing! We also ask from you:

4-5 photos from you that we’ll share out on social media and online to promote the episode and podcast
A brief bio (3ish sentences is great!)
Please send over the top 2-3 links to your website or social media links you would like to direct listeners to.

That’s all for now! We’re really looking forward to chatting with you further. Please reach out if you have any questions!

Best,
Sarah Shimazaki & the Outside Voices Podcast team

This informational one-pager was adapted from our friends at Ravel Media. We’re so grateful to learn from and alongside them, as fellow podcasters with a mission to change the outdoor narrative through storytelling.