Hannah Sung  11:54: Hi everyone, here we go. Thank you so much for having Media Girlfriends at the HotDocs Pod Fest, a festival that I love so much. I usually love going there every year. But here we are. Welcome to our home offices. We're so pleased to be doing this very cool conversation today because we are all people who have told our personal stories, and then as journalists we put together and handle other people's personal stories, and we do think this is such an important topic. We know that there is an insatiable appetite for personal stories and podcasting. We want to tell you all about our experiences and how it's a learning process. So I'm going to start by introducing my colleagues. I'll start with Tori Allen. She is a showrunner at Pacific Content. Previously a longtime producer at CBC Radio, producing many personal stories. Garvia Bailey is a beloved broadcaster and producer and soon-to-be book author. She is the co-founder of JAZZCAST.ca and my colleague in a Black history podcast that Media Girlfriends is making in collaboration with Historica Canada. I'm Hannah Sung. I work with Media Girlfriends as a podcast producer and write the newsletter, At the End of the Day. And Nana aba Duncan is the CBC Radio host of Fresh Air, currently on leave as a Massey Fellow. Her research is on racialized leaders in Canadian media, and Nana aba is the founder of Media Girlfriends. So would you like to mention a little bit about what we do?

Nana aba Duncan  13:23: Yes, I would like to do that, Hannah, thank you for the floor. I just want to say like, I'm so excited to be with these women who are my colleagues and my friends and just excellent journalists. I love working with excellent journalists, who are my friends. And that's actually how Media Girlfriends started. It was a way for me to become a better interviewer. And so I decided to do that through an independent podcast. And I basically, without knowing it, started a little club of women who are in journalism, and that grew. And so from there, I would say that now we've grown to a podcast company, Media Girlfriends is a podcast company that supports all perspectives, more perspectives in media. And we have a scholarship, an annual scholarship of $10,000 for women and non binary students who are pursuing journalism, media tech, or communications. And I would like to announce here that we have an additional $10,000 scholarship that we're giving out this year to a Black high school student of any gender. And we're very, very excited to do that. The other thing that Media Girlfriends is doing Hannah talked about a little bit, we are producing a Black history podcast and video series with historical Canada. Media Girlfriends is growing as a network and so much more and we are all I think, just happy to see where it might go.

Hannah Sung  14:57: I love hearing you talk about it, and I wanted you to just mention off the top, you know, the ethos that kind of drives the work because I think that's what this session is all about in terms of being a human being first and handling stories sensitively. Whether it's your own or that of others, you know, just really bringing your whole self to the table and balancing that power and the responsibility of a personal story. I feel like you're about to jump in, Nana aba.

Nana aba Duncan  15:28: Yeah, like I would say that our ethos is that, we place a value that is about — that's rooted in the idea that our perspectives are legitimate, our perspectives are worthy and so is everyone else's. That's where we come from. And when you come from that way, you seek out and you are delighted by all different perspectives and I think when you think that way, we can have a richer sense of the world around us. We can have a richer sense of the people around us. So speaking about personal storytelling specifically, I would say for me, where I’m at when I think of that at the moment, is that there is incredible responsibility in storytelling because, if you do tell a story about yourself, particularly if you represent a community that has not been heard from or that has not been heard from in a fair way, then I think that there is responsibility for you to tell your story as honestly and as humbly as you can.

Hannah Sung  16:38: Definitely, yeah.

Garvia Bailey  16:40: I just wanted to add that, about the Media Girlfriends and this panel in particular, that one of the things that we've all talked about as Media Girlfriends as a group, in the way that we produce, is that it is as important and this is very much related to what we're talking about, the how of the way that we get our stories put out into the world is important, as important as the stories themselves. So there is, so when you talk about ethos like, I believe that that is at the base of what we do and something that we're going to discuss today, is just the fact that we are humbly accepting these stories from individuals, from people and taking it and creating something. And the how is so important in terms of the whole process.

Hannah Sung  17:35: Absolutely. So we're going to be dividing up, you know I'm going to try to divide up today's session into two parts, I'm like, I'm trying to control this shit but we'll see how it goes.

Nana aba Duncan  17:45: [Laughs]

Hannah Sung  17:46: Guys, it's basically as casual a conversation as we can get it to be. But in order to organize it in my mind I was thinking about,you know, us telling our personal stories, then also handling someone else's personal stories. There's the two sides of the equation, right? We want to leave everybody who's here in the conversation with as many tools as you can possibly take away from today and tools that you can put into practice right away. So with that why don't we just start by defining, what is a personal story? We all got together the other night and we put it very simply: it's talking about your own experience in your own words. So clearly podcasting, you can see why personal stories and podcasting go so well together. Let's talk about why personal stories are so powerful.  Who wants to jump in? Tori, I feel like. Yeah, go for it.

Tori Allen  18:41: You know, in all of my years, and I would say that personal storytelling, you know, contacting people and asking them to share their story with me and then with the rest of the country and the whole world potentially listening on a podcast, I have never, I don't think I will ever get over how willing people are to answer a phone call or an email. And from some person they don't know, who's saying, ‘I read about you or I heard about you or I think you might have a story, would you talk to me and share the, you know, your guts and your feelings and your history?’ And sometimes it's very light and sometimes it's very deep, but how willing people are to share those stories. Especially from people who have no prior contact with the media, who don't know how we work, who aren't always very clear about where this will end up or what that will mean. And I've seen it so many times where you get into a story with somebody, and you're asking them to think more deeply, and to reflect on something and it actually can trigger, you know, things for them to you know, ‘I never thought about this.’ And how powerful it is to be able to tell your own story. Sometimes that has a really empowering effect and how it can also have unintentional effects, of like, ‘Gosh, I never thought about this and I'm going to keep thinking about this afterwards.’ And just, you know, having that agency that, ‘My story is important, that people want to hear it.’ And if it, when it gets shared, that people respond to it in a way that could be like, surprising. But also that, where we come in as the people who are the conduit, the shaper of the story that you know, when you mentioned earlier, Hannah about a personal story is a story you tell in your own words. We all know that, you know, we play a big role in what those words end up being. So, you know, there's those levels to the power of what we do, as, you know, story producers, and as storytellers ourselves.

Hannah Sung  20:40: So can we break down that power just a bit? Because we're saying the power of personal storytelling a lot. And if we are people who use that, or are aware of that power, what is the power of the personal story, like, where does that power lie?

Garvia Bailey  20:55: I do a storytelling workshop for creatives. And so one of the things, one of the quotes that I use off the top is one, that from a long time ago, Ben Oakley said something like, ‘In order to poison a people, poison their stories.’ So that is the power. That power comes in, it's a form of empathy. Even if we are, it is the path towards empathy, is knowing someone's story. So even if we are, we don't agree with someone's point of view, or we don't really understand where they're coming from, if we're able to hear their story, then that is where that power resides. And that is where — and that's our path, you know, that is our path as just human beings, is to hear one another's stories. And that is that route toward empathy. And it could be the route towards action, you know, if we want to take a stand on something, or if we want to talk more about something or understand something in a more profound and real way. And that is empathy. Although in saying all that, I don't know if I just answered your question, Hannah Sung.

Hannah Sung  22:14: No, you did. I am hearing a lot of things. I was hearing —

Nana aba Duncan  22:18: It doesn’t matter, Garvia, it doesn’t matter! [Laughs]

Garvia Bailey  22:20: I was like, blah, blah, blah.

Nana aba Duncan  22:23: It doesn’t matter!

Hannah Sung  22:24: I was like, I love her blah, blah, blahs.

Nana aba Duncan  22:26: Her blah, blah, blahs are like, the smartest blah, blah, blahs.

Hannah Sung  22:31: Listen, we have already heard, you know, many different aspects of the power of personal storytelling. Tori, you talked about connection and people's need to connect their personal stories with a listener. And then Garvey, are you talking about empathy. And you're talking about empathy being the precursor to action and comprehension. I mean, these are definitely, I think everybody would agree — yeah, and Nana aba?

Nana aba Duncan  22:52: I was just gonna say that what is coming to me now, is that personal storytelling is really a glimpse into humanity. When do we ever get to know about humans, until we hear their stories? Like, when do we really get to know about what people are like? Until we hear this? When you meet somebody, like that you've never met before you actually, and you want to know them, you ask them for stories. When you're asking them things, you're asking them for their stories. So I think that's where the power lies. It is in the fact that you get to know more about people who might be like you, people who are not like you, but just your own species. Does that makes sense? 

Hannah Sung  23:30: Yeah. 

Nana aba Duncan 23:32: [Barely audible] I’m blah, blah, blahing now.

Hannah Sung  23:34: Tori, you had your hand up.

Tori Allen 23:35: I would add that storytelling, personal storytelling in audio, takes it to another level.

Nana aba Duncan 23:45: Yes.

Tori Allen  23:46: Because you could read, you read an article about someone where they share their personal story, but you don't hear their voice. And hearing someone's voice tells you so much. Hearing a catch in their throat when they're telling you, you know, recalling a moment that was difficult. Hearing the excitement. Hearing, you know, I often, I think a lot, this one phrase in a podcast Garvia— no, it's a different one! Floodlines, which is about Hurricane Katrina. And, you know, and the host, just recognizing a pattern in the way this woman speaks and calling it out, like that detail has stayed with me and how much it revealed about her character, it stayed with me for a long time. And just, you know, there's an intimacy in podcasting, which is why it's so perfect for this medium, to personal storytelling, that allows you to make that connection even more deeply.

Hannah Sung  24:39: It's so true, I think we can all think of podcasts where the storytelling would not have worked in the same way if it were just on the page. Garvia, go ahead. 

Garvia Bailey  24:49: Well, I was just gonna say that, in the olden days when we made just, you know, radio. Remember? When it was just called radio? All this podcasting, these young bucks with the podcast. Anyway, the radio interview, the best longform radio interviewers, all they were doing was facilitating intimate storytelling. That's all that was happening. It was, it's the, you know, it's the precursor to this to what we call narrative podcasting now, right? It is still being done in beautiful ways. And that's what we're tasked to do as podcasters now, as producing these, but it's the same thing that we've always been doing. The great radio interviewers would be great podcast producers of now, right? Like, all (inaudible). It's just facilitating, it's just a facilitation of the sharing of a personal story in a way that opens up the floodgates for someone and they feel safe, and they feel like their truth is being honored.

Hannah Sung  25:58: Yeah, it's about that active listening, which I think we're going to be getting to in a minute. And just before we, kind of, wrap up this section on, you know, how powerful personal stories are, I just want to say, as a podcast producer, who was, kind of, trying to leverage that connection, empathy, etc, when I'm putting together a podcast. That's the function of what the personal story does for a larger issue. So if I really have, like, a larger issue that I'm trying to explore, you know, I've made podcasts on personal finance. Well people are scared of money, talking about money, people are ashamed of money issues. Or, you know, I made a podcast about race, people are like, ‘Ughh, I don't really, it's like, I don't want to go there.’ And you put in a personal story, and all of a sudden, it becomes like, ‘Oh, I'm just one person, I can hear the story of another person.’ And it leads you down the path to talking about topics that can be very difficult to connect with audiences over. You know, so just in terms of those nuts and bolts, I mean, I think we all know, that's why we use personal stories. So, can we share some examples of times that we ourselves have told personal stories. We can talk about successes. We can talk about mistakes, I don't know where you want to go first. Nana aba, you had an interesting story about being on the air.

Nana aba Duncan  27:36: Yeah. So as the host of Fresh Air. If you're, at least on my show, one way to connect with both listeners and your guest, is to talk a little bit about yourself. Also, it's a weekend morning show. So, you know, you can be honest about the fact that you've got children or that you like this kind of music, or you know. But, and so I was fine with doing that. But when George Floyd died, it changed. Things changed. And I'm gonna try and tell this as fast as I can, because it's a bit of a long story. But George Floyd died. And it was a Monday or Tuesday. And that weekend, I wondered how I was going to address it. Because here I am, a Black person, and I'm very, very upset. And my family, my like, people around me are very, very upset. I know that a lot of people were, but within the Black community, I knew what it was like. And so I didn't really feel like I could talk much about it at work, if I'm going to be perfectly honest here. Like, I felt like I could talk about it. But I, I guess I felt like, not very many people would really actually get me. But what I did as a journalist, I knew that I had to acknowledge what happened because I, was we were talking about it. To some extent. It was on the news. But I made a comment on the Saturday just saying, you know, like, ‘I know that the news is really hard. And I hope…’ I don't know what I said. But it was basically like, maybe Fresh Air can just provide you with a little bit of respite from what's been going on. And in the end, that didn't feel like enough. So on Sunday morning, I was wracked with this story that was in me. Not necessarily a story, but a thought that I knew I should share. And what was going on with me was, I am a Black host. I have a responsibility. I have a platform. The big question to me was, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? And so I thought to myself, well, there aren't that many people who know what I know about what the community is going through. Like the way that I know it. So I know that as journalists, we are to reflect what's happening. And so I thought, I am to reflect what is happening with Canadians, what is happening with Black Canadians, and I didn't hear, necessarily, how Black Canadians were really feeling. It's not to say that it didn't happen. I just mean that I didn't hear it. And so, on the Sunday, I started a message, I just took a moment to talk to the listeners. And I was talking to all the listeners, knowing that it was also specifically speaking to the Black listeners. And I said, that you know a community is in trouble when its members are asking each other if everyone's okay. And it went on from there. But what happened with that is that, that ended up, it was shared a lot on social media, and other parts of CBC wanted that message. And then also, it was included in the President's message to employees, when she wanted to address what was happening. And I don't know what else to say, except that, while I didn't say ‘I’ or ‘me,’ I think people knew that I was talking about myself. And that was the line that I was struggling with, is, I'm a journalist, how am I going to say what is happening, without saying ‘I’ or ‘me’ but telling you that, obviously, this is me. And I think I'll end it there. 

Hannah Sung  32:12: Yeah. Well, you know what that speaks to, and I thought that was so powerful in the moment, and also you re-telling your process and your thinking. But I, when I listened to you talk about it, it really makes me think about the tension between, you know, what it is that individuals are supposed to do, and then institutions, in terms of being open, being personal. And then when you said this message on the air, it was so authentic, it just shot right through, like, on all platforms, right. It was true, it was your truth. And I also heard you talk about audience because you switched, or you made a conscious choice in terms of who you were aiming to, as your listener. And I think that's a huge element too, in terms of handling our own stories, and our own perspectives. Did anybody else want to share a momentous occasion? Doesn't have to be momentous, but ... you know, big or small, a time that they opened up with their own personal story.

Garvia Bailey  33:27: I do it all the time, to be honest. Like, I think that's my, that's my sweet spot, personal story as a way of reflecting some of the bigger things that are happening in the world. But I've done it in, in ways that I would have done differently. I think there's a very, it's, it can be a very, you forget that telling a personal story can very much involve, like we don't live in this world in a bubble, right? Like it's not, even when we're telling these personal stories,it might be about us, but the reverberation goes much further than just us. So I've told personal stories about, you know, my daughter's medical condition and her becoming this new woman and having to, kind of, be in control of who she is with this condition going out into the world and me letting go of her in that state. Like just saying, okay, that's yours now. And I thought it was an important story to tell at the time. But other people in my family ... did not think it was an important — that it was an appropriate story to tell. And I didn't even think like, I didn't even think, oh how my daughter thought it was great. She was glad to hear this story. But, and that was the most important thing for me, because I asked her permission. But other members of the family kind of felt otherwise. Which reminds me of another story, I had a chance in the summer to tell the story of my niece who had decided to spearhead Black Lives Matter protests in our small, tiny little hometown, where there's just like, there's not a lot of Black people. There's a few, but she was like, ‘I'm gonna get out there.’ And she's mixed race, her mother's white, her dad is my brother, so he's obviously Jamaican. And I was just so ready to write about this story of her. Because it felt like, because she talked to me about the fact that she had felt disconnected from her Black side, the Blackness within her and this had brought her closer to it. And, of course, as a journalist, I'm like, ‘Oh, my God, I need to write this and make this into a podcast. And I'm coming down with the thing, and!’ And I mentioned it in passing to one of my brothers, not her dad, but my other brother. And he called me that night. And he was like, ‘You know, not everything needs to be a story for you. Because I know that that's the way that you think. But not everything needs to be a story. It's okay to just let our niece have this time, and not blast it out into the universe.’ And so, you know, those are the things that I think about. The personal, when it comes to my own personal storytelling now, that we do owe it to the people that are being touched by this to be careful.

Nana aba Ducan  36:42: Garvia, how did you feel? [Hannah Sung in background: So true]

Garvia Bailey  36:44: How did it feel?

Nana aba Duncan  36:46: Yeah, when your brother was like, ‘Don't do that.’

Garvia Bailey  36:48: I was like, ‘Oh, my God. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Like, as soon as he said it, I was like, oh yeah. [Crosstalk]

Hannah Sung  36:55: You know what, though, we are so lucky when we have family members, or quite frankly, colleagues, or anybody around us who, like, help remind us of boundaries. Or they don't have to be imposing any boundaries, they can just be like, ‘Have you thought about?’ and then we think about our own boundaries, right. And that's why we work with other people, and have relationships. And it's so funny, the oxymoron of the phrase, personal storytelling, it's never just one person's story, there's going to be somebody else involved. And you need to think that out a little bit, too. I love that story. Garvia. I want to move on.

Tori Allen  37:31: Hannah can I jump in for one second? Sorry, I just want to, I have a story to share about having been able to look at it from a different perspective, because I worked on a wonderful show called Now Or Never in the fall. And I pitched this story about myself. And so I offered to tell my story. And, you know, they assigned a producer to work with us. And it was a story of how my husband and I, having moved back to Canada recently, and decided that we would switch roles. That I would be the lead earner, the working parent, and he would be the lead parent, like taking care of the kids taking the school dealing with them when the pandemic shuts everything down. And it all came to fruition in a week where we moved into our new house, and it was super stressful. And I had this moment where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it's so stressed right now, I don't know if I can ask my husband to now like take time out of moving us all in, and you know, talk to a producer and do a pre-interview.’ And then, you know, and we had kind of pitched it in this way that was going to create some tension between us, which when you're a producer, yay, tension. But when you're the person on the other end, like, ‘Whoo, do we need more tension in our lives right now? Maybe not.’ And I was really grateful that I was working with a producer on my team, a colleague, Bridget Forbes, hello. And she heard she, like, she reached out. She said, ‘I'm getting the sense that you were feeling uncomfortable with this. And that, you know, like, do you want to not do this? It is totally fine. Don't feel like you have to.’ And I said, I took a moment because I like, frankly, I was tempted to be like, ‘Actually, let's just call it off. Got enough on my plate right now.’ But I said, ‘You know what, here's what's making me uncomfortable. I don't want to make it adversarial. I think there's plenty here without pitting my husband and I against each other, in some kind of false, you know, setup. So can we do this? I think this will work.’ And she was like, ‘Yes.’ And that made it okay. But there was still like, it was so great, it's great to be on the other end of things sometimes, when you are used to being a producer with your story, alarm going bing, bing, bing! You know, to realize how vulnerable it can feel to tell your story, and then walk away and have some person edit your words. And, are they going to take out all the uhms and ahs, are they going to hit the beats that you thought were the most important? Why did that get left out? Why did that go in? And then kind of it goes out in the world and you know, hope that everybody feels okay about it. So it was a really good experience, a recent experience to go through of, you know, being on the other end and being able to work with somebody who really did put a lot of care and concern and listened very clearly to what was happening.

Hannah Sung  40:18: You know, I loved that you shared that story, and I’m trying to be mindful of the time because I know we’re going to have questions and we still have a few things to mention. But Tori, that point of being on both sides of the mic is actually such an important experience to have, because it is such a good reminder. And it makes me think of, I won't tell the whole story, but a time when I was much younger when I pitched a story, and, you know, it was about Korean culture, but it was not pitched as something about myself, or about my family and the executive producer really twisted my arm into making it a personal story. They wanted that glue, they wanted to make it, they wanted to amp it up and make it more interesting and relatable. And so I asked my parents, will you do this with me? And they were like, “Okay,” but I could tell they were not comfortable. Because I know them. They're not open book people. And so we started going down that path until it kind of came to a head. My dad had to come around my mom to say to me, ‘Your mom can't sleep at night because she's so nervous about this.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, okay, we're not 100 percent we’re not doing’— My dad said the words to me, though. He said, Hannah, Mommy feels very anxious. But I will do this for you for your career.’

Nana aba Duncan  41:43: Oh my god. 

Hannah Sung  41:47:And I said, ‘Noooo! We're not going to do this’. But you know what, by that point, we had built up to a point where we had this whole huge budget and crew, and we'd already all stepped up and so then, I had to go to my producer and executive producer and just be like, ‘No.’ And it was, I was too young to fully articulate what the problem was, actually. But it showed me how everybody has a different stake in a story and a different motivation. And my dad just laid bare what his motivation was. And I was like, that's not a good enough motivation to share your own story for anybody to push you. Nobody should push you, your own daughter should not push you. And I was like, there's no way I'm making you guys do anything. We're done here. You know? Anyway, um —

Nana aba Duncan  42:35: I love Papa Sung.

 Hannah Sung  42:37: But you know, he doesn't have a lot of words. But when he speaks, it really means something. So, you know, it was a good lesson for me that I was lucky to have young, that you need to be so careful. Not everybody is ready. Not everybody's open. Not everybody is like us, the blah, blah, blahs, right?

Tori Allen  42:57: The compulsive disclosers.

Hannah Sung 43:01: Exactly. I want to talk briefly, because we're going to go to open Q&A. I want to talk about approaching chasing personal stories. So just like, you know, continuing on with what I had just mentioned. Tori, you were talking about, I believe it was the Now or Never show when you were producing on that, you told us previously a story about chasing a personal story and letting it go. Can you tell that story?

Tori Allen  43:26: Yeah. So you know, the premise of that show is there's always a theme. So you're looking for stories that connect to that theme. So it actually has to be very specific. And I found — I had had this person on my radar for a while. And he leads history tours of Montreal, about the Black history of Montreal. And I just thought you know, I liked it, I thought it was interesting what he was doing. I thought he was a great talker. And I was like, I wonder if he has a personal story? And the theme that week was, the wake-up call. And you know, about like having his own wake up, but like something that maybe, you know, kind of galvanized him starting these tours. And, you know, we talked and I explained the premise of the show on the theme, and he didn't. And I kind of asked a few follow-up calls and I just got the sense that he, maybe he did, but he did not want to talk about it. And I knew that if I push him, I am pushing him to talk about something that is likely painful for him. And, you know, when he pointed out, you know, that in Montreal, we're still having issues and people are marching anymore and you know, like, and so it just became very, very apparent to me that there was there was a story there probably but that one that he wants to divulge and that is fine. Like, I'm not going to ask you to mine your pain for my show. You know if you don't want to give it up, if it's not something that comes to the surface quickly and willingly, then I don't want to force you there. But it did it, you know, kind of left me with an unsettled feeling because I felt, you know, I felt bad, frankly, about even posing the question. And so that, you know, that's something that I'm also working through, about, like, you know, how do you, how do we do that with more care? And I think I, you know, in the moment, I did the best I could, but it also felt sort of like, ‘Okay, thanks, well, if you can't do the story I need then see you later, bye!’ You know, because I got to move on with my chase. And so you know, there's always a tension between your demands of your production, and, you know, being a very thoughtful and caring producer who realizes how much telling stories impact people. 

Nana aba Duncan  45:42: But that's it right there, like you saying the word ‘care’ and being a producer with care, is what can change everything, to me as a producer who's looking for personal stories. Sorry, Garvia go ahead.

Hannah Sung  45:53: That's true. Yeah, go ahead, Garvia.

Garvia Bailey  45:55: No, I was just going to say that, that brings up a difference between I think, often when you're producing a podcast, you have more time. And to take that time with someone, when you're on the, kind of, chase producer, kind of, treadmill, it's like, ‘Okay, it’s not a story, okay uh!’ And it can feel very abrupt and hard, which is why I really like this medium, in that if someone doesn't want it, I can take an hour on the phone with someone and never get to the ask of asking them if they want to be in a podcast. But I can get to, you know, like it can, it can be that kind of process, where you can build trust and build, like, genuine care and genuine empathy and genuinely the want and expressing the importance of their story. The jewel of having this thing and being very careful with it. So in the podcast world, there is often the time to do that. Or if there isn't, you should cut out the time. You should make the time. It should be built into your work back schedule.

Hannah Sung  47:19: That's so true. Like when you're making me think, Garvia, of the times that I've worked at a newspaper, which traditionally you fill column inches, and it's like, it's got to get out every day. But I worked in a digital aspect, and I was able to take as much time as I wanted with the personal stories that I told. I did not have those pressures where quite frankly, if you get to a certain point in your career, and you're lucky enough to work in a digital space where you have more time, maybe, it's incumbent on people to push back a bit to say, ‘No, the way that we've always done things, let's keep changing the way that we do things.’ So that —

Nana aba Duncan  47:59: Oh my god, say it again.

Hannah Sung  48:01 : Yeah, we can centre people and not our deadlines. Let’s change the way we’re doing things, you know.

Nana aba Duncan  48:07: One more time. Yess.

Garvia Bailey 48:08: Say that again Hannah. We centre people and not our deadlines. 

ALL [LAUGH]

Garvia Bailey 48:17: Get a tattoo, y’all. 

[CROSSTALK]

Hannah Sung  48:19: Thank you. Thank you.

Tori Allen  48:20: I think the inverse of that is also just recognizing that some stories are not — don't fit the format. You know, like, if your production has a format, if it has a schedule, you know, that, you know, this is not going to work. Drop it, bank it, put it in the bank, maintain that relationship, find another place to tell that story. 

Nana aba Duncan  48:43: Could that be a problem though? Don't we lose out? In some ways? If we're not, I'm not trying to be adversarial

Garvia Bailey  48:49: Sure you are

Nana aba Duncan  48:52: No I’m not! I’m thinking here. And I'm just thinking that if we have a medium, wherein personal storytelling doesn't work, but that medium is the big one, or the one where most of us get our media, then are we not losing out?

Tori Allen  49:09: My answer would be, is not everything has to do everything. 

Nana aba Duncan 49:13: Okay, true.

Tori Allen  49:15: You know, that, you know, certain shows have a certain format, and they're suited to some kinds of stories, and sometimes there's flex within that format. But we can't — not every show can do everything. You know,

Nana aba Duncan  49:29: Really? [Laughs] I’m just joking.

Tori Allen  49:32: [Inaudible]

Nana aba Duncan 49:34: You're right. You're right. You're right, yeah.

Tori Allen 49:34: But trying to shoehorn a very complex story into a, ‘This story, we've got five minutes!’ No, like, forget it, pass, that deserves more. 

Nana aba Duncan 49:46: It can be hard to make that decision too, sometimes,

Hannah Sung  49:48: But you think about how you're going to live with yourself afterwards and how you've handled someone else's story and your own story. Because as we've already said, our own stories are tied to other people too. And it's like, if you don't put the product above all else, if you put the person first, then how do you live with yourself the next day? It's if you've done it responsibly, you know, and you didn't have to stick to the format or you could have moved on when you found the perfect person. But no, they're not perfect because they don't want to do it, you know? Okay, we got some amazing questions from the audience. I wish we could see the audience. Let's try and bang through as many as we can. Okay, guys? Okay. First question. What's your advice to emerging BIPOC creators who struggle to trust that our stories are worth telling, and being heard?

Nana aba Duncan  50:35: Wow, my heart goes out to you. My heart goes out to you. My advice? I mean, if I really — Can I be really honest here? My advice is to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that your story does matter. If you're a creator, you're dealing with other people's stories. When you're dealing with other people's stories, you know that stories are a gift. That includes your story. 

Garvia Bailey  50:01: Preach.

Nana aba Duncan  50:02: You can't value other people's stories if you don't value your own.

Garvia Bailey  51:06: That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true.

Tori Allen  51:09: I think your example of Media Girlfriends, like from the genesis of it starting from, you know, I want to learn this, I matter. And now clearly it found a home because there were other people dying to hear these stories about women. I think that, you know, Garvia teaches creatives how to tell stories. When you find, when somebody you know, sometimes it's you, telling, you're learning how to tell your story, or finding somebody who's willing to help you tell your story, if it's not a skill that you have.

Hannah Sung  51:39: The next question is, have any of you been told that your story is too personal? And that you shouldn't use it in your show? How did you handle that? So I'm not sure if they're asking whether a boss type told you that the story was too personal, or if someone else in your life told you not to use it in your show. But how did you handle that?

Garvia Bailey  52:01: Well, I think I told, like it’s very similar to the story that I told, in that I have pulled stories back before that are personal that I deemed at some point as being too personal or not appropriate for me  to share. And I think it's just knowing like, y you know, if it's not. How do you handle it? You just, you know, we are not saving, operating on little children in what we're doing. We're not, you know, we can say no to a story, there will be another great story. There's as many great stories as there are people walking out on the street right now. So, just humbling yourself as a producer, I think that that's one of those things, like just humbling yourself and saying, I know this is going to be, I wanted to have the jewel of the week on the show this week, or I wanted to, you know, present this incredible. Just being able to say, ‘No, there'll be others, I will have another, there will be other jewels coming.’

Hannah Sung  53:07: This is the second time you’ve said the word humbling too, which I appreciate too. Nana aba?

Nana aba Duncan  53:13: Just to say, I can answer really quickly and say no one's ever said to me that your story is too personal. But I can say that I have, I've realized that I have gotten these sort of subliminal or subconscious message that there's a part of me that is not really invited when it comes to, like, being a journalist. Like there's a part of me I'm not really supposed to talk about.

Hannah Sung  53:39: How do you handle that?

Garvia Bailey  53:39: Oh, my gosh, that's a whole other —

Nana aba Duncan  53:42: I know, I don't, I don't want to get — That's why I don't want to, like get too into it. But like, in general, I would say that after George Floyd died, I realized that I have really mainly been speaking to white audiences. I've been mainly speaking to Susie in Saskatchewan. I've never thought of Rahim in Brampton.

Hannah Sung  53:59: So in other words, it's, the question was, how did you handle that? But it really sounds like it's a —

Nana Aba Duncan 54:05: I didn't for a long time. 

Hannah Sung  54:07: It's a process! It's a process! [CROSSTALK]

Tori Allen  54:09: Yes. And just I'm gonna jump off. I know, we have questions, I just want to jump off that for very quickly, for one second Hannah. You know, like Nana aba mentioning, you know, like, the centering of whiteness in our storytelling, I think is something that we're all interrogating. You know, that our formats, that the way we structure a narrative, that the way we may choose to edit something, that we're all kind of going, Wait, hang on. Like maybe we have to be more mindful that there are many different ways to tell stories, and that the way that we may have been taught through, I don't know how many of us went to J-school? Nana aba! But you know, like that the way that we may have been institutionally or absorbed from our, from our colleagues, from our mentors is not the only way that, you know, that we can prioritize different things in a story then, you know,  the hero's journey or whatever it is. That like bang, bang, bang, you know, we kind of tend to have this cut and dry thought of like, ‘Okay, that's gonna go’ because that doesn't move the story along. But maybe we're emphasizing the wrong things. So that's something that I'm really interrogating in my own practice as a storyteller right now.

Hannah Sung  55:12: Yes. And I think, you know, that's why podcasting as a medium, and the flexibility that digital affords, and the low barrier to entry, I think has just gone light years beyond what legacy media can do in terms of reframing who the audience is. Because it's not about like, changing who literally subscribes to your stuff. It's about just reframing your approach to the work, you know. We're all interrogating, you don't have to be a white person to have centered the white audience, you know, and you don't have to have gone to a school to learn lessons, that you should be prioritizing a white audience. It's just, we're in it. We're marinating in —

Nana aba Duncan  55:55: —It is the water! It is the water. 

Hannah Sung  55:58: Yeah. Great points. How do you know that you're emotionally ready to tell your own story? What if you still feel like you're in the middle of the plot?

Garvia Bailey  56:12: I think that, you know, I think you just know, when you're ready. I think if you're asking this question, there's a good chance you're not ready, and if you're and if you do feel like you're in the middle of the plot. Like I was listening to the Resistance Podcast with Saidu Tejan-Thomas, it's such a great podcast, and the story borders between us. It opens with him talking about, it's about he and his relationship with his mom who passed away, and a very tense, hard fraught relationship. And it opens with him, giving us all the false starts of starting to tell the story. He starts to write it, he starts to write it, he starts to tell it, he stops, he starts again, he stops. And it was such a beautiful way to, to think about it. Because the first time that he tried to write the story, he did not do the podcast and write the story. Neither did he do it the second time, neither did he do it, it took time to be ready. And it's okay to give yourself that time. Give yourself permission. There's nothing that says that a story has to be told, right in the moment. I would say that if you feel like it's in you, and you need to get it out, start writing in the moment. Start writing every night. You can always like he did, like Saidu did, you can always go back to that writing that you did a year ago or six months ago, and incorporate that into the story that you decide to tell. If you don't feel ready —

Tori Allen 57:55: Or recording.

Garvia Bailey  57:58: Or recording it. Exactly. Even better, record it. You know, it doesn't mean that you have to share it, you can start the process without killing yourself to do it.

Hannah Sung  58:09: I also just want to say that if your story feels too big, or you're just in it, and it's unwieldy, break it down. Maybe you want to tell one very small, focused story of just one little incident or one person who means something to you, or whatever it is. But break it down to something really small. And by like, taking bites out of your story, you might be telling your bigger story over time. You don't have to do it all at once. Can I move on to our next audience question? Yeah, it’s a good one. And we don't have much time. When interviewing vulnerable peoples? How do you identify consent to share personal stories. For example, sometimes people are very willing to share their stories without truly knowing the effects of putting it out, in the media. I would add social media, too, right? So how do you make sure you have consent and you have, kind of, laid out the playing field for people that you're talking to?

Tori Allen  59:09: I think you can — Nana aba is it ok that I go? Okay. I think one thing that I am trying to do much, much more thoroughly is prep. And be very, very clear about, you know, I'm looking for a story about this. Sometimes if I'm going out with like, I need a story about this, I'm talking to lots of other people. So just even foregrounding that, you know, you may not be the person who ends up being on the podcast or the radio, I'm kind of looking for other people. So just even, you know, kind of, you know, setting that expectation. And also, you know, if it's something that is vulnerable, that you know, if somebody goes way deeper than you expected, I think, you know, we always used to have this idea of like you've given me the story and now I run with the story. And I never go back in and check with you to see like, ‘Actually, do you feel okay? Like you got, you went, like you cried, you told me something I didn't realize you're going to tell me. How do you feel about that?’ You know, because the last thing I want is for somebody to come back and say, ‘Oh, I, I don't that, you know, like, that's caused problems in my life, that wasn't, I didn't actually want that part to be out there for everybody.’ So from the very beginning, you know, just kind of, to change the way that we see this kind of extraction model. And I just want to give a shout out to Rachel Geise, who was kind of, you know, gave me that word recently, another Media Girlfriend about, you know, that we suck the story out of you, and then we go and run away with it, and don't ever come back to you and talk to you. And like that we're collaborators, that I'm actually the conduit for you telling the story. And so you know, I think that's a huge part of it like, this, like the whole country may hear this, this will be on a podcast, it will be forever, we were going to share it on social media. What would you know, how would you feel if somebody left a negative comment? Well, you know, how will we manage that? You know, depending on, you know, how intense and how vulnerable the story is, like, just to really work through all those potential scenarios up front.

Hannah Sung  1:01:08: And you know, what you're talking about, I feel like, sorry Garvia, I was, I just wanted to point out that you're trying to give back some of the power that we have through this extraction model factory. 

Garvia Bailey 1:01:22: Mmm hmmm.

Hannah Sung  1:01:24: Because, you know, we do hold the cutting, and the wording and the means with which, and when you prep someone and you tell them exactly what your motivations are, so that they can understand that you're giving back some of that power. Some of the work that I did when I was leading a class, in journalism and podcasting, we talked a lot about trauma-informed interview techniques, and how transparency is so key, and taking breaks and let and giving the other person more control than maybe we're used to doing in our journalism mode. You know, and maybe more than we've been taught to do. We're told never to let someone see a story beforehand. But what about if you just read back some passages? Or you talk to them? You say, ‘Okay, so I just want to make sure like, this is —’ You know, I don't know, it's a process and it shouldn't all be about the power being, lying on one side of the equation. Garvia, you were going to say?

Garvia Bailey 1:02:21:  was just going to say that we use the word and the question [inaudible] the word consent. I think it's the same as when we think about consent in our intimate relationships. You're checking in all the time, like, that's the way like, you're checking in. Check in. Check in. ‘Is this okay? Is it okay for us to go here? Do you feel all right, right now, with us going here? Okay, we're just gonna keep going.’ You know, like it is this. I see the parallel in that —

Hannah Sung  1:02:52: People didn’t know they were here for sex ed and health talk

Nana Aba 1:02:55: I was just gonna say, listening Garvia almost talk about sex is very interesting. [Background laughter and crosstalk]

Tori Allen 1:03:03: Very useful advice!  

Garvia Bailey 1:03:03: Listen to my sex podcast!

Hannah Sung  1:03:08: Can we —yes, consent is ongoing. Can we leave everybody with just one tip that, you know, reaching back into our whole hour long conversation, one thing that people can put in their back pockets. They can say, I've got these four or five tips that I know I can use today. Briefly, Nana aba.

Nana aba Duncan 1:03:29: This one is for the independent podcasters: don't have your guest on for the first time, having never spoken to them a little bit about what you're going to talk about beforehand. Do a pre-interview. Even if it's even if it's five minutes.

Hannah Sung  1:03:44: Excellent. Tori. 

Tori Allen 1:03:45: I think mine would just be to drive home that idea of being transparent and preparing the guest, you know, and being very clear about what you're doing and how it’s operating. And because we think everybody knows how we work, but they don't, you know, if you're just calling up some person who's never been interviewed before, it's a mystery, you know. So to just pull back the curtain and be as clear, and, ‘Do you have any questions? Is this clear?’ Like, again, the consent, checking in, checking in, checking in.

Hannah Sung  1:04:18: Garvia?

Garvia Bailey 1:04:19: Leave your ego elsewhere. Leave that, like, keep that humility, first and foremost. What you're getting is a gift. And you should look at it that way. And that doesn't mean that you just take or you just extract that gift and just run away with it. And I know sometimes the story is so great that you're thinking about, ‘Oh my gosh, the Peabody I'm going to win and the thing I'm going to get and boy, oh boy.’ And sometimes you just got to take the ego out of it and say maybe this story is not ready to be told and maybe this person needs to hang on to this for a moment because it is theirs. And I can circle back at some point. And I don't need all the glory of telling the story.

Hannah Sung  1:05:06: Absolutely. And I would add my bit of advice is to know your own boundaries, think about them in advance and ask questions of the other person so that they can think about their own boundaries in advance. It's part of that transparency and kind of process piece. So that brings us to the end of the hour, we’re two minute over, but we did our best to keep it contained to one hour. I want to —

Nana aba Duncan  1:05:33: Thank you, you did a good job, Hannah.

Garvia Bailey  1:05:35: Good job Hannah Sung.

Hannah Sung  1:05:37: Good job everyone. Thank you so much to Hot Docs Podfest, and I hope you all have a wonderful podcast festival.

Tori Allen  1:05:48: I dunno if I'm doing it right. [Makes finger heart gesture popularized in South Korea during the 2010s. The thumb and index finger of one hand are crossed to form a heart shape.] Anyway, you know what I mean.

Hannah Sung  1:05:49: You were the person who lived in Korea for so long.

Tori Allen  1:05:53: We weren’t doing that when I lived in Korea for so long. This is new.

All 1:05:57: Bye bye, everybody.