On The Record Nominated for Signal Awards Best Student Podcast
Congratulations to On The Record (OTR) (external link) for its fall 2024 podcast season of On The Record Podcast (external link) becoming a finalist for Signal Awards’ fourth annual Listener’s Choice Student Podcast (external link) .
Angela Misri, assistant professor, was thrilled to hear about the nomination as she knew the podcast should be nominated for awards after the second and third episodes.
Dima Mironov ‘25, who worked on the podcast as an audio engineer and provided editorial input on scripts, found out about the nomination from Misri.
Mironov said it was reassuring to learn that his work was being heard outside the classroom.
“Because, a lot of the time, especially in earlier courses, it feels like you’re shouting into a void,” he explained.
Claire Dufourd '25 learned about the nomination through her former classmate, Mironov, who called to tell her the news that they were up for an award.
This was exciting for Dufourd because she had never taken a podcast class before coming into OTR last fall.
"I'm really thankful I got that experience,” she said about learning podcasting through the newsroom.
Going into it, Dufourd thought that the podcast production would be overwhelming, but in OTR, the structure had everyone working on something to help out.
One week, she would be a streeter producer and another as a host, and she enjoyed the hosting experience the most.
A teachable moment that stuck with Dufourd throughout the process was working with Angela Glover, production technician, news and multimedia, production technology planning and innovation.
She wasn’t sure if there was a specific way to read her script since this was her first time reading for a podcast, but Glover helped her with that.
"She was very willing to do a bunch of different takes, which was amazing and made me more comfortable," Dufourd added.
Glover reflected on OTR’s fall 2024 cohort, remembering how enthusiastic they were about their work.
"I loved their creativity, their engagement, the fact that they were curious and went out and met the student population and said, 'What about this issue?' 'How does this affect you?'”
When asked why OTR and other student podcasts have drawn in listeners outside of the Toronto Metropolitan University community, Glover expressed that the students obviously enjoy their episode subjects.
"If someone's engaged with the story they're telling and why they're telling it, then the story is so much easier for them to bring together and more important for them to tell properly," she said. “The best ones are almost always the ones where the students are 110 per cent engaged in the story."
This would be OTR’s first win for the podcast. Misri said this has been something she and Glover have wanted to see for OTR since she started teaching the course three years ago.
Misri said, “This is a space we want to break into, and this will put us on the map.”
Participants can vote for OTR on the Signal Awards website (external link) until Oct. 9 to help the newsroom win either a bronze, silver or gold award.