Call for Segment Producers

Calling all radio geeks for the first podcast to feature content for FTM folks. "WTFTM" is news, culture and commentary and will be produced in New York with content from folks around the US and planet Earth. Our first program will hit the streets on Monday, March 31 2008 and will be available (for free) via iTunes and on our website, wtftm.com. From then on, we plan to produce new podcasts bi-weekly with a possibility of moving to a weekly format if we have the content and demand. We take a lot of inspiration from NPR style programming, but without all the membership drives.

Our core team is looking for segment producers! All ages, genders and native languages and levels of experience welcome. For now there is no pay, but we do offer the glory that comes with being a minor celebrity on iTunes. You do not need experience in audio production, but you should be a superb writer with lots of interesting ideas--or maybe just one really good idea. A background in journalism (even at the college level) would be very helpful, and outstanding writing skills come in very handy.  All styles are encouraged, from hard news to feature to documentary to sound scape. (Maybe not sound scape.) Did we mention the emphasis on writing skills? We're probably most interested in programming 3-20 minutes in length, with shorter being better, if only because longer usually doesn't mean better.

If you're local to NYC there's a possibility you could produce your segment in our studio, but anyone with a computer would be able to do everything for about $10 if you're far far away.

If you're interested but you're not sure where to start, that's OK. We would love to help you develop your segment idea and can offer a lot of support.

Deadline:
There's no deadline, but in order to have the chance to program you into the first podcast,we'd love to hear about it before March 16, 2008.

Subject:
Segments do not need to be (and shouldn't be) about only "trans" stuff but should be of interest to FTM folks in some kind of way--ideally some kind of intersection with other cultural things is happening in your segment.

A Good Place to Start:
This American Life (http://www.thislife.org/About_FAQ.aspx#makeradio) has some great ideas about how to get started making "radio stories", and another great website is http://www.transom.org/ (completely unaffiliated, despite the ironic "trans" thing happening in their name)

Who We Are:
The WTFTM core team of producers and editors is: Tom Leger, Riley MacLeod, Ezra Christian, Ben Davis,  Kyle Lukoff, with editorial assistance from Seth Carlson and Patrick Kwan.



Please reply via email to core@wtftm.com with your pitch, which should consist of:

Who are you?
Tell us about yourself, where you're located, what your level of experience is, why you're interested in WTFTM, if you have the equipment you will need already or if you need to use ours (we can help!), what kind of radio/podcasts do you listen to, and how often?

Pitch your segment!
What's the subject, is it a one-time or a recurring segment (and how often), air date (if your segment is related to something with a specific date, like a protest march or a concert), how can we help you and/or what kind of help do you need to make this happen? Is your segment like another kind of show on the radio or a podcast (that's ok!) --which one (this is just to give us an idea of what you're thinking of)? How long do you anticipate your segment might be?

Include:
The best way to get in contact with you-- should we email? phone?