Every Midweek season hits the ground running with a new team of producer\/reporters, drawn from the senior years of the bachelor and master of journalism programs at Carleton University in Ottawa. A season lasts a school term of 12 weeks, with the first two being devoted to “teaching” and organization — and then Week 3 is our dry-run show, produced as if it were going live over FM radio but in reality just aired within our newsroom.<\/p>\n
These dry-runs are always A Good Learning Experience where we can make mistakes and then figure out how to unmake them in real time — but they often are also pretty darned good radio shows, as well!<\/p>\n
Here’s our practice show for this season, with stories following up on the election two days before, setting up the coming season for men’s soccer at Carleton, and looking at spikeball as an alternative to running for the Terry Fox cancer fundraising campaign.<\/p>\n
We also heard about how the new “vaccine passport” system is affecting local businesses, how the exodus of refugees from Afghanistan reminds one local man of his own perilous escape from Iran, and a local fundraising effort to finance resettlement of LGBTQ refugees from east Africa in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
To finish up, we attended a walkout by students objecting to the pandemic-related suspension of Carleton’s attendant support program for students with severe mobility disabilities in the university’s residences, looked ahead to the annual Panda Game football matchup of the two main local universities (Carleton and…another one), found out from one young man how the pandemic let him set his natural hair free, and attended a giveaway of free trees at a local fall festival.<\/p>\n
Hosts Natalie Harvey and Ben Skene held the show together without having any previous examples as models — and were great models for those who’ll follow as we now do nine weeks of for-real shows!<\/p>\n