Back-to-school: podcasting edition, with Benjamin Lorch of The Berlin School of Podcasting
Eurowaves #21 Interview
Benjamin Lorch is the Director of The Berlin School of Podcasting. His audio work with NGOs, universities and independent makers focuses largely on international education and civil society efforts.
You can connect with Benjamin on LinkedIn here.
What's your story origin in podcasting?
The funny thing is that 70s disco got me into podcasting. Let me explain: When I was a kid my parents set up a little desk for me in the kitchen and I would “work” there, drawing pictures, sending away for free things from magazines and cereal box promotions. The radio was always on. Top 40 radio in those days was a lot of disco and I listened rather than danced! And what did I listen to? The lyrics! So my first exposure to audio storytelling was through stories of looks, lust, and lasciviousness on an imagined illuminated dancefloor.
That was all in Providence, Rhode Island, but when I later moved to Chicago to attend university, I was there when This American Life hit the airwaves and I was hooked! Many friends produced or hosted This American Life segments and I thought to myself, “these are my peeps!” I never did much in audio at that time except record blues shows and occasionally spin records on WHPK, The Pride of the South Side! Eventually, however, I got into telling my own stories and producing work for others.
What's The Berlin School of Podcasting's origin story?
When I moved to Berlin I did a lot of work in the international education space and I guess I am still at it. Beginning nearly two decades ago, I got hired to start up several schools and programs: finding campus spaces, hiring the first staff and teachers, taking care of the students – kinda doing everything. Often I compared myself to the first “explorer,” the one to set foot on the shore and set up a tent for the first students to arrive. Then later the lawyers and those with PhDs would arrive and dredge the harbor and build houses of stone. Pardon the colonial settlement metaphor, but that is often the model upon which international programs work, unfortunately!
When I was done with several of those projects, I was asked a question that changed my life: “Hey, Ben, you set up all these schools but they were based on the ideas and dreams of other people. If you could set up your own school, what kind of school would it be?” Without hesitation and out of seemingly nowhere, these words popped out of my mouth: “A school of podcasting because I love conversation, connecting with people, and talking about ideas.”
The next day I began designing the curriculum based on a humanistic, convivial approach to audio storytelling.
Your mission is that stories can change the world. Can you share one story from a past program that has made a tangible impact?
First, I want to say that I am far more into depth of impact than breadth of reach when it comes to podcasting. This means I work toward touching select listeners in a significant way rather than working toward reaching lots of ears. A good example of that would be The Commit Podcast, which is dedicated to amplifying the voices of civil societies. We began in Ukraine and talked with people working there and in exile to maintain civil society as they navigate the brutal and exhausting complexities of war. It was not easy to produce. The voices and emotions and traumas I still feel by being told those stories, but I was honored to work with and produce with the amazing team at a project called Vidnova, supported by the Bosch Foundation.
The result, the tangible impact, was that the people working to hold Ukraine together as a society felt heard, they felt recognized, they felt that their exhaustion, their feelings of guilt or inadequacy, of not doing enough behind the battlelines, were recognized. Essentially, the podcast, in a small way, restored a feeling of dignity, recognition, and love among an important group of people in a time of relentless violence, death, and hate.
How does your equity-based tuition model directly support your mission of empowering new and necessary voices?
Our world is full of inequities. In rich countries like Germany, where I live, we take so much for granted while so many in this world struggle to have access to the basics. The prices for courses for some are completely out of reach and so I want to try and rebalance the scales. I know it is not enough and the model is basic, but I hope that it attracts storytellers from around the world because their perspectives are needed and their voices are important to hear.
My online students come from all over the world and this diversity of experiences and stories makes the courses rather remarkable – you learn how local histories impact us all individually and deeply affect the experiences that make us who we are. We feel brotherhood and sisterhood in our learning groups and that is only because we learn the stories of others. Not told by a robot AI, but told by a beautiful, living, breathing human being with a world within them to share.
More than skills, what is the most important mindset you hope every student takes away from your school?
There are three things I hope students take with them.
First is the power of listening. Dr. Paul Browde changed my life when he introduced to me an image, a metaphor. That image is of the listening vessel. The idea is that our listening style, your way of being when listening, “shapes the telling.” When you work on and focus on your listening, people talk with you in entirely new, deeper ways. This lesson from Paul is a gift and something that I try to share with everyone I meet.
Secondly, the art of voice and story. The power of our voice and just how vulnerable we are in the face of a story. Chimamanda Adichie taught me just how powerful stories can be – those told and those untold and dangerously assumed. Those stories we speak out and those we hold inside of ourselves, unarticulated in silence.
Our voices are our signatures, our stories are our understanding of the world. Both must be respected and used responsibly because today we see so many people speaking without any regard to the impact of their words, and many also remaining silent. This is why I have recently become interested in the work of Marshall Rosenberg on non-violent communication. His methods teach us the power of empathy and respect. As far as I can see, this is the only way we will collectively emerge from these very dark times of human and environmental degradation. Only new stories will save us! Only new stories can change the world!
Lastly, I want people to have a Punk Rock mindset to their work and make punk rock podcasts. This has nothing to do with loud music and everything to do with attitude and your place in this corporatized world which demands we market ourselves toward the masses and the robots. This means not being too precious about your podcast. This means being yourself.
Say what you want to say to connect with people in a raw and honest way. Be a little broken and loud about it rather than baroque. Show your emotions and vulnerability. Let people know who you are rather than constructing a persona and point of view to pass purity tests. In short, BE A HUMAN BEING.
When you are starting out in podcasting, it is very important to make a lot of pieces quickly, even if they sorta suck. That is OK! That is an important mindset and one I myself struggle to always achieve, honestly. Punk Rock Podcasting helps with that.
How can podcasters and audio lovers get involved with your work and The Berlin School of Podcasting?
Join a course! Either online or in person.
Or, run a workshop. I am in the process of setting up smaller workshops and I am looking for talented people to contribute.
But the most important thing you can do is reach out to talk, really about anything! Connection and conversation is what it is all about. And sometimes we turn the microphones on when things get good!