Showing Some Appreciation: Inside the Control Room with Director Jay Cowit

The Takeaway

WNYC and PRX

Politics, Wnyc, Daily News, Radio, Takeaway, National, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We went behind-the-scenes with our control room team: Jay Cowit, Vince Fairchild and Jackie Martin to find out how The Takeaway gets made every day. Then, we got a 1-on-1 conversation between show host Melissa Harris-Perry and Director Jay Cowit who's been working on the Sound design of The Takeaway for nearly 15 years now. "Jay has been with The Takeaway since its on-air inception in 2008, and has been the Show Director, Technical Director, and sound designer since 2009...He is responsible for the show's aural style, including, but not limited to, selecting the music used on the show, mixing interviews, producing the daily podcast version of the show, and creating sonic design used to convey news concepts." For more than a decade, Jay has carried the sonic vision of the show to its highest quality possible and for that, we thank him for all his leadership and work.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris Perry.
0:14.0	We're exactly two weeks from the final episode of The Takeaway, which will air on Friday, June 2nd.
0:20.7	After 15 years, the takeaway is saying farewell.
0:25.6	But before we go, we thought it would be fun to share with all of you
0:29.8	just exactly what it is that we do around here.
0:34.6	Because you gotta understand, radio is magic. You're a wizard. I'm a lot. A wizard.
0:44.1	And a thumping good a night wager. Okay, I know that sounds hyperbolic, but seriously, Sonic storytelling is a layered, complicated, and wildly interesting process.
1:01.5	Whoa.
1:01.8	But when you're listening to the work of truly gifted sonic artists, it can be hard to discern the work.
1:10.2	Because, well, it just all sounds effortless, natural, seamless.
1:16.0	That is the magic.
1:18.2	Total.
1:20.0	I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
1:23.0	Folks with genuinely kind of otherworldly capacities,
1:27.4	to slow time, to shift sound waves, to tell whole
1:32.4	stories with just a handful of notes, and to make every single voice sound beautiful. Hi. Hey,
1:41.2	hello. Hi. Hey. Hey.
1:45.0	Now, of course, if you want to see a wizard at work, you have to peek behind the curtain.
1:50.0	All right, let's take a look and see what's back here.
1:54.0	Sure enough, it's the Wizards of Audio.
2:00.0	The A-T. Sure enough. It's the Wizards of Audio.
2:10.6	The A-Team, a crew of oral assassins, three radio soldiers of fortune.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC and PRX, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC and PRX and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.