Mass communication senior Nick Ashton and graduate student Murry Goldberg were two of six students recognized by the Journalism History Podcast Competition. Ashton received first place, and Goldberg received honorable mention in the nationwide podcast competition.
The competition, held by the Journalism History Podcast, was intended to emphasize the importance of media history and broaden the podcast’s reach to students. The Journalism History Podcast started in 2018 and features different parts of media history by interviewing professionals in the field.
Both Ashton and Goldberg created their podcast episodes for their final project in Mass Communication Professor Will Mari’s American media history class. Mari decided to enter his students into the competition when he saw the effort they put in to talk to people beyond LSU’s campus.
“It’s a really well-produced interviews with experts, and so the great thing about both Nick and Murry’s projects is they went ahead and talked to people who are definitely in the field,” Mari said. “In Nick’s case a drumming magazine and a drumming shop, in Murry’s case a lot of retired sportscasters.”
Ashton’s podcast is about the history and future of drum publications. While this was a project for class, he said he was still able to talk about something he has a passion for.
“The drum publication world was something I was really inspired by when I was up-and-coming. I loved getting inspiration from the catalogs and seeing all the cool equipment,” Ashton said. “So, I was like, ‘let’s find out the history, let’s talk to people in the business and see what they say.’”
Ashton is a member of the LSU Drumline and has his own YouTube channel where he shows people how to restore drums. Through the podcast, he was able to reach people in a different format.
“I really loved taking time to talk to people in my profession and I think every time you do you learn something really unique,” Ashton said. “I loved getting the chance to sit down and talk to these people and make it into a format that’s not just entertaining for us, but for everybody.”
Goldberg is a native of Tennessee and grew up listening to the popular sports talk radio shows in Memphis. In his podcast, he encompassed Memphis sports talk radio and spoke with several professionals from the field.
“I really wanted to highlight a past, present and future of Memphis sports talk radio,” Goldberg said. “I got to speak with four really amazing guys who are sports talk radio hosts, got some information about their experiences coming up through the ranks, how they got their jobs in radio [and] covered the history of the major players in the city.”
Goldberg highlighted the lack of racial diversity in Memphis sports radio in his podcast. He spoke with Devin Walker, who at age 26 was the first African-American to be hired at 92.9 FM, a Memphis ESPN sports station.
“I think a really important part — and it happened toward the middle-late end of the podcast — I talk about racial diversity and lack thereof within sports radio and sports entertainment sphere in Memphis,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg and Ashton’s podcasts will be aired on the Journalism History Podcast during the week of March 22.