Community Spotlight on Emma Lehman's Los Audio & more
This is the Monthly Community Edition of West Coast Media Jobs, designed to give more community and networking to WCMJ subscribers. Let’s learn about each other! It’ll be sent on the 25th of each month (but was delayed this month due to the holiday weekend).
For NBCU Academy, I’m working on two articles:
An article about the student projects programs at the affinity groups (AAJA, NAHJ, NABJ, ONA, etc). Are you an alum of any of those programs who’d like to chat about how it influenced your career? Please reply to this email.
An article on how to attend the summer journalism conventions on a budget. Have any tips and tricks you’ve utilized in the past? Or do you run a program that is helping folks get to the conventions/making the conventions more affordable? I want to hear from you! Reply to this email.
Thanks all!
From the Columbia Journalism Review: Content warning, the following piece includes descriptions of sexual assault, but this is an important story. Journalists Attest to Experiences of Sexual Misconduct with Wesley Lowery
From NPR: NPR and Colorado public radio stations sue Trump White House
From Inc24: Why US Contractors Are Suing The Startup, Pocket FM
From Wired: Freedom of the Press Foundation Threatens Legal Action if Paramount Settles With Trump Over 60 Minutes Interview
From The Daily Beast: Disney CEO Told Hosts of ‘The View’ to Tone Down Trump-Bashing
And from me, a new piece at NBCU Academy: Welcome to the Expansive Universe of Asian American and Pacific Islander Media
Emma Lehman’s Los Audio
Last year, Emma Lehman’s Los Audio newsletter caught my eye because it filled a specific void in the city: establishing community not just in the journalism space, but the audio journalism space. A much-needed resource as a fellow audio nerd!
Currently, Emma works on the Stocking the Pantry podcast with Leah’s Pantry, a California nonprofit that works in trauma-informed nutrition security, ensuring that all people are nourished, regardless of socioeconomic status. Congress is angling to eliminate SNAP-Ed, its funder, which would mean eliminating its funding. Please check out her post on how to help protect SNAP-Ed.
Time to hear from Emma herself…
What inspired the creation of Los Audio?
I created Los Audio both on a whim and after a lot of thought. As I got into the audio, journalism, and audio journalism spaces, I would get the same question over and over:
Oh, you're in journalism? When are you moving back to the east coast?
Oh, you're in podcasting? When are you moving back to the east coast?
My answer was, and has always been "never, if I can help it." Plus, I knew there was an audio community and a journalism community in LA – it just took a lot of legwork to find it. It seemed like every in person event I found was in NYC or DC, and even webinars were at 8 AM Eastern, making them pretty inhospitable to a Los Angeles audio journalist at 5 in the morning. After a few years of combing the internet for groups and events in my area, I decided there needed to be one place that corralled them all together.
I started Los Audio in January of 2024, fully expecting someone to message me, "hey, this already exists. Here's a link." But I was right: it simply didn't exist! Soon, what began as a solution to my own frustration caught on, and people were submitting their own events and using Los Audio as a space to find an IRL audio journalism community in LA.
What is your process when it comes to building the newsletter? How do you decide what makes it into each edition?
I start each biweekly edition by doing exactly what I was doing that got me so frustrated: culling through about 7 different websites, from news outlets to venues, to find LA-area audio events. There are a few mainstays – LAist events, Dublab, and KCRW, to name a few; there are a few venues that often host podcast tapings. I check all of those first, and choose related events to feature. I'm also always on the lookout on Instagram, LinkedIn, and list servs like LADIO for LA-area events that I bookmark to include. Once I've gone through the usual suspects, I branch out with specific searches and venue calendars. It's a lot of aggregation, but it's awesome to be able to do that myself so that my readership doesn't have to do it every week! I've also been able to make a lot of connections with organizers and venues, so I do get events sent to me more frequently, which cuts down on the hunting-around stage.
As for what makes it in, every in-person event I include is "in Los Angeles." Now, if you live here, you know that whether that means the city or the county is contentious, and what even comprises both or either is equally contentious. Sometimes, there's a really cool thing happening in Orange County, and I'll throw that in there – after all, we're used to hourlong drives around here.
Everything I include is tangentially audio-related, whether that means a live taping of a podcast, an audio industry meetup, or a workshop to build your own synthesizer. The most frequently featured events are directly related to audio journalism, podcasts, and/or radio, and are in greater LA, but I'm always willing to stretch those definitions for something that's especially interesting or events that readers host or submit.
You've started doing exclusive interviews with creators in the podcast space. What do you hope readers take away from this feature?
I made Los Audio because I knew that these people and organizations did exist in LA, though they were hard to find in a centralized location – what I didn't realize was that a lot of people didn't even know they existed. I started doing exclusives because I wanted a dedicated space to focus on the stories of LA audio journalists, podcasters, and radio folks beyond just listing events. By virtue of being the only resource of its kind, Los Audio also started attracting media requests. It started to feel silly to don a press pass and go to advance listening sessions for podcasts, station tours, and talks with audio creators, and then have nowhere to write about it! My first Exclusive was an interview with the team behind LAist's The Other Moonshot podcast, which I conducted at a press event when the show dropped. Sure, I'd mentioned that the show was dropping in the newsletter, but here was an opportunity for working podcasters to learn about the behind-the-scenes process in a way they wouldn't otherwise be able to. It aligns perfectly with my goal of resource-sharing and building the community around this field right in my own backyard – Los Audio exclusives is an effort to spotlight individual members and organizations within LA's audio community, and the fact that I've been able to have more access to press events because of the newsletter is the cherry on top.
What are some of your favorite audio-focused events here in LA and why?
I really love LA Radio Club and its events – they incorporate a great mix of practical skills and professional networking with good old fashioned casual hangouts. Whether it's a lowkey happy hour where we can commiserate about the uncertainty of working in this field or a workshop to get actionable feedback on a pitch, I come away with new professional skills and connections as well as new friends. It's awesome to learn from other people in my inudstry, and it's even more awesome to make friends. Someone I met at an LA Radio Club event now comes to my parents' house for Thanksgiving – we first bonded over audio interface specs, and now we're really close friends.
I also really like Dublab's programming – of course, their radio station is awesome (and I love their hoodies), but there's also some great events: a DJ residency, a unique art exhibit, or a talk with an artist or creator. I learned about Dublab back when they hosted On Air Fest at their very cool space in West Adams, and ever since then they've been one of my first stops when I'm building an issue.
One more location, if not event, that I have to mention is the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in Highland Park. They host events and classes, but you can also just reserve a tour. It is exactly what it sounds like: a tiny little museum full to the gills with old synthesizers. You can play them, learn about their history, and talk to people who have more information about synthesizers in their brains than I have about anything at all. Plus, it's located near a bunch of great restaurants. I highly recommend spending a day up there: get your hands on some very cool synths, learn how they work, and then walk up to the Hermosillo for a beer and the best fried pickles in the city, or to Joy for a pork belly scallion bread sandwich. And while you're in Northeast LA, check out the Elysian, the Lyric Hyperion, and sometimes Lodge Room for live podcast tapings!
Make sure to subscribe to Los Audio.
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Signal boosting some other opportunities of note…
