A New Chapter for Content Creation

I’ve been thinking about a way to push a consistence content schedule for a while now. My mind usually goes to video content when I think of terms like “A new instalment every Friday”, I then think of the amount of work that goes into a video creation, calculating the balance between work and side hussle, ultimately coming to the conclusion that I would probably need like a month to produce any video content to the standard I hold myself too. Then, I get demotivated and do something else. However, it never really crossed my mind that I could produce other types of content with less of the commitment, and in a timely manner.

For the last few months, I have been thinking about starting a daily news podcast. I am already a qualified journalist who reads the news daily and knows how to structure a story. I have experience working for a radio station, have produced news bulletins and packages for state-wide broadcast and own all the equipment needed to record quality sound. In my mind it’s a logical move. Whether an audience is garnished from the endeavour is irrelevant because the primary objective would be to produce content with a strategy and develop my skills back up. Then a few more cogs clicked in my mind and I though about how I used to produce a weekly sports segment at Channel 44 Adelaide. I concluded on a convergence of ideas, experience and a desire to create. A weekly sports news podcast would go into motion.

A small hiccup showed its face a few months ago, there are currently no sports to cover. Turns out sports are not a priority when the world has gone into lockdown to stop the spread of a deadly pandemic. On the other end, no one knows when all this COVID-19 lockdown stuff will flicker down as it's awfully hard to predict what tomorrow will bring - thus when I could put this plan into action. So, all signs looked like it was back to the drawing board while I figured out a new ‘round’ to cover even though podcast was still on the table. The obvious option would be COVID-19 updates, but I am no expert on viral diseases nor think ethically I should be delivering half-assed researched medical news to the world... so that was out. Then something changed.

South Australia reported no new cases of COVID19 for 10 days straight. There were only 4 active cases in the state and all signs looked like normality was a glimmering beacon at the end of a unknown pandemic tunnel. 15 days passed and only one new case was reported in the state. The SANFL was getting ready to kick the pigskin again and AFL posted a start date to resume a heavily altered 2020 season. UFC kicked off a fight in an empty stadium in the US and golfers started hitting the green (as well as the Adelaide Crows players) in big groups. It was starting to look like the sports section of the Adelaide actually had sports news to cover again and that meant the original plan for a sports podcast was back on the table. And thats where were at now.

I don’t know if this will work the way I expect it too but if I get just one regular listener, I’ll be over the moon. Be excited though, A new SA Sports News podcast is coming to your Podcasting app very soon. It has been a while since I went behind the microphone and reported on the news publicly so it’s going to be interesting. I can promise it will not be anywhere near perfect; I will make mistakes and probably get a lot of things wrong. But that is okay. When I was at university studying Journalism, I covered so much and created so much content unafraid of making mistakes. As I got better, the perfectionist came out and when I graduated, I become hesitant to putting an imperfect representation of my work out there. So I lay dormant for three years. But soon I’ll have something in the world again… and I can’t wait.