Becoming a Famous Podcaster

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on a podcast for my Digital Public History course. I decided to talk about the British Royal Air Force's Strategic Bombing Campaign against Germany during the Second World War and the role of civilian victimization. This is a subject I could talk about for hours so it was a bit difficult to sum all of my ideas into one 15 minute podcast (spoiler alert, I went over by a couple minutes). I focused on how the Strategic Bombing Campaign was justified and presented in the media to soldiers and civilians at home in the UK, Canada, US and other allied countries. I also compared these aspects of the Strategic Bombing Campaign to the German bombing campaign over Britain commonly known as the Blitz. Listen to my podcast here:

This was my first time creating a podcast, so go easy on me if you decide to listen to a war history buff ramble on for 20 minutes about the Second World War. The most difficult part of the podcast process was the actual recording itself. I had not realized how hard it would be to sound organic and not like I was reading off a paper, but also somewhat professional. After compiling my research, I made an outline with the most important information, dates, statistics and quotes that I wanted to include in my podcast, but when it came down to speaking by myself into a very large microphone my brain forgot how to form coherent sentences. I would often find myself speaking and saying complete non-sense and had to re-record some parts upwards of 10 times. I think the podcast process would have been a lot easier for me if I recorded with another person and had it more of an informal discussion, but this podcast was a one man show.

The editing process was a little difficult as well since I don't have much experience using editing software and I had a lot of little mistakes to cut out from my speaking clips. I also included some instrumental 1940's music clips to break up the podcast and I feel like that was an effective approach as it gives people time to think between each segment of the podcast and a short break from listening to me ramble. To break up the podcast even more, I inserted two clips from a war broadcast one discussing the Strategic Bombing Campaign and one discussing the London Blitz. Both of these clips were from a British perspective so you can compare how they presented the two different events to the media. In the end with all the music, war broadcasting clips, and audio clips I feel pretty confident about my work... who knows maybe one day I will become a famous podcaster.

Down below I have included the sources that I used for my podcast... and after that is a picture of my cat helping me film my podcast. Thanks for reading and listening to my podcast!

Podcast Source List

Secondary Sources

1. Sanders, Paul, and Keith Grint. 2019. “The Interplay of the Dirty Hands of British Area Bombing and the Wicked Problem of Defeating Nazi Germany in the Second World War – A Lesson in Leadership Ethics.” Leadership (London, England) 15 (3): 271–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715017751532.

2. Downes, Alexander B. 2008. Targeting Civilians in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,. https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801458538.

3. John Ward. 2007. “War Museum Reaches Compromise with Vets; Rewrites Display on Allied Bombing Campaign in Response to Complaints from Veterans Groups: ONT Edition.” Toronto Star, 2007.

Primary Sources

1. The Globe and Mail. “Repeated Bombing is Necessary”, 1944.

2. The Hamilton Spectator. “GERMAN RAIDERS TOOK TOLL OF 43,667 CIVILIAN BRITONS: Each Railway Line to South Was Out After One Hugh Attack”, 1942.

3. The Hamilton Spectator. “HAMBURG AS A CITY CEASES TO EXIST, REFUGEES CLAIM”, 1943.

4. The Toronto Daily Star. “Germany Is Paying The Price”, 1943.