The McNicholas Milestone

The number of podcast listeners is increasing steadily as people are discovering new ways to receive their media, and the McNick Minute, McNicholas’ own podcast, caters to the growing demand for auditory news.

A podcast is a digital audio file, often times used as a news outlet, that can be downloaded for listening. Published every two weeks on Wednesdays, the McNick Minute is a club headed by counselor Matt Wehrman. The podcast was started two years ago in November 2017, primarily by alumni Patrick Bretland, Ian Rose, and Thomas Ton That.

“We are consistently trying to find new stories to cover. There’s always new news,” Wehrman said. “Last year we expanded to doing a short, little serial that was kind of in homage to Patrick Bretland just to kind of thank him for being a consistent voice over the years.”

Having a podcast at McNick allows for the highly demanded, modern way for students and as well as other McNicholas affiliates to stay updated and enjoy classic media. The McNick Minute functions as a creative outlet for students as well, as the brainstorming and execution of interviewing and question writing falls on the members of the Podcast Club.

Senior Elise Nyktas joined podcast after a friend took her to a meeting during her sophomore year. “I was nervous to go at first because I was horrified to talk to people I didn’t know. After one meeting, and some help with writing questions, I conducted my first interview with someone I knew, the varsity volleyball coach, and it was easy,” Nyktas said. “We have production meetings online and we all pitch ideas to each other, and I will get a sense of how they want the story to be told and what I should focus on, then I take a couple minutes to write questions out, make sure the flow of them makes sense, and I send them off to Mr. Wehrman for approval.”

Having the freedom to design the questions for the interview creates a unique angle for different podcast stories. “I brainstorm for a while, a while, and a while. I try my best to ask good questions that get straight to the point so I can keep my guest entertained,” junior Larry Kocisko said. “I think listeners really know how my guests feel. On written news you don’t hear the person speaking. Listening to a person and hearing a voice just sticks with you better than written news. I also love it because I listen to podcasts in the car, so it allows me to listen while I’m going where I need to be.”

“I think it’s a different type of medium where people don’t have to plop themselves down in front of a TV. They can listen to it on their phone as they’re running, or in the gym, or anything like that. A lot of people commute long distances to work every day so just having something to listen to as opposed to listening to the same top 40 every day,” Wehrman said.

The Podcast Club has expanded in size since it began, which allows for frequent deadlines to cover the newest news at McNicholas. The podcast room has also migrated from an unused classroom in the convent building to the main lobby.

“Editing is tedious at times, but to hear that final product at the end is just really really fun to be able to know that… by the time we’re done it sounds like it was really good work,” Wehrman said.

Counselor Matt Wehrman works with students to produce an episode of the McNick Minute. “We make sure we’re getting some depth with our conversations, then [students] set up the interview, and then it’s a matter of basically editing over the weekend, putting it all together. Then rinse and repeat,” Wehrman said.