If you’ve been paying any attention to the news, then you have probably heard at least a little bit about Flint, Michigan. It is one of the places in Michigan that is having a water crisis (due to the water being contaminated). The seventh Democratic Debate was held in Flint in earlier this month. Soon, there will be a Flint Podcasting Network that will give the people of Flint, Michigan, a platform for their voice.
Stacie Scherman is about to finish her graduate degree in English at UM-Flint. She will be starting a podcasting venture in the summer of 2016 called Flint Podcasting Company. (That is the “working name”). It will feature podcasts based on Flint, by those in Flint, or by those who were originally from Flint.
Stacie Scherman won first place in the Flint edition of the GreenLight business Model Completion. This earned her $5,000 in seed money. She will use that money to help buy equipment and to prepare her recording studio (which will be located on Fenton Road in Flint, Michigan). Her family already owned the studio, but was not using the space.
She also took home second place in UM-Flint’s Business Plan Competition, which was sponsored by the School of Management and the Hagerman Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. That win also earned her $5,000 that will be used on the Flint Podcasting Company.
The studio will be where Flint-centric podcasts will be produced. It will also be possible to rent out space in the studio, to use editing software, and to learn about the industry via workshops. There is a plan for a website which will be the central hub of all Flint-focused podcasts. Stacie Scherman also plans on recording podcasts live at various community sites.
I think this is a fantastic idea. Podcasting offers a way for the people of Flint, Michigan, to share their stories in ways that cannot be done by newspaper article or blog post alone. I think the podcasts that come from this project will have an authenticity that might not be present if the podcasting company was owned by a major newspaper or by the local government.