Note from Sarah Geis: This manifesto is made up of excerpts of interviews I did with fellow members of the core production team: Yohance Lacour, Bill Healy, Erisa Apantaku and Dana Brozost-Kelleher. But the podcast could not have been made without the fearless reporting and advocacy of Alison Flowers and Jamie Kalven at the Invisible Institute, thoughtful guidance of Josh Bloch at USG, and 4 literal sound geniuses: Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura (music composition) and Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochoski (sound design and sage editorial advice).
Yohance Lacour: Initially the idea was a long-form written journalism piece, and it was not really gonna focus on my personal story. I got a fellowship to do it from the Invisible Institute, which was dope. But honestly, it was hard as fuck just to get started. Trying to find all of the players 25 years later — that alone was extremely difficult for me, coming home from prison, not understanding where to look for all the archival information. Then Jamie [Kalven, founder of the Invisible Institute] suggested I talk to the audio team about a podcast.
Sarah Geis: What did you think a podcast was?
Yohance: I didn’t understand the concept. I hadn’t heard of a podcast. And so when it was first brought to me, I’m just thinking like talk radio. I’m thinking about my father, for years, listening to NPR on the radio in the kitchen. I didn’t know what else was out there. And you, my whole team, was suggesting podcasts for me to listen to. And honestly I just never got into them. They felt slow. They felt boring. They felt like they were gonna put me to sleep. I’m not trying to diss all podcasts–