Professionals and Peers – Receiving Feedback

There’s something strange about watching someone listen to something you can’t hear. Even if you know what it is, you can’t place where they are and so all efforts to judge their reaction are futile, you are just stuck there, staring at them, able to gage nothing.

One of the sets of headphones at our table weren’t working so this was the situation I found myself in during our workshop. What I found incredibly odd, however, was that I wasn’t nervous about it. Unlike the anxieties I had to quell before showing my previous drafts to my peers, I sat there, watching Catherine listen to our draft feeling calm. Perhaps it was the fact that I was a part of my group, that this work wasn’t just mine, but I felt only a sense of curiosity as to what she thought would improve our work. I think the more likely option is that this wasn’t a peer assessment. It’s strange, I should probably be more nervous to receive criticism from someone within the industry than other students, but as I have pointed out before: there is an equalization effect I feel the need to achieve with my peers. An equalization that I, as of yet, do not feel towards those already working within the industry.

Though I had written down a description of what our podcast was about in preparation I found myself adlibbing and describing what our goal was without stuttering. I was far more expectant than I was scared, so I found that, as Catherine took the headphones off, I was looking for her feedback.

I found that most of her feedback fit closely with what I already expected were the steps to take our podcast towards completion. She commented on taking the layered voices that came in at the beginning and weaving that throughout the podcast, using the radio buzz to enunciate it. This was really re-affirming for me as it made me feel as though my narrative instinct was well directed. My sense of how our podcast would come together fit closely with hers and that was very heartening.

After pointing this out, however, she mentioned Colbert’s Foreign Correspondents Dinner speech back in 2006. I had articulated to her that our podcast would use the example of political satire to show a shift in attitudes towards journalism and how the media handles presidential elections. She mentioned that this speech was a good example as Colbert attacked the press during his speech as well, a bold choice for a dinner held for them. I had only watched Colbert on his own show and so was intrigued by how we might bring this event into our podcast. The general description of political satire felt a little disconnected, stylistically, from the beginning of the podcast which followed a narration of Warren G. Harding’s election. Her suggestion gave me the idea of possibly using narration of the event to discuss political satire, therefor keeping the narrative style more intact throughout the podcast.

As Catherine turned her attention to the other group on our table I was left with a hopeful feeling. Not only had my instincts as to the narratives structure been re-affirmed, but I also had a new direction for the second half that I previously felt incapable of redirecting. The discussion felt like remapping the terrain and I was left far more secure in the direction we had to travel to take our draft to a finalized product.