For years, Theo Balcomb ‘09 (right) and Jess Miller ‘09 seemed to trail each other at jobs in the media industry. They both worked at NPR and WNYC, and eventually found themselves on a panel together at Barnard.
“That’s when we started to realize we were walking these same paths,” Balcomb said.
Balcomb, who created The New York Times’ beloved podcast The Daily, might be one of the most well-known audio journalists in the country – Miller even refers to her as “the Queen of Audio.” Miller is a seasoned audio journalist in her own right, and went to the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies after graduating from Barnard. She’s now the host of the Essential Salt podcast, a collaboration between the Salt Institute and Maine Public Radio.
When the pandemic hit in 2020 while Balcomb was pregnant, she went back home to Maine where she grew up. Unbeknownst to Balcomb, Miller had also moved to Maine and they ran into each other at a Portland coffee shop.
Both women share a love of audio storytelling, and a desire to share stories about what Maine is really like and are now both working on Essential Salt, hoping to uplift students’ audio-rich, character driven pieces that all take place in the state.
“It is not a glossy, varnished view of our state, which is so much of how media portrays us, which is what wealthy people experience when they come vacation here for the summer,” Balcomb said. “And that’s not what it’s like to live here.”
Balcomb and Miller shared some of their favorite stories from Season Two.
Episode Three:
"Vanity of Maine Takes a Stand," and "You Can’t Get There From Here"
In "Vanity of Maine Takes a Stand," listeners join a “vanity cruise,” where personalized license plate (known as vanity plates) aficionados drive around Maine looking for the zaniest vanity plates and finding the stories behind them. “This story is about a person who gets a vanity plate at a moment in time when the state’s rules on them are very lax,” said Balcomb. “And then the state comes for them.”
In the same episode, another story called "You Can’t Get There from Here," explores the challenges of public transportation in Maine by trying to get from the base of Maine to the tip of Maine only using public transportation. “It’s such a smart story about systems. It’s really hard to create a story about systemic issues that’s filled with heart and fun and suspense,” Balcomb said.
Episode Six:
"The Captain"
This episode is especially meaningful to Miller because it was reported by one of her former Salt classmates, Sofia Saldanha, who passed away in 2022. In the episode, Saldanha goes to an inn that is notoriously haunted and tries to interview the ghost in a story that, Miller said, is about “how you exist in the world with these presences.”
Episodes are now available to stream on Maine Public Radio’s website.
