Jennifer Moroz: Journalism, Podcasting and Furball Confidential

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
She is the host of fur ball confidential, a new podcast that tells the story of relationships, the one between pets and their owners. Jen morose sits down with actors, musicians, authors, comedians and influencers, and throws away all those questions you've heard them answer before, and instead learns about them by talking to them about their pets long before furball confidential. Jen's story involved working on the CBC at shows like The hour with George strombolipolis, the current with Anna Maria Tremonti and rebuilding Q in the time after Gian Ghomeshi is disgraced, departure. Now, while you're getting settled into the episode, don't forget to give fur ball confidential a follow and know that you can see the trailer in the show notes and on the episode page at soundoff podcast.com and now Jen morose joins me from Toronto, what drove you to journalism?

Jennifer Moroz  1:08  
Oh, that's a really good question. This is actually a pretty good origin story. I had no idea what I wanted to do after university, I graduated with a very marketable degree in anthropology, double minor in biology and botany. And for lack of not knowing what to do, I was going to go to business school. And I actually decided that I was going to defer for a year go traveling. And in those travels, I was in Australia and spent a chunk of time in Alice Springs, which is right in the center of the country. Very itinerant population, and I was working in the casino, and every day I would walk through the dried up todd river. And there were a lot of members of the indigenous community who were living in the dried out riverbed. And I had studied Australian Aboriginal culture and life in university, and it got to know these people every day as I was walking to work. And actually had my little travel journal, and so I started really kind of reporting there, and then kind of went people get paid to talk to people and figure out stuff about their lives. So that really was the origin story. I came back from traveling, and I applied for journalism

Matt Cundill  2:22  
school. Where did you graduate from journalism school? And then where was the first gig? So

Jennifer Moroz  2:27  
journalism school was at Northwestern in their masters of journalism program, and with that program, I'm not sure if it's the case. Now, a lot of things have changed in the States over the years and over the last year, but you could get a visa, basically a one year visa off when you finished your master's. And so I worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was a great program. It was for young cub reporters. It was their way of cheaply staffing the suburbs, you know, like I was in the jersey Bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and that was a two year program, and so they ended up sponsoring me for my visa, and that led to basically 10 years of newspaper reporting in

Matt Cundill  3:09  
the States. So Northwestern I can think of two famous alumni, Julia Louis Dreyfus is one. Michael Wilbon from Pardon the Interruption on ESPN, he's another. Oh,

Jennifer Moroz  3:22  
okay, yeah, there's a few. And there's a few in, like, in the drama department, like, probably Julia, was she drama? Yep, yeah. So there was, I think it has a pretty good pedigree in terms of theater as well.

Matt Cundill  3:35  
Philadelphia is interesting. I have questions.

Jennifer Moroz  3:40  
Listen, ask away. I loved my time in Philadelphia, aside from, you know, all of the friends that I made there, both at at the Philadelphia Inquirer, but also within the sort of journalism and storytelling world. At the time, I knew a lot of magazine writers, etc, but it was just such a fun city and affordable and kind of caught in the, you know, the shadows of New York and DC. So fewer people went to Philly, but so, so great, great food. I don't know if this is the case anymore, but they it used to be. It was very early on that they had bring your own wine to restaurants so you could actually go out for a really nice meal without it breaking the bank. Anyways, for you know, a young upstart in her early 20s, it was a great place to be, and a great, my God, like in terms of a journalism training ground, I was there. I don't want to age myself too much, but I was there at a time when most US major cities had two major dailies, you know, often a tabloid and a broadsheet. But, you know, in Philadelphia, it was The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. But there was, like that competitive atmosphere. It was a great place to learn. And I also was at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Some of your listeners might know this, but Philadelphia Inquirer was for a time. Like a real Pulitzer Prize winning machine, like their investigative reporting unit, was really something to behold. And I came in as a, you know, a cub reporter, and some of these Pulitzer Prize winning reporters were still there and kind of ending their careers, and I got to learn from them. I mean, it was truly an experience.

Matt Cundill  5:21  
Philadelphia sports radio's loud. I listened to WIP one day, and the afternoon guy came on to dump all over the morning guy, and then the morning guy would come on to dump all over the afternoon guy, and then the two of them would team up in the midday to go and dump on the other sports station in town, the Philadelphia Eagles have a jail in the basement of their stadium.

Jennifer Moroz  5:43  
Oh, see, you know the sports lore far, far more than I do. You

Matt Cundill  5:47  
mean you didn't go to a Philadelphia Eagles football game.

Jennifer Moroz  5:52  
I never went to a Philadelphia Eagles football game. My lack of sports knowledge is really going to show here, but I was sent out. You know, can be sent out as a general assignment reporter to the Super Bowl. And I can't remember what year it was that the eagles were in it. Anyway,

Matt Cundill  6:07  
well, 1980 No, after that, Oh, I'm sorry, 2005 Eagles played the Patriots in 2005 Yes,

Jennifer Moroz  6:16  
there you go. So that's, that was my, you know, I was in the bars, and I was in the reporting on it, but it wasn't actually at the game.

Matt Cundill  6:23  
That was the one where the clock was just continuously running. And you know, there's something about Philadelphia. They just had it in for Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid. And it just keeps it entertaining. And when you're done talking about sports, the next thing that comes up is cheese steaks. And I love both philosophies and pats, so I'm okay, no, ginos, I haven't been to Geno's. Come on. I know I've been to Philadelphia one time, and it was for a podcast conference.

Jennifer Moroz  6:53  
Okay, all right, so you've done well, I love it. Yeah, it is a really big sports town, so in that way, I was a little bit of like a fish out of water, but I've lived in, like, I lived in Savannah Georgia for a year or two, and there it's all about the football, right? Like college football and like social is, like, all revolves around these games. And so for that year that I was in Savannah Georgia, I learned the rules of football, like, I got into it, but it's just not my first love.

Matt Cundill  7:23  
And Terry Gross from fresh air based out of Philly, yes, yeah. I didn't even know Terry Gross was a thing until recently. And by recently, I mean, within the last 15 years,

Jennifer Moroz  7:35  
oh yeah, she's like, sort of a Philly

Matt Cundill  7:38  
icon. You know, how'd you get to Rwanda? Oh, wow, you did a deep dive.

Jennifer Moroz  7:44  
I went to Rwanda. I was deeply interested in, I've always been deeply interested in teaching and the notion of international media development work. And was actually at the tail end of my time at the Philadelphia Inquirer. So I think it was 2007 I had applied to go. There was a program run by Carleton University. Alan Thompson in particular, he ran the Rwanda initiative, and he was one of the reporters for the Toronto Star, one of the first reporters to be in Rwanda, post genocide. And so he had built this program with the idea that we bring teachers and journalists from Canada to go over and support both teaching in the university classrooms, but also mentor in all of these journalistic institutions that had been completely demolished during the genocide. I'm referring to the 1994 genocide between the Hutus and the Tutsis. And so it had left, you know, the country in ruins. And this was many, many years later, but still, the effects were there. And so for three years, I actually did this program. I would go for two months at a time and live in Butare, which is sort of the arts capital of Rwanda, Kigali is the capital and the university. Main University campus was in butari And so, yeah, it was a great experience. Met some wonderful people that I'm still in touch with. The program, sadly, is not around anymore. Alan Thompson, though, is the head of the Carleton journalism school. Now, how did you get into the CBC? That's a really good question. So the true story is, I was in the States. I'd been at the Philadelphia Inquirer. I'd been there for the two year stint that I told you about at the beginning. Left, went down to Savannah for a year, and then the inquirer had hired me back, and I'd been working there for another five years. But it was during a time when the paper just went through so many sales. You know, it was in that time when the news newspapers were starting to collapse. I think we went through the in that time three owners, and there were successive rounds of layoffs. I was protected because, as I was working in one of the. Of what they deemed critical beats. I was covering the New Jersey State House, but I was watching my friends get laid off, and I was just thinking it might be time to make a move, and maybe make a move into something different. One of the things that's been a hallmark of my career is looking back. I don't generally stay in the same place or the same role for more than three years. And so I was looking to come back to Canada, and I was sending all these like notes, you know, to people within the CBC and the Globe and Mail, and it was like crickets. It was almost like you're in a different country. They would say, you know, well, if you're going to be up here, like, let us know, but essentially, like, it was either no response or let us know when you're when you make the move. And then a good friend of mine, Carolyn Taylor, who is from Baroness von sketch show, she used to work at a show called The hour with George strombolipolis. They were looking for an AP, so she was working as a comedy writer on the show. She mentioned me to the then executive producer, and that's how I ended up coming back to Canada. I was a producer for a lot of the, let's say more topical interviews or political like I did the interview with Hillary Clinton. So I would do a bunch of those, but I also got the chance to do, you know, produce interviews with like Tim Robbins and Spike Lee. And it was a really fun that team at the hour. If you look at where they have all landed now, it's pretty cool. Like that was such a talented team, and that was Jennifer Dettman, who's, she's very high up at the CBC now, and she was the one who hired that team, and they were Cracker Jack.

Matt Cundill  11:44  
Yeah, I loved watching that show. And you brought back. I mean, the first thing I thought of when you mentioned political figure and the hour was the interview with Hillary Clinton. There was a few of them, but the question I really want to ask is, how do you prep any of those people for an interview with George strombolopoulos,

Jennifer Moroz  12:02  
oh, that's an interesting question. Well, the way we did it, we had what we called framing sessions. So we would as producers, we would put together, you know, the green, which is basically, you know, background information, suggested questions where we should take this interview. Those interviews were a lot of, often well known people who had been interviewed a lot of times before. So it was always trying to find out, okay, once something new we can inject into this, and then, and I say this in a playful way, then it was cornering George to do a framing session, which is basically sitting down and figuring out what are the top six questions that we're going to put on the cue card for him as he goes out into the red chair. Oh, God, this, all of this language is taking me back.

Matt Cundill  12:49  
I think it's great. I mean, one of the one of the blind spots I have on this show is I still haven't had George on the show, and it's probably because I know so much about him and we're both Montreal Canadiens fans. We'll talk forever about much music. We will talk about, you know, rock. We'll talk we could just, it would just go on so long that I would have to dedicate two and a half to three hours to get the whole show done properly. So it's one of those things I'll wait for the right time. And of course, I'm nearly, I'm 10 years into this show now, and I still haven't had them on, so shame on me. Well, listen,

Jennifer Moroz  13:19  
it'll happen. I feel like you might have just conjured it up in this moment.

Matt Cundill  13:24  
What about somebody like Christopher Hitchens? Like, how do you explain? I feel like I've dealt with some of these people, and everybody gets their own sort of level of prep, but somebody like Christopher, if he just walked in and you didn't prep and go, who's interviewing me and why am I here? Right?

Jennifer Moroz  13:40  
Well. And he also was often inebriated when he was on, he was there was, you know, it was at a time when there was a green room with stuff in it. So, and I think he probably came with his own, but I just, I remember with him, like sometimes you have to prep for, yes, the conversation, but also, what are you going to talk about? But how is this guest? And, you know, what are some things that you need to look out for as a host, etc. He was one of those people, though, that you could really just have any conversation with, and it would always be interesting. I mean, this was a guy who smoked cigarettes in the shower, you know,

Matt Cundill  14:21  
oh, I remember he went on and on about Osama bin Laden and how to handle him, and we should stop chasing him, because he's dead. And then the irony was, he died before Osama bin Laden

Jennifer Moroz  14:32  
did. Yeah, you're right. I hadn't even thought of that.

Matt Cundill  14:36  
Of course, you don't stay in one place for too long, because the next thing you did, I believe you went to the current and got to work with great people like Anna, Maria Tremonti. And now, you know, the hours changed, the topics change a little bit, and you're getting up earlier in the morning,

Jennifer Moroz  14:51  
I believe, Oh yeah, when I was exec producing the show, so I started off as a producer, and sort of worked my way up to senior producer, and then. I ran the show for several years when I was running the show, you know, part of it was being in the office when the show went to air. Which people listening to this podcast might not think of this, but when you're going live to the east coast and you're in Toronto, it's supposed to start at 730 you know, it's a different you're basically an hour behind. So you've got to, you've got to start earlier than the time on the clock says, basically,

Matt Cundill  15:27  
because you've got to hit Newfoundland and Nova Scotia together.

Jennifer Moroz  15:31  
That's right, you've got to hit Newfoundland, you got to hit Nova Scotia. And it was always a bit of a joke. And this isn't just the current but like live radio at the CBC, because you do move through those time zones, it's the East Coast that gets all the goofs, like all of the things that are said on air that, Oh, my God, we got to take that out. Or,

Matt Cundill  15:51  
thank God, they've got the sense of humor for that. Yeah, but I

Jennifer Moroz  15:55  
was getting up very early, and really, you know, running a show. That was some of the first show that I ran, and it was a big one, and it was helpful to me to have spent a little bit of time as a producer and senior producer and getting to know the show before leading it, because, you know, it's funny, we get into these jobs like you get into journalism and storytelling because you like talking to people, but it's not necessarily because you're a good you're a good leader, right? And so I learned a lot running that show about what good leadership looks like or doesn't look like. And it really, I think it really helped me for the next job, which was Q,

Matt Cundill  16:35  
I'm thinking of the CBC. I wouldn't want to start anywhere in the middle or towards the top of any show, because there's so much to learn with the interactions of people. For instance, I worked in commercial radio. We didn't have half the things that you're talking about. You know, listen, most commercial radio morning shows in Canada should probably have a staff of three or four producers. That's not the way it works. In this country, we've handed out too many licenses. We just don't have enough money to sustain all this anyhow. That's a separate thing that I've barked about many times about commercial radio, but you've got a lot of people, and you need to understand how and what each one of those little branches does. I would have to sit there for a year before I could even figure out how to manage anything that's life at the CBC. I mean, there's no other way other than to learn and watch and accumulate knowledge.

Jennifer Moroz  17:26  
And then also, now, I think not just the CBC. I think lots of places are starting leadership development stuff a little bit earlier, like offering that sort of professional development. And I think moving forward, they're really going to have to, because the job market has shifted right, and the people who are coming up into journalism are not necessarily going to do what we were asked to do, which is pay your dues, like work around the clock, take that overnight shift. You know, all of those things, like, they want work life balance. They want some professional development, and so I think you're starting to see the workplace start to shift in response to that.

Matt Cundill  18:09  
So 2016 rolls around and it all hell breaks loose at the CBC, for those who need a reminder, the host of Q got himself into a lot of trouble. Full details are in the show notes of this podcast if you need a refresher. But Q was such a popular show, and really it just offered so much, and you're brought in to lead the charge to rebrand the show. Why Tom power? I love Tom power, but why Tom power? Because the host was going to be key.

Jennifer Moroz  18:45  
I think people saw in Tom power, what I ultimately did, too, I wasn't part of the selection process of him as a host, but I it was part of, you know, in terms of coming on board. You want to be working with a host a who's talented and has potential, but B is like good to work with, especially, let's be honest, after the history of that show, and I'd be remiss to not mention that in between Gian meshi and Tom power shad hosted that show, and he is, I don't think he got enough credit for, like, keeping that place together, keeping like he was so good to that staff in a time when that is exactly what they needed. Anyways, I'm very happy to have been able to be part of the sort of healing or the refreshing of this show. But I think shad and Nick McCabe locos, who was the exact producer during that time, deserve mad credit too.

Matt Cundill  19:51  
Thank you very much for reminding me about shad. See, we forget things along the way that he was there for a number of months after and myself as a listener, i. Felt very comfortable. And, you know, the show continued on, and I enjoyed it very much. You know, in the year after that,

Jennifer Moroz  20:07  
yeah, and he's a, he's also, he's just a really good human. And you don't, you know, of course, we all recognize really good humans in our lives, but especially once it's followed a period of time when someone might not have been a good human. You know, it really matters. So I do think it's worth it's worth mentioning, and it's also frankly, that experience both like led to where I went next, which was actually show development, refreshing and building new shows for CBC News. But it also was a real turning point for me too, because I I still do work in the podcast space, but I also do executive coaching, and it was that experience at Q that really made the connection. I mean, we all know that what goes on behind the scenes affects what goes out on air, but I think that situation in particular made me realize, like we really need to be focusing on the humans. You know, like, you get a great team together, you gotta, like, support them. You gotta make sure they have what they need to, like, do their jobs. And that's a big part of what made me turn to coaching and work coaching into my consulting business, too, frankly.

Matt Cundill  21:20  
So tell me about the talent, and it could also be some of the writers who came to you and the support you had to give them along the way, because I felt that, as a Program Director in commercial radio, that a lot of it, 90% of the time, was just being a therapist through the problem to help them solve the problem.

Jennifer Moroz  21:41  
Yeah, yeah, I think that was, that was a big part of it. But also I think that this was the first time that I'd really, obviously, we advocate as leaders. You advocate for your teams and your shows. Going into this process, I really advocated for the resources for if this team, if members of this team, don't want to be here anymore for whatever reason, if they're traumatized, if they're like I've been on this show since the very beginning, the CBC made a commitment to me and to the team, and this was Susan margetti, to her her Credit, she was, at the time heading up the department. It allowed us to have this process, along with Catherine Gregory, who's just retired from the CBC, but such a wonderful people manager, to sit down with everybody on that show as soon as I came in and say, Okay, this is what we're going to do. And like, we'd love for you to be part of it. If it's not something you want to be part of for whatever reason, we will help you find a place to land that's not just like we're going to just shove you somewhere. And so that process, along with there was a lot of listening in that process, I'll tell you, but the outcome was so strong, right? Like the team, the team that was there, wanted to be there, and that is such a like that was something that, you know, you don't really think about, but it's, it's so important, right, to get the work done and to keep the vibe high and the morale moving in the direction that it needs to in order to keep up with a daily show like that. At the time we were doing an hour and a half of not always live. There was some pre recorded, but that's a lot of it's a lot of content to be turning out per day, as you well know, and you probably did it with fewer staff. I know what about

Matt Cundill  23:32  
the podcast component? Because you talked about having to get up early to serve the Maritimes. But then you've got this on demand component after you leave work that needs to be addressed and taken care of and packaged and sent out. So was it the current that was the first time that you got involved with the podcast side of CBC?

Jennifer Moroz  23:52  
I think that's probably accurate, yeah. And I because I remember when I was exactly in the show, we were really moving we were really moving things online. It had already started, obviously, but this is 10 years and more ago, and so that was when, yes, that was when I first encountered podcasting. And then it just grew from there. And then, obviously, with Q, I was overseeing a really quite multi disciplinary team, because there was a video team there and the audio and podcast. And then when I moved to CBC News to do program development, that was in 2017 so it was when CBC was wanting to do a daily news podcast. Podcasting was in the air, so a development job turned into, yes, I was working with some of the legacy shows, and I helped develop, you know, Rosie Barton live, so on the TV side, but a lot of it was front burner. And then we did party lines. And I also did just on my own more with Anna Maria Tremonti. So her her first podcast that was a conversation podcast. So that was when I. Truly dove into developing podcasts.

Matt Cundill  25:04  
That's the point where you're going home and you've got a podcast that's now live and out there, and the show really never stops at that point, until you go back to work the next morning to create a new one.

Jennifer Moroz  25:15  
Yeah, and that's one of the things I always like would say, like, God, one thing, I mean, as it happens, is also, you know, a stressful show, but it's, it's a nighttime show, and so it's like, it goes to bed, right? Like, literally, it goes to bed when you go to bed. But the current, it really is a 24/7, show, right? Because, like, something can happen at any time. So you've got your show ready, you go home, and there were number of times in the middle of the night, first thing in the morning, oh my god, we gotta, like, blow up the first part of the show because x happened. It's a lot. It's also one heck of a, like a boot camp for young producers, like, in terms of the not just young producers, like, at any stage, there is so much to be learned on that show, like the journalism ethics, like it was still a place where you could do long form audio storytelling, the range of stories you can tell, you know, from short, little ones to long ones. Like, in terms of an audio producer. It's tough, but it's you leave there, and I kind of feel like, Oh, you're from a skill set standpoint, you've kind of got it made.

Tara Sands  26:31  
Sound design of the sound off podcast is inspired by mega tracks, the sound of entertainment, providing music and sound effects for radio, podcasts and media professionals, mega tracks is your one stop shop for library and custom tracks. Start your music search now at Mega tracks.com. The sound off podcast with Matt Cundill,

Matt Cundill  26:56  
I used to mess around and put all the bad stuff into the podcast. I think a lot of people looked at it as catch up radio, but then we started to get complaints to the CRTC, saying, Oh, they said, all this stuff. And I said, no, they listened to the podcast. And then I had to explain to the CRTC, that's podcast like they were, they were not even they didn't know what it was. They said, No, we got this from the logger tape I go, and that's, this is a podcast. It's distributed differently.

Jennifer Moroz  27:22  
Yeah, I mean, everybody was playing catch up, right? And then everything, everyone was playing catch up on podcast. And then there was this like glory moment when it was, you know, it was the most democratic medium, because anybody could punch through and succeed. And then the pandemic hit, and all of Hollywood, and all of Hollywood's money flowed in, and it became harder to punch through against. You know,

Matt Cundill  27:47  
that was a great time. I thought 2016 to 2020 was a great time, especially for, you know, public radio had the money. And, you know, places like PRX and PR all these places who were really, good at audio could flourish even more in this space, and I think that it set the sound for what a great podcast sounds like. I would agree. Yeah, microphones, clean sound. I mean, listen, I've been trying for years to get this show to sound as sharp as possible, and 10 years in, we're still messing with everything, trying to make it sound whatever pristine is supposed to sound like,

Jennifer Moroz  28:25  
yeah, yeah. Although I think too there's like, it's and there's a debate over this, right? Like, should it be pristine, or should it be messy? Because podcasting is authentic and it see, and I mean, the real, the real truth, is somewhere in the middle, right? Like, and

Matt Cundill  28:42  
you're also at that time between, you know, 2017, to 2020, right after the pandemic, where you're looking for program ideas and podcasts, you know, becomes a part of, can this also be a podcast? It can go on the radio, but it doesn't cost as much to make a podcast as it does, and you've got all these transmitters. And so when it does come to cost. And yes, there are budgets at the CBC, despite what everybody says, you're going to run up against the budgets. There's a lot of transmitters to take care of. There's a lot of people to take care of. It just costs a lot to do this stuff. How is the view of radio inside the CBC and podcast? Did they run up against one another, or was it going to be symbiotic.

Jennifer Moroz  29:22  
I think there's always been an understanding, or at least in recent history, there's been an understanding that, you know, radio is coming down in general, although still a very solid audience at the CBC, I will say, and podcasting is coming up. So there's, I mean, it's that inevitable, you know, competing of resources. But I will say this, there's certainly been a ton of interest from the radio side to do things, like, to do secondments in podcasting, right? Like, because it's, you know, it's the, it's the exciting new medium that. Emerging. And so I think a lot of audio producers are very interested in at least getting some experience with it and trying something new. And of course, like, that's one of the beauties of the CBC. And I know it takes, you know, a lot of slack for a lot of things, but from the standpoint of, I'll say someone like myself who does like to try new things. There's so much that you can do there, you know. So if you're working in radio, there is a possibility you could get a secondment in podcasting, you know, you can move around and grow in a way that I think is just impossible in other places. And so I'm very grateful that I got a chance to play in that sandbox, and I still do. I just I'm not a full time employee anymore. I I work, you know, on contract with them here and there, but I think it's still a very worthwhile mission to support.

Matt Cundill  30:57  
Did I tell you how much I love podcast playlists? Oh, no, you did not tell me. How much do you love it? It's the podcast recommendation show, and I get to sample it at 130 in the afternoon on the radio. And then I think I got one of the podcasts I was producing on onto that show, and that was great.

Jennifer Moroz  31:18  
Oh my god, yeah. It's like, it's a fun it's a fun show. It's gone through now,

Matt Cundill  31:23  
who's hosting it now? Oh, I was from the Lindsay Michael days. That's when I, when I said, Oh, Podcasts can really work on radio, and that's why this show started. And I, once I heard that, I said, Oh, this can be a thing.

Jennifer Moroz  31:38  
Yeah, they and they definitely can. They can work symbiotically. It's funny you mentioned this, because you and I have someone in common. You know, Danny Stover. Danny's working on a team with me now, on a podcast called furball confidential, but I was doing a radio interview about that podcast. Danny just posted about this. This is why I mentioned it, and she was the one who picked up on it. There was a woman who was riding in her car, had just lost her dog. This podcast is all about pet love, and rarely listens to the radio. And she turned on the radio, and it happened to be the segment of the current that I was talking about how we feel about our pets, and that it's, you know, I think we sometimes don't normalize the amount of love and support our pets give us and what a big part of our lives they are. And she felt so heard in that moment of radio that she turned and went to the podcast. And it's like, we often see things in this dichotomy of, is it podcasts, or is it radio, but like, there are these places where it's audio. I mean, it's the most intimate medium. And I think there are some areas that are like, there's some real crossover, or potential for crossover, instead of competition, is what I mean. Coming full circle to your question at the beginning.

Matt Cundill  33:05  
I always find it weird that, you know, 2017 I thought, Oh, this is going to get better. This is going to get easier. This is going to become a whole lot of things. And it's become more complicated. So pandemic, then the money coming into the podcast space, then it became easier to record, which was a natural solution, such as the way we're recording right now. And then came the video. Oh, you've got to have video. I'm like, are we sure we have to have video? I'm not sure that that's a thing. And then now there's AI. So with all these things that are presented in front of you, and you coach, you consult, you work with podcasts. You know what a great podcast should sound like? What are the things that we really do need to pay attention to? Aside from all that noise, we're going to start a podcast. How do you focus a client who comes in with this overwhelming idea for the things you need to do with the five things that are all sort of smoke and mirrors, settle them down. What do we need to do?

Jennifer Moroz  34:05  
I mean, I think the number one thing you need to ask them is, like, why a podcast? What do you want to get out of this? Because, you know, some sometimes people will come and say, I've got this great idea. And, you know, I just think it can get monetized and will be a great way to make money. That may or may not be the case. You know, it's a it's a very different landscape out there, as we've just discussed now, than it was, you know, pre pandemic number one. So I think getting clear on goals, is it monetary purposes? Is it you're wanting to engage with an existing community that you have? I think that's very you need to be very clear on that. You need to be very clear on who your intended audience is and whether this idea will actually reach that intended audience in the way that you you want. I. I think sometimes I will tell people I don't think I can help you out for what you're looking for here, this is what a podcast could do for you. But if that's not what you want, I don't want to set someone up, you know, with the wrong expectations of what building a podcast is going to be. Because I I've just gone through the process of doing an indie podcast with a really good team, and it's really, it's still really hard. You know what I mean? Like you have to really, you have to punch above your weight, production wise, etc. So I think, if you know, it depends on whether it's an individual, a news organization, or, you know, a brand. And I work with all three, the brand is probably going to have the most money to actually have a very high production, or the news outlets, depending on what news outlet it is. So it's, those are the basic questions that I go over. But also, you know, there's host choice. You know, a lot of times a brand might be interested in having a podcast as sort of a, let's have our CEO.

Matt Cundill  36:02  
That's a big mistake.

Jennifer Moroz  36:06  
Well, you know, there are some CEOs who are very well spoken and, you know, but to default to, we want a vehicle for our CEO, and we want this to be blockbuster. There's a discussion around that, right? Like, because you're, you know, you do want to be able to your host is probably your most after you know, what is the concept that's your most important thing. They're your connection point with the audience. And if they're not a connection point, then it's worse than I

Matt Cundill  36:35  
work with one podcast where we do have the CEO do it. But again, if it's not going to be the number one or two thing on that person's list, that person is not going to be your host and probably can't be part of the production.

Jennifer Moroz  36:46  
Yeah, and you want, yeah, you want someone who's, like, passionate about the whatever they're they're talking about. You know, that's got to show authenticity gets thrown a lot around in podcasting and other media these days, but I do think there's something to like. I think people have a good BS meter. And if there's someone who's not into something, you know, why should they be right?

Matt Cundill  37:12  
Oh, listeners are smart. If you bring somebody on, I mean, we have the people meter data, hey, we're going to be talking to so and so about their book. People are gone. They're going to be pitched a book, and they know they're not going to get the whole story in the next 10 minutes. Oh, David Letterman, by the way, solved that problem at the end of the interview. He would hold up the book. Oh, by the way, they've got a new book. Thanks for watching right? One of the things I think you did very well with video was a trailer for your show, and I happened to see it when we were at pod summit in Calgary, and I thought, oh, okay, so I got about a minute. And by the way, I'm posting this on the episode page at sound off podcast.com for those who want to watch this, I'm like, for the first minute, I'm like, Oh, this podcast is about people talking about their pets, but by the time I got to the second and third minute, I began to become enamored with everybody, because I understood the relationship that people had with their pets. And I said, Okay, I understand what the show's for. I understand what it's about. It's fun. It looks good. I want to give this a listen. And I don't even have any pets.

Jennifer Moroz  38:20  
Okay, listen, gold standard, right there. You know, when we think about podcast development, we often think about your primary audience, which in this case is pet lovers, but I think a secondary audience is people who just want to see a different side of some of their people who are public figures out there. So the whole concept of this podcast is I sit down and inspired by the version of myself that I am with my rescue dog clutch, which can be a very different version than the rest of the world sees. But I sit down with authors, actors, musicians, comedians, people that have been interviewed a lot before, but throw out all of the questions they've been asked before, and really just learn about them through their pet and their relationship to their pet, or sometimes a dog that passed away, but it was a really big part of their lives. So I think pet lovers see themselves reflected in that. But if you want to know a different side of Rose cousins, the singer songwriter, or the author, Dean Koontz, who co authors books with his golden retrievers just FYI. But it gives you a new window into someone that you definitely are not going to get somewhere else. So that was sort of like my secondary audience and a tertiary audience. And I think honestly, for me, this project was It's been stressful in the in the world, you know, in the last few years, let's say, like starting with the pandemic, but then there's a lot going on in the world. And for me, this was, like a really, literally warm, fuzzy place for me to retreat to and do this fun project with this amazing team. Dream. And I've got to, like, say it's rare that you get a chance to, like, hand pick your dream team. And this one has been amazing, and it's provided a little haven for me. And so I think for audiences too, where you're often looking at the headlines and just thinking, Is there something nice in the world right now, this is a place for that, and it's not just all nice. I mean, there's some heartache in these episodes too, for sure, but I mean, there's something about that bond between an animal and a human and and it's also a real equalizer, like we're in a really polarized world right now, like our love for our pets transcends, you know, political parties, etc. It's a really wild thing. So I'm actually really glad I decided to do it when I decided to do it, and maybe I decided to do it because of the time. I mean,

Matt Cundill  40:59  
well, the pets humanize these guests. And I'll tell you, I mean, for you know, for a period there from 2018 to 2023 there's, it's been celebrity interviews, and that's really what a lot of podcasting has been. And I feel, and I could see this in the numbers, every time you get a popular guest on, well, the numbers didn't really go up that much. And I said, well, listen, I can I get Gordon Ramsay on my TV five days a week on Fox? I don't need to hear him on your podcast. No offense, I just, I've heard this enough. My mind is made up about this person, but I've never heard this person

Jennifer Moroz  41:33  
talk about their pet. Pets are often and for good reason, like they're, they're good video fodder, right? Because they're cute and they're, you know, they're funny and they're silly and they're smart, yes, all of that. But to capture like the bond and what we've learned from them, whatever, nobody had tried really doing it in the podcast space, you'll see a lot of pet podcasts out there, but most of them are training, you know, dog training, or they're not about specifically this. And so this is the most intimate medium, but why not try to do it? And we did do video, because we thought people might want to see the animals right now. I mean, the podcast, the audio podcast, is what's taken off the most, and it's an interesting experiment, because, as you said earlier, like we are trying to figure out how much video do you need to use, and what do you use it for, and we're having that discussion behind the scenes at football confidential all the time, you know, because you want to work efficiently, but you also want to meet people where they they actually are.

Matt Cundill  42:38  
This is great. You mentioned the efficiencies because I've done enough calculations, I thought, oh, video, the work you put into video is going to be triple the amount that we're going to put into audio. And it's really difficult to triple A price on a client. I tell you, yes. But also, let's talk a little bit about the team. Because, I mean, if you're at the CBC, you have a number of people that you can work with in a budget. Then Spotify went to go buy up a bunch of shows. I'll use heavyweight as an example. There's a lot of people who work on heavyweight. Could be eight, it could be nine people, and then you got to pay those people. And then you look at the profit of a great show like heavyweight, and say, I think we're going to cut that. And the number of people who work on a show, there's a number in there that is going to be magical, where you can still pay yourself, or you can still pay the team. Jennifer, what is that number?

Jennifer Moroz  43:29  
Well, here's the thing. So I did not pay myself for this, and that's partially because I had set aside some money to do this or another creative project. And for me, the magic number has been total. There's there are five people who have been involved in some in shorter ways, but really important ways, like Adrian Foro, who is my neighbor up the street, incredibly talented illustrator, who has done work, I think, for like The New Yorker and the globe and like, just beautiful stuff. Dog owner and his dog, pumpkin is beautiful, and had some similar issues as clutch like he had to work through these issues. And so we bonded over our dogs. And then when I started talking about this project, he's like, I've never done a podcast project before. So he came on and he did the art. Everyone is a pet lover. Talia Schlanger, I'm just going to give her some major props here, because she was really way more she's normally a host. People might have heard her on World Cafe, but also Alec Baldwin's podcast, CBC, all over the place. So an amazing host in her own right really helped me coach me as a host but she produced. She also produced the music for the podcast, and it's all created with found sounds. So we recorded sounds of clutch, my dog and her cats, silky and sesame. And with David Travers Smith, they built that into what's now the theme music. And then Danny Stover, who's doing. Social media, but also host in her own right. So people on this project have been working kind of in different capacities and stretching different muscles, which has been super fun. And res Daya was the one who he was, our audio and video designer and editor. And he, I mean, you said, like, it costs a lot more to do video. One of the beautiful things about Rez is that he is a talented audio engineer, but he also is a filmmaker. And in fact, one of the amazing things about this project is like he came on to this project. He has just put out his debut feature film, which is called box cutter. And honestly, people should go and see it, because it is so such a good film. Anyway, he had that experience. He brought that energy also to the table of because for me, it was like, I do this all the time, but it's my own project now. And to, like, lift it off the ground and get it going while I'm working. And to have that energy of rez, who has just put out his first feature film, and Talia, who, amongst other things, is like an incredibly talented musician. She's just put out her first feature musical album, and so both of them brought that energy to this project, and I don't want to underestimate that, because it felt heavy to get it off the ground, and for Talia to come along first and lock arms with me, and then Rez to jump on board. It felt like, okay, we can do this. And then Danny came on board, you know, closer to release as we were getting socials up. And then Marina Hannah, who does a little bit of audience development for us, came on board at that point too. So people have been in and out. I would say the core in the middle team was Talia and Rez getting it off the ground with me. I think if you're doing Rez was very talented with the video, if you're doing video, generally, you probably might need a bigger team. I think you need, I don't know if it's to do with the size, but like the skill sets, and for me, honestly, like coming back to what we were talking about with coaching and Q and what it's like behind the scenes. The other thing with this project going in, I said, I want to work with talented people like who know some of these areas better than I do, and then can really raise this, you know, raise this up. And I want, I want it to be nice behind the scenes. I want this to be a fun project for everyone. And so everyone on this project like, and this is not an overstatement, like delight to work with, and it's been, in that way, it's been a real bright light.

Matt Cundill  47:31  
There are people who have made it this far through the show and are thinking, I would like to drink what she's bottling. And so, you know, it could be podcast or content development, but also you're an accredited executive business coach, and it's not just for the C suite people, it's it's for so who are you looking for?

Jennifer Moroz  47:49  
I mean, in terms of creatively, I'm always looking for collaborators. I think one of the things that i i missed when I'm just doing the coaching or the consulting and I might be one on one with someone in coaching, or I might be dropping in and working with a team and then pulling out again, like just having that ongoing collaboration with a team, having people to bounce ideas off of. So that's what I'm looking for. We're still looking for a sponsor for furball confidential for a season two. So if there's anyone out there listening for that, and then, honestly, like for consulting and coaching, coaching, as you said, I do work with some high level people, but a lot of my clients are, you know, either solopreneurs, or they're journalists or they're, you know, they're people who are finding their way, and might just need, like, someone to lock arms with and get through whatever the next thing is, because it can really help. And I think we just look at coaching and go, like, that's just going to be for the VPs and the muck Andy mucks. And I don't think so. I think it actually can really help us a lot, especially going back to some of what we were talking about before. You know, often we get thrown into these positions without sort of the leadership knowledge or credentials, and so it's kind of a good investment to, like, just, you know, okay, if you're not, you're not coming in with it, you can lock arms with someone and figure it

Matt Cundill  49:18  
out. Jennifer, thanks so much for doing this and being a part of the show today. Yeah, the show today. I love it.

Jennifer Moroz  49:25  
This is a real like walk down you took me all the way back to the very beginning.

Matt Cundill  49:30  
That's the price you have to pay to be on the sound off podcast. You know, this is this is your life.

Jennifer Moroz  49:35  
It's great. It all starts in a dried up riverbed in Alice Springs.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  49:41  
The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan cerminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com. You.