Audio application

TRANSCRIPTION: I'm a digital hoarder. I have over 60,000 photos saved to my camera roll. I've filled up the storage of four Google accounts and I have kept an audio recording of every single interview I've ever done dating all the way back to my first high school assignment in 2018. It's a habit I'm not proud of, but it has left me with a complete audio archive of me as a journalist.

Okay. So, um, I wrote down a few questions. Sounds good. So do you know if the lunchtimes like differ throughout the grades? I mean like sixth graders get less time than the eighth graders or how does that work? Yeah, that's me a little squeaky and very nervous interviewing a middle school principal about the amount of time kids have to eat lunch.

And over the years you hear me break through the safety net of interviewing teachers and students. What did you come into high school thinking it was gonna be like? Um, I thought it was gonna be worse than what I actually is. Yeah. I started connecting with community members in my small town. Um, and then, sorry, can I have you introduce yourself one more time just to make sure my audio's okay. <Laugh> okay.

When COVID-19 first broke out, I was a junior in high school, I documented what happened around me and how it felt. Just as a quick reminder here, state basketball, it has been canceled due to the um, state scare here at the moment. And FFA is also not going. When we all came back, masks muffled the audio, but we were all still there. So today we have with us Abigail Land… Landwehr. Yeah. And she wants to ask questions about what it was like to care for patients and be a nurse during COVID.

You can hear the audio from the day I moved away for school. Please leave your message after the tone. Uh, hi Megan, this is Abigail. Um, I was just hoping to talk to you about requesting a roommate change. And the conversations I had when I started my first broadcasting job halfway across the country. I'm going to give you a microphone. I'll just have you slip it on your shirt quick. Got to turn the right way. We’re professionals. <Laugh> that's all right.

Recordings of me going through college. Recording live in Columbia, Abigail Landwehr, ABC 17 News. For J 2000, for J1400, for J1200 for Econ1015 — not that I really need a sign off, but I feel weird not adding one. I'm Abigail Landwehr. Recordings of going through internships. Under my cookies. Don't eat, don't eat my cookies. They're eyeing 'em. I don't know. I know. Okay, okay. And recordings of going through life. Whenever I listen back I realize I say ‘absolutely’ all the time. And I also say, I can't remember what it was. I think I say ‘so like, you know,’ or something like that. <Laugh> And it's, I get it. It's hard to listen back to.

I have listened to so many episodes of This American Life. My favorite, which I listened to back in high school and have not been able to let go of since, is 24 Hours at the Golden Apple. I think it's something about that concept of the episode. You listen to everyone and they're given time and space to express what sort of story they're carrying and that is really the heart of the show.

I think the stories that make us human are messy, but they're beautiful. And I know it's a little cheesy, but that focus is what first drew me to journalism. And that's also what keeps me excited to report every day. I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but this is a story that I love and I wanted to share because it shows all the pieces that make up a career. It's really all captured in the voices of the people who helped me get here. And it's the voices of people that I am so honored to have trusted me to help share their story. 'cause at the end of the day, that is what journalism is about.

PHS Prowl Editor-in-Chief Abigail Landwehr and reporter Ben Whitlock hold up cameras at Powell High School on Sept. 18, 2020.