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Michael O’Connell has interviewed almost 500 journalists in It’s All Journalism podcasts

Portia Li
Portia Li
December 30, 2021
It’s All Journalism podcast producer Michael O’Connell. Courtesy It's All Journalism
It’s All Journalism podcast producer Michael O’Connell. Courtesy It's All Journalism

(SAN FRANCISCO) Michael O'Connell is a journalist, author, college professor, the co-founder and producer of It's All Journalism, a media-focused podcast to interview journalists across the country. The incoming 2022 will mark the tenth anniversary of the podcast program.

Since O'Connell launched It's All Journalism in 2012, up to the present time, he has interviewed almost 500 journalists, including Founder and Publisher of Wind Newspaper Portia Li, in his podcast program which is aired online weekly.

It has been a trend for a number of the media outlets to launch their podcasts by posting the audio interviews on their websites in most recent years. However, O'Connell already had this idea back to ten years ago.

"As an older journalist, I realized in 2010 that I needed to pick up some new skills in order to do my job in the new online environment. So, at the age of 50, I went back to school and got a degree from American University's master's in interactive journalism program," said O'Connell on the history of the podcast.

"About that time, I started working at Federal News Radio in Washington, D.C., with two of my fellow students. When our degree program began to wind down in 2012, we decided to launch the It's All Journalism podcast." O'Connell said their goal was to continue the conversations in the classroom and interview working journalists about how they did their jobs.

O'Connell is currently teaching podcast classes at American University. He has released his book "Turn Up the Volume", a textbook about podcasting.

"Our focus has broadened a bit over the years to include discussions on topics like fake news, trust in media and diversity in newsrooms, but our main goal continues — to help share knowledge about the changes happening in our industry," stated O'Connell.

"We do that by talking to media professionals about the work they do. That's why we wanted to talk to Portia Li, who started a new venture late in life, so she could continue doing vital work for her community. We wanted to share her inspiring story with our audience." The episode and interview of Li was aired online on the Thanksgiving Day on November 27, 2021.