New Local Podcast Drops; Unique Collaboration Is Keene State And Keene Sentinel Partnership

A group of Keene State College students is launching a daily, local news podcast.

Keenecast, a production of the College’s Journalism Department, comes out every weekday at 4 a.m. on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Each 5-minute episode covers local headlines, sports, weather, and events from the Monadnock Region.

The podcast is a collaboration with the Keene Sentinel, the region’s daily newspaper.

“The goal is to quickly get listeners caught up on the big news from their community,” says Jason Beaubien, the faculty advisor who’s overseeing the project. “As media changes this is an opportunity to reach a younger audience. Podcasting is booming but most news podcasts focus on national or international issues.”

Keenecast, he notes, is an attempt to “connect listeners with the stuff that’s happening just down the street.”

Beaubien was a longtime National Public Radio reporter before coming to Keene State.

Each evening the four students — Tim Bruns, Ashlie Chandler, Nicole Dumont, and Ryan Goodwin — gather at 6 p.m. at the Media Arts Center to write the next day’s episode.

By 7 p.m. they send a script to editors at the Sentinel who review it for accuracy. Many of the stories rely on original reporting from the Sentinel or Keene State’s student newspaper, The Equinox.

The students alternate hosting the daily episodes in a new podcasting studio at the College’s Media Arts Center.

First-year student Lucas Parhiala, a music major, wrote and performed the podcast’s theme music.

“I think this is a great opportunity to teach the nuts and bolts of podcasting,” Beaubien says. “But it’s also about finding new ways to deliver local news to the local news audience. Hopefully, it’ll make people feel more connected to their community.”

Listeners can find the podcast through the Sentinel’s website or simply by asking their smartphone or smart device to “Play the latest episode of Keenecast.”