Meet Carah Ong Whaley from Politics Is Everything

With a growing network of podcasts and organizations that create educational content about democracy, civic engagement and civil discourse, we caught up with one of our hosts Carah Ong Whaley from Politics is Everything about the podcast, challenges as well as tips for young voices looking to enter politics and the podcasting sphere.

Q: Tell me about yourself.

Carah: I am the academics program officer at the Center For Politics and I research political participation, especially focusing on young folks. I also help run our campus-wide voter education and engagement program.

Q: Tell me about Politics is Everything.

Carah: With Politics is Everything, our idea is to provide and share our original analysis on elections, politics, and more broadly about strengthening democracy in an audio format so we can engage with the general public and members of the media. We also really view it as a learning experience so students who take courses with me and the Center For Politics have the opportunity to research, find guests they think would be great for the podcasts and engage in discussions with them. It’s a great learning experience — it’s a great way to have conversations and dive into research and expertise with scholars and practitioners about what we can do to strengthen democracy.

Q: What got you involved in Politics is Everything? 

Carah: It’s the opportunity to have conversations not just about the problems facing politics and our democracy but also what we can do to fix it. Leaning into the learning aspect, I had a professor who once said, “Politics is best learned in conversations,” and I think that resonates with many people. And so being able to do the research, read, and dive into different kinds of analyses and talk about it, to hear from different perspectives about what’s happening really motivates the podcast.

Q: Since the establishment of the podcast, what is a challenge you have overcome as an organization?

Carah: I think making sure what we’re addressing is relevant and getting others to tune in and making sure what we’re doing will have an impact. And I think that’s an ongoing challenge that we always have to reflect upon.

Making sure that when we’re coming up with ideas for who we have on (our podcast), we’re finding voices that aren’t traditionally heard is also important to us — that’s something that we really think about together as a team.

Q: Have you ever had any problems or challenges with a guest on your show?

Carah: We haven’t had that issue, to be honest… doesn’t mean that we won’t in the future. Part of it is doing a lot of research ahead of time about who we’re going to have and anticipating what they might say, the position they might have. For most episodes, we spend a lot of time researching and carefully crafting the questions. 

I think being in this work and coming from a small-d democratic perspective, it’s OK to be challenged on things, and at least for us, we’re not trying to get people to say something we agree with. We’re in conversations to learn from that perspective and hopefully learn something new, and so I think coming in with the attitude that we’re here to learn also really helps.

Q: For someone who wants to get involved in politics or the podcasting sphere, where do you suggest they start?

The first thing I talk about when students are taking on a new podcasting project is to ask them, “What podcast do you listen to?” and “What makes it compelling.” So if you want to start something, go see what else is out there and figure out what your niche is, what makes you compelling and different than something that already exists. I think that’s really important. 

And then figure out who’s your audience: Is it peers? Is it other students? Is it the broader public? And to think through what it is that makes your content and your overall podcast compelling. 

Be willing to experiment, your first episode doesn’t need to be perfect — just start doing it and learn as you go. And be willing to learn and improve.