From KPBS Public Media, The Finest is a podcast about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pocket Casts, Pandora, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Episode 26: Season 1 Survey Transcript
Julia Dixon Evans: Hey, The finest listeners. We are coming to you now from our break between seasons one and two. We're hard at work on new episodes and we can't wait for you to hear them. Today though, we have a little treat for you. And just a couple of quick requests.
But first, the treat. Do you wanna win a free The Finest t-shirt? These are stylish, exclusive, and you can't buy them anywhere. Maybe you saw the team wearing them at the KPBS Book Festival live show, and now you can have one too. Just fill out our short season one survey at kpbs.org/the finestsurvey. The survey part's anonymous, but when you're done, you can separately enter to win a shirt. Then when season two launches on January 15th, we'll draw names at random and send shirts to the winners. The survey helps us get to know our audience and see what you like, or figure out how to make the show even better.
The other request, and this is extra credit, is pretty simple. If you love The Finest, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. We know many of you enjoy the show and meeting some of you in person has been amazing. A quick rating and review really helps new listeners discover us. Stay with us after the break for a sneak preview of the survey with one of The Finest's biggest fans.
From KPBS Public Media, this is The Finest, a podcast about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. I'm Julia Dixon Evans.
[Theme Music]
Evans: Back to the survey. We wanted to bring in our colleague Katie Hyson, KPBS's racial justice and social equity reporter, to take the survey with us, out loud.
Katie recently released an investigative True Crime podcast called One of Their Own, and we think The Finest listeners will love it. But today, Katie's here because she is a self-proclaimed, The Finest fan.
Hey, Katie.
Hyson: Hi Julia. Number one biggest Finest fan, I would say. I'm gunning for the T-shirt.
Evans: I love that. Okay, well we can enter you into the raffle.
Hyson: I think I get two entries for giving all my feedback straight to the host.
Evans: OK, so we just told you about our survey for The Finest, and we're gonna have you answer some survey questions live on the show. But first, can you tell us why you're a fan of The Finest?
Hyson: Yes. This feels like telling your favorite teacher why they're your favorite teacher. I moved to San Diego less than three years ago. I lived in rural Florida my whole life before I came here, and I feel like The Finest has
been such a delightful way to learn about the place I call home now. Like such rich and diverse stories from my new backyard. And you know, it's a different culture here too compared to rural Florida. And so to just be immersed in it in such a personable and delightful way has been a ride.
Evans: I love that. So first survey question. What are your top three favorite episodes of the Finest?
Hyson: I'm so glad you gave me a top three. Definitely the graffiti episode of the three friends and graffiti artists who came back together decades later. And Lucky Wong for sure. Forgive me for not giving the government name of the podcast episode title.
Evans: Can you give us the file name?
Hyson: Dot mp3! I loved Our Lady of Guadalupe. But if I can give a runner up the Blink-182 episode actually made me late for our morning newsroom meeting 'cause I got so caught up in it and I was jamming out so hard that I like did not see the clock turn nine and I was late to our meeting.
Evans: Love that. Okay. Tell us about the other three and why, like what is it about those episodes, or any of them, that stuck with you?
Hyson: Gosh. So the episode with the graffiti artist meant so much to me. I feel like I'm gonna get emotional talking about it. But when I was growing up, I was one of those backseat NPR listener kids, and my parents were both in the Florida Orchestra and so culture at that level was very like classical music, and chess or whatever else. And then meanwhile, like me and my brother were running around like kind of feral kids in the Florida woods. And my brother and his friends, their world was hip hop and that included graffiti art and its own art and culture and every bit as worthy of consideration and engaging and all of that as you know, this classical music and chess.
And so when I heard this episode, it felt very worlds colliding and kind of like healing to hear these graffiti artists talk about their work with the same level of consideration and reporting as like classical music might have on NPR in the nineties or whatever. So, yeah, it was healing and it was so joyful and such a good story.
Evans: OK. This one, be honest. What suggestions do you have for improving The Finest? So this can be topics, pacing, interview style, anything. You're looking at me right now.
Hyson: I think this is why normally like surveys are anonymous. I'm in front of a large microphone with a bright red recording light looking the creator in the eyes.
Evans: I mean, to phrase it a little bit differently, you are an avid podcast listener, so what's something that you would like us to try?
Hyson: Well, a lot of the episodes are from like the artist or the creator's perspective, which I think usually makes sense, but I also think it's so fun to go in from the, I dunno if consumer's the right word, almost following that person in as a character and their experience of the art could be an interesting framing for an episode.
Evans: Mm-hmm. I love that. Anthony, are you writing this down? It's a great idea.
Hyson: Is The Finest hiring?
Evans: You're in, you're in. This is similar. Which episode topics would you like to hear more of?
Hyson: Well, part of this is like biased from the beat I cover as a race and equity reporter, but it's interesting, like the town I moved from — I promise this relates — the town I moved from was more like half black, half white, and here in San Diego, the black San Diego population is like five or six percent. And also from the reporting I've done, it seems like a lot of the gathering spots they had and like ways that they shared culture together, especially in like the '80s and '90s and early 2000s, got policed out in a lot of ways. And I have heard of different ways that people are trying to reclaim that and create those spaces again. And I guess I'd be really interested in more episodes related to local black culture, the local hip hop scene, how and where are people gathering, following the intense policing of like the '90s and 2000s.
Evans: Yeah, that's great.
Hyson: The other, just selfishly, is a selfish interest. I love horror. And I will take any horror genre-esque episode you wanna throw at me.
Evans: I once was a horror writer. Did you know that?
Hyson: I've got 50 follow up questions.
Evans: I have been published in horror anthologies. I could write you a scary story.
Hyson: Julia I'm gonna cry this. I'm daydreaming right now.
Evans: OK, this one's fun. What are your favorite podcasts besides The Finest?
Hyson: Have you heard of You're Wrong About? I love You're Wrong About. For people who don't know, they take like our kind of pop, mass understanding of something from usually a few decades ago, think issues like Satanic Panic or Monica Lewinsky or Shaken Baby Syndrome, and they debunk the mass understanding we all shared around it.
On the lighter end, I really love — I don't know if KPBS will have to bleep this or not, it is the government name, the proper name of the podcast — Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding.
Evans: I haven't heard of this one.
Hyson: It's a full true crime genre-esque treatment of a real crime at someone's wedding on a boat. Someone shat on the floor at their wedding.
Julia Dixon Evans: I love taking things like that seriously.
Katie Hyson: Well, and it's very serious.
Julia Dixon Evans: So who did it? Don't tell me.
Katie Hyson: I would never do that to Finest listeners.
Julia Dixon Evans: Well, Katie, thank you. See that was not so hard.
Katie Hyson: Right? I'm living my dream. I'm that much closer to getting that T-shirt. And listeners, if you fill out the survey, you too could share your feedback and get a chance at a gorgeous T-shirt.
Julia Dixon Evans: Amazing, amazing. So go to kpbs.org/thefinestsurvey, fill it out, enter your email by January 15th, and you too could be the proud owner of a Finest t-shirt. And just so you know, you do not need to go into as much detail as Katie did to qualify. But also be sure to check out the first five episodes of Katie's podcast, One of Their Own ow, wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you, Katie.
Katie Hyson: Thank you.
Julia Dixon Evans: I'm your host, Julia Dixon Evans. Our producer, lead writer and composer is Anthony Wallace. Our engineer is Ben Redlawsk and our editor is Chrissy Nguyen.