Radio host Larry O’Connor will visit Hillsdale College for two weeks next month and teach a one-credit class on podcasting as a Eugene C. Pulliam Distinguished Fellow in Journalism.
“By the end of the classes that I’m delivering, I’m hoping that anyone who attends it should have the tools to just plug in a microphone to their computer and start their own podcast,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor is a radio host from WMAL radio in Washington, D.C. He will teach a one-credit class beginning Oct. 21 titled “Broadcasting and Podcasting,” and give a public lecture Oct. 22 called “The Media and the 2024 Election.”
A Broadway manager for more than 20 years, O’Connor changed careers after meeting Andrew Breitbart, founder of the Breitbart News Network. At the time, Breitbart was starting a news website focused on professionals in the entertainment business who held conservative values, O’Connor said.
“We were making it up as we went along,” O’Connor said. “I was one of those people in the room as the new rules of new media were being built.”
Alongside him were other individuals who were not yet in the public eye, but who are now the face of American media.
“One of my colleagues also working for Andrew at the time was a young kid named Ben Shapiro,” O’Connor said.
Although O’Connor is teaching a college class as a distinguished broadcaster, he does not have any academic accreditation.
“I never went to college,” he said. “It’s pretty wild for me to find myself in this position as an instructor for college students.”
Director of the Dow Journalism Program John J. Miller said the journalism program wanted to invite someone involved in broadcasting who would benefit the college’s growing radio station.
“This is a great opportunity for students to learn the art of rhetoric and the practical application of it through the medium of the spoken word, radio, and podcasting,” Miller said.
O’Connor said he plans on beginning his course with a brief history of media and how it has changed in the last several decades, particularly through the influence of Andrew Breitbart. He also intends to provide shorter lectures, he said, to allow more time for questions and hands-on workshops, leaving students with the necessary foundation to begin broadcasting.
General Manager at WRFH 101.7 FM Scot Bertram said O’Connor’s willingness to learn as he entered a new profession is a good example for students considering media.
“I really admire the way that he’s committed himself to the industry and the craft,” Bertram said. “He’s really become quite excellent at his job.”
O’Connor said it’s profitable even for someone outside the broadcasting profession to publish a podcast because it spreads his name and builds an audience in his field of work.
“It’s very much a wide open field, and I think it’s something that if I had to do it all over again, I’d be thrilled to be starting at your age,” O’Connor said.