This week, Michael is joined by Mary Garner McGehee, audio producer for the Virginia Audio Collective and the new host of Bold Dominion, our longtime sister show. They discuss the revamped explainer for state politics, including episodes on Virginia's recycling, minimum wage, and other state politics topics that often fly beneath the radar. 

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope. This is Pod Virginia, a podcast that's a fan of other podcasts. Especially other podcasts about Virginia politics. We listen to all of them. But there's one that's a favorite because it's a kind of sibling show of Pod Virginia; that would be Bold Dominion. These two podcasts, Pod Virginia and Bold Dominion, started right around the same time. They both have a similar focus, and we're even friends with the hosts. That's hosts plural because Bold Dominion now has a new host, the third host for the podcast, and she is our guest today on Pod Virginia. Mary Garner McGee, thanks for coming on Pod Virginia.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited to be here because I, too, am a fan of Pod Virginia. We love y'all's work.

Michael Pope  

Right back at you because I'm a big fan of Bold Dominion; let's get right into it. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You're a recent UVA alum. Graduated about five years ago, so you've been there at WTJU. You were actually around for the creation of Bold Dominion back in 2020. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background in terms of how you came to be the host of the show.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Like you said, I graduated from UVA in 2019 and, I've been listening to podcasts since I was 11 or 12 years old.  They have informed how I think about the world and the topics that I'm curious about. I wrote my application to college about listening to podcasts. I hadn't really thought seriously about working in podcasts until WTJU posted an internship when I was a student and I applied for it. I immediately caught the bug and really haven't looked back. It's really fun to get to work on a medium that I'm such a fan of. Even when I spend all day editing podcasts, I still go home, listening to more of them before I go to bed, while I'm making dinner, and stuff like that.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, later in this podcast, we'll be talking about your favorite podcasts and why you like them. But first, I want to go through the two former hosts of Bold Dominion because they're both really good friends. Starting with Nathan Moore, who sent this message for you.

Nathan Moore  

Hey MG, it's Nathan. Congratulations on being Michael's guest on Pod Virginia this week. As you host and produce Bold Dominion this year, I'd like to give you a gift. I wanted to give you a gift of a gold-framed copy of the Dillon Rule. But the General Assembly has not passed enabling legislation yet that'd let me do that. So, instead, I'm gonna give you a box of bi-weekly deadline pressure. And also, a plastic garbage bag full of my ideas for state politics explainer shows; I hope it's helpful. No, but really, glad to have you hosting the show as we close in on 100 episodes.

Michael Pope  

I'm gonna do a fact-check on Nathan Moore. I'd be willing to bet that his ideas do not belong in the garbage bag.

Mary Garner McGehee  

No, absolutely not. A lot of the stuff that we're gonna cover this season on Bold Dominion going forward are things that Nathan and I talk about in the office all the time. We joke with our other coworkers that, if both of us are around WTJU people, a lot less work would get done because there are a lot of state politics topics that we're both really interested in. And always got to break them down together.

Michael Pope  

Nathan was the first host of the show, and then he handed it over to our friend Aaryan Balu, who happens to be the producer of this show, and he sent this message for you. 

Aaryan Balu  

Hey MG, congratulations on taking over Bold Dominion. You were doing the local political media involvement coverage thing before I even started doing radio. So it feels right to see you take over the state of Virginia as well. Congratulations and good luck.

Michael Pope  

Your voice might be new to listeners, but I get the sense from Aaryan and Nathan that you were really part of the story all along, right? 

Mary Garner McGehee  

It was really exciting when Aaryan came to work at WTJU. He was a huge reason why Bold Dominion got started. Nathan kind of alluded to putting out something every two weeks, which takes a lot of energy and new ideas. When Aryan came in as an undergraduate and said, I want to work on this, that excitement and energy, I think, was one of the huge reasons why the show got started. We were so lucky to have him work on it for a couple of years.

Michael Pope  

I want to unpack your motto, which is a call to action. It is "a state politics explainer for a changing Virginia." What exactly does that mean, and how do you hope to embody that with the show?

Mary Garner McGehee  

I was on vacation last weekend in a part of Virginia that has no cell service. And it really made me realize when I'm driving around and noticing things; I'm always Googling them. Like I'll pass something and be like, oh, that looks like an old building. When was that built? Or it's weird that their garbage cans are a different color; what's up with that? So, I didn't have any cell service, so I couldn't google them. I was sitting on these questions. When I got home, I had a whole list of things that I had to look up when I had cell service again. It's those sorts of questions that I'm really excited to answer on Bold Dominion. When we're sitting around in the office or talking about what's happening in the state that we have questions about it, and we don't already know the answers. I really want to talk about things that are factors that we regularly encounter in our daily lives but maybe don't think that much about. Or have questions about things that are not easily answered, and not so much the breaking news stuff, but looking at like, how does this system work? For example, the first one we did, coming back this summer, was on food assistance. What is food assistance? What programs does that include? How is it funded? What are the politics around it? How do people access it? Why is it important? How does it fit in with the state systems and the federal systems? How does this fit in with local philanthropy? Looking at both, the bigger systems that affect our day-to-day lives, and then also smaller, more niche questions too, when they come up.

Michael Pope  

So far, you've hosted two podcasts. The first one, as you just mentioned, was about food insecurity. The second one was about school board meetings and why they've become so divisive. Both of them are great. I highly recommend them to listeners. Go and make sure you subscribe to Bold Dominion; go back and listen to them. I want to ask, though, about your first show, the inaugural show, for you as the host. Why did you choose food insecurity?

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah. We did a set of brainstorming, thinking about different areas of life, and then we kind of went through and tried to think about the timing of them. And food insecurity is something that is especially pressing in the summer because a lot of children get access to really essential nutrition during the school year. Then, when school's out for the summer, children often have less access to nutrition. I think food is something we maybe think about a little bit more in the summer because it's when a lot of things are in season here. So that's kind of the reason why to start with that question. Also, we wanted to pick something that was a good example of the type of stories that we wanted to cover going forward. It's something that's really important. It's kind of news you can use; it has a state, local, and national element to the story. And as I said at the beginning of that episode, hopefully, people will listen and learn a little bit about how food access works, if they need it or know someone who needs it. But also, we're interested in stuff because we're all taxpayers, and I want to talk about where that state tax money is going. We all see it come out of our paychecks, and state tax money goes to schools and food and climate initiatives, and these things affect the quality of our lives. 

Michael Pope  

One show that listeners can anticipate will be released on Labor Day when you will be talking about the minimum wage in Virginia. Give us a little preview of that show.

Mary Garner McGehee  

That one is actually going to come out a couple of days before Labor Day. We release on Fridays. Because, again, I, as a podcast listener, wake up on Saturday with all of this time. And I feel like a lot of shows don't release over the weekend. So, it'll come out the Friday before Labor Day. Yeah, we, basically, were curious about how the minimum wage interacts with inflation. Inflation is something we are hearing so much about in the national news. We do have a federal minimum wage, but minimum wage policy really differs a lot from state to state. People might have heard that the Virginia minimum wage was going up in this kind of stepped-up fashion. That was put on hold this year. So we wanted to talk about that and what effect it would have on the economy. Then also talk about, how the minimum wage in general, as a form of policy, interacts with inflation and broader economic trends.

Michael Pope  

You have a long list of shows that you're thinking about doing topics on, including single stream, recycling, housing, solar, composting, affirmative action, the railroad system, that's a lot. That's a lot for the near future of Bold Dominion. Walk us through the kinds of topics that you hope to address in the podcast in the coming months.

Mary Garner McGehee  

The first thing I want to say is we want your questions. If there's something that you're curious about -- please write us. We would love to do an episode on that and try and answer those questions if we can. The best way to get in touch is wtjupodcast@virginia.edu. In the meantime, we're working on a bunch of different topics. I think there are a couple of themes that we are particularly interested in. You mentioned housing, which is a huge topic. I'm fascinated by housing. It's one of the topics I'm most excited to cover. There are so many different facets to it. There are stories about affordable rentals; there are stories about home ownership. There's a rising interest rates element to it. There's kind of this big question of what should the government's role be in providing housing in a society? I think, in general, I'm interested in picking stories that are at the intersection of market forces and government policies. Issues that get at the heart of, what is the role of our state government? I think there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on in the climate sphere. You know, some of the big questions are, like, how, as Virginians, should we think about our individual actions? Again, specifically as Virginians, for example, on the recycling story, I remember back in 2019 and 2020, reading all these national-level stories about how single-stream recycling is a myth. But if you drill down into some of those, they'll say that in literally every municipality, it's going to be different, so you need to look into what's going on in your area. Some time has passed, and we had the question: okay, so is single-stream recycling a myth? In Virginia specifically, and again, that kind of gets at the question of, like, what is our role in recycling, and what impact do individual actions of Virginians have on, like, how much waste there is in Virginia. So those kinds of stories are pretty interesting, too. I think transit is also a really interesting space. Again, it's a good statewide story. Roads, trains, airports, and stuff are how people get from one part of the state to another. A lot of transit policy is highly affected by the General Assembly and state funding and state agencies. 

Michael Pope  

You mentioned single-stream recycling. A lot of people are skeptical that you could take a pile of stuff and somehow separate the aluminum from the paper, right? So you're telling me you're going to recycle this aluminum. And you're going to recycle this paper, and then somehow you're going to separate it before you recycle it? It strikes people as being, I don't know if that's actually going to be the case. But where I live, a couple of years ago, I was doing some journalism about this exact topic and went to the facility where they did this, and it was fascinating to see these giant machines. And they really did separate. They had all of these levels. On level one, they would separate out the giant things that happened to fall into the pile; for example, there was a couch, like an entire couch. So put that aside because we're not recycling the couch. But then, you know, to actually see it take place, like the paper being separated from the aluminum, is fascinating. A counter to those arguments of recycling being a myth. Well, it's not a myth if you've actually seen it take place.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah, the recycling episode is so interesting. I'm really excited for people to listen to that. It's coming out on Friday, August 16, and it's one of those things that just kind of defies expectation, a little bit like you mentioned. Again, it's a great story because it's a question of individual action, state policy, and a huge international story of climate change and waste. It's kind of thinking about our little part in all of those pieces.

Michael Pope  

You mentioned that your interests lie mainly in this intersection between market forces and government policy; unpack that a little bit for us. Why do you say that?

Mary Garner McGehee  

I don't know if I would say mainly, but it's definitely a place where I am very interested. And I think some of that is that people have lost faith in a lot of traditional means of civic engagement and civic action. I think that for a lot of us, one of the main ways that we express our values is through the ways that we spend our money and the things that we buy, for better or for worse. There's a lot of people who don't vote. There are a lot of people who don't vote in state and local elections. But everybody goes to the grocery store, and everybody pays their taxes. Everybody has to interact with the economy in that way. I've always been really interested in that. Again, especially as I feel like some of the some of the faith in other means of engaging with society has been eroded.

Michael Pope  

Bold Dominion is part of something called the Virginia Audio Collective, which has more than 20 podcasts. Explain the Virginia Audio Collective. 

Mary Garner McGehee  

I've been working on the Virginia Audio Collective since I started at wtju, and it's been really cool to watch it grow. The Virginia Audio Collective is a collective of podcasts made by and for people in Virginia. A lot of these shows are made by hobbyists, or they're not full-time professional podcast producers. They are people who live in Virginia who feel strongly about something, have developed an area of expertise, and have a great idea that they're really excited about. Those folks will reach out to us and basically say, how do I take this great idea that I have and make something out of it? We're able to often provide tech support and studio space. Also brainstorming and feedback on ideas and stuff like that. The Virginia Audio Collective and WTJU are also owned by UVA, the University of Virginia. We also work with a number of UVA departments to help them make their podcasts. At its best, podcasting has given people the ability to tell their own stories, to be their own experts on things. I really see the mission of the Virginia Audio Collective as helping connect those storytellers, helping them tell better stories, helping them reach new audiences, just just giving people the tools to like, express themselves creatively, and also tell their own stories. 

Michael Pope  

Some of these podcasts in the Virginia Audio Collective are limited-run shows, whereas others are recurring shows, right? Give us a little perspective here into the different kinds of titles and podcasts that are part of the collective.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Absolutely. Yeah. So, to quickly explain the difference between limited-run and recurring podcasts, Bold Dominion comes out every two weeks, and Pod Virginia comes out regularly. We also have a number of shows that we call like limited runs or limited series that are a little bit more documentary-style. They were always intended to be three episodes, six episodes, or ten episodes. They tell a discrete story over a set number of episodes or periods of time. I've got a couple of podcast recommendations from the Virginia Audio Collective for Pod Virginia listeners. The first one I want to shout out is called Teachers in the Movement, and it's one of those limited-run podcasts. Teachers in the Movement came out of a larger oral history project at the University of. Virginia School of Education. There was a professor and a number of graduate students who, for quite a few years, have been collecting hundreds of oral histories with African American teachers who taught in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. They're interviewing these folks about their own educational experiences. What it was like teaching during desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement; how that affected their pedagogy. A lot of these folks taught for 30 to 40 years, like a really long time, and have really interesting perspectives on politics in the South and education in the South. I think that would be of interest to people who are interested in state politics and history. Not all of the stories are from Virginia, but quite a few of them are. Then we also had a great podcast come out this winter that is not really about politics at all, but I think, I think it's a really cool podcast. It's also a limited run; it's four episodes, and it's called If You See a Deer. It's about human deer interactions and relationships over time and in literature. Basically, humans have always been fascinated by deer and like, why is that? It's really interesting and really well done. It's actually a companion podcast to a book that came out on the same topic. That book is called The Age of Deer. And then one more that I'll shout out. The easiest way to find this podcast is to look up The Repair Lab (https://repairlab.virginia.edu/). It has two seasons now, and it's a podcast about environmental justice issues in Virginia. Their first season is about gentrification and climate change, specifically flooding in Norfolk. The second season is about coal dust pollution and the people in Virginia who are dealing with that and how they are pushing for better living conditions for people who live near coal plants and places where coal dust is an environmental pollutant.

Michael Pope  

Great. Those are some got some podcast recommendations. Our listeners can put those on their list for the future. I want to ask you about podcasting as an art and a way of expressing thoughts and ideas. You mentioned earlier that you're a longtime podcast listener. What is it about this medium that you.

Mary Garner McGehee  

This is a shallow answer; this isn't a deep answer. But I think something that I love about it is that it's always a way to learn things, even when you're doing stuff that you have to do, like washing your dishes or commuting to work. I think it's a testament to human curiosity. I think, on a deeper level, humans have always been storytellers. I also love to read, like a really interesting article or a great story. But I think there's something added, a little something extra to sit down and listen to someone tell you something. I think with podcasting there's a special power to being able to individualize or personalize a story. I think that's something that, as a producer, you have to be really aware of. When an individual hears a powerful story, that's often going to have a greater impact than looking at a whole bunch of data. I think that's the power of podcasting. But also, when you're thinking about how to tell a story truthfully, how to tell a story that's interesting, how to tell a story that is representative, it's important to think about what voices you're hearing and in what order, and you know, am I balancing, an individual perspective with a broader truth or broader narrative? 

Michael Pope  

I don't think that was a shallow answer at all. I think that was a pretty fulsome answer.

Mary Garner McGehee  

The shallow part is that I love podcasts because I can listen to them while I'm doing other things. Now, one time, I gave this whole talk about why podcasting is so great. And I was like, does anybody have any questions? And someone was like, How do you feel about people listening to podcasts on two times speed?

Michael Pope  

Oh, very controversial. I'll give you my opinion, which is I hate it. I spent all this time and effort to. Trying to make the podcast sound exactly the right way, and then here you go, screwing it up by listening to it at 2x

Mary Garner McGehee  

No, I feel exactly the same way. But then part of me is also like, Oh, I've got to respect the listener more. If their desire is to play it on 2x speed, like, you know, does that say something about the content? But yeah, totally, I'm also very annoyed by it. I never listen to podcasts on 2x speed.

Michael Pope  

I don't either. And so note to listeners; do not listen to Bold Dominion at twice the speed, please. You mentioned several titles there the Virginia Audio Collective, but I'm curious about podcasts that you like in general. I know two of your favorites are the Brian Lehrer show, which is a public radio show out of New York City, and City Cast DC. Tell our listeners a little bit about what podcasts you like and how that might inspire your perspective on hosting Bold Dominion.

Mary Garner McGehee  

I don't know about how this relates to hosting Bold Dominion, but one podcast that I'd absolutely love to shout out is called Dolls of Our Lives. Dolls as in like dolls that you play with, the toy, and unfortunately, the show recently ended, but it has a very extensive back catalog. What it is, it's two people who have PhDs in American history who are very good friends, and they sat down and made a podcast where they reread the American Girl books, one book at a time, from the perspective of fans, but also history PhDs. For people who aren't familiar, American Girl is a doll brand. They do historical dolls mainly people might have heard of, you know, Felicity, the American Girl doll who lives in Colonial Williamsburg, or Addie, the American Girl doll who escaped from slavery. Each historical doll is from a different time period, and they have books that go along with the doll. I played with American Girl dolls as a kid, and I think this podcast is so good. I always learned something interesting about American history. American Girl dolls are made for children. And so not only did the hosts of the show talk about how history changes over time, and how they're portraying these different eras, and representation in the American Girl doll universe. But also, they talk about how we talk about history, specifically with children, right? Like, when we're writing for children. I think that it's so interesting. So that's a great indie podcast that I would highly recommend people check out. Um, what else? I'm scrolling through my podcast feed right now.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, it strikes me that the Brian Lehrer show out of New York City has topics that are in alignment with your list for Bold Dominion. They might take up, waste management one day and then be talking about the rat czar the next day.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that variety is really interesting. I also love that the Brian Lehrer show is a call-in show. If Nathan, the general manager of WTJU, would let me do a call-in show on WTJU I would do that in a heartbeat. Call-in shows are awesome. Getting to hear people react in real-time to all kinds of different stories is so interesting. Just the mix of public health, climate, and thinking about how can we take big stories and break them down to the block-by-block level in New York City? There's a lot about Virginia that's very different from New York City, but there's a lot that they talk about that's about any local or state government. Often, when I'm listening, I'm not planning to move to New York City or anything, but I'll pause it, and my partner and I will be like, hey, that happened here. Or like, why doesn't Virginia try that?

Michael Pope  

You say you want a call-in format, but let me warn you that that might be a little more complicated than you imagine. One time, I was on live radio at WAMU for the Kojo Nnamdi show. They take callers on the Kojo Nnamdi show, and we had this caller who called in about uranium mining in Virginia. Then the host was like, oh, that's Virginia. That's your territory, Michael Pope; tell us about uranium mining in Virginia. And I did not have an answer. It was live radio, and I had no clue about uranium mining, so I made it my mission in life to be prepared for any question that might come up. Anytime I went on the Kojo Nnamdi show, it was helpful, but I did lean toward over-preparing a little bit, and I had all my note cards lined up. Hence, the next time I was on that show, I was ready for any question about uranium mining or anything else they wanted to throw at me.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah, I have so much respect for the guests and journalists who go on that show. Because they do get some, I would think, very unexpected questions, and more often than not, these people are experts. There are pros, and they know exactly the answer to them. And I'm always like, wow, that is a depth of knowledge that is very impressive. 

Michael Pope  

We talked a little bit about topic areas that you might explore, and we even previewed a couple of them. You said the minimum wage one is coming out right before Labor Day, and you had another one that's coming out. 

Mary Garner McGehee  

Recycling is coming out next, and then the minimum wage. I will say one that is not in the works yet but that I'm very eager to talk about is I really want to do an episode on something about aviation or airports. I think aviate, commercial aviation is really interesting. And I'm just curious what the state's relationship to all of those is. Especially because I think we're very close to National Airport in DC, and I hear so much about how Congress has ultimate sway over what flights go in and out of National, and I'm just curious if there are any similar stories like that happening in Virginia.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, that actually all revolves around something called the perimeter rules. So, if you want to have a podcast explaining the perimeter rule, that actually would be very helpful, I think, to a lot of listeners.

Mary Garner McGehee  

That's a great suggestion. Yeah, well, hey, maybe.

Michael Pope  

Our listeners might hear that in the future. So housing policy, we talked about being very interesting. Solar policy, man, solar is blowing up. I mean, just this week, I was doing some reporting on a new solar panel manufacturing center in Bedford County. This is Virginia's first solar panel manufacturing facility, and it's in Bedford. So that's one development. But then another thing that we find in local jurisdictions all across Virginia is resistance to utilitiy scale solar facilities. I think Patrick County recently rejected this. So that is a white-hot topic. I'm looking forward to hearing your show about solar energy.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah, I'm really interested in this. You know, where this resistance to solar is, like coming from? And, there must be externalities to it, you know. I'm curious as to what those externalities are? And what are the realities of them? And are they being overblown? Where is this resistance coming from? And again, I come to most of these topics as a curious person who does not know a lot about them. So yeah, that'll be a really interesting one, and I know I'll learn a lot, and hopefully listeners will, too.

Michael Pope  

Another one on your list I'm looking forward to is affirmative action. So there was this recent Supreme Court case, and now colleges and universities have totally different rules in terms of how they do admissions, and you're right there in the thick of it, there at UVA.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah, I'm really interested in this one, too, because Virginia is lucky to have so many excellent public colleges and universities and so many different ones, too. We really have a lot of different kinds of higher education, so I'm interested in how that Supreme Court ruling looks and how it's affecting different kinds of colleges and universities differently. We have a lot to draw on here in Virginia. At the beginning of a lot of school years, a lot of colleges and universities will post a bunch of information about their incoming class. So, we're kind of eager to see if there are any changes that are noticeable from before the Supreme Court decision. 

Michael Pope  

One last question, and then we'll wrap it up. I really appreciate you coming on Pod Virginia. So your first episode as host has a date of July 19, 2024. I want you to think ahead to July 19, 2025. When you will be celebrating your one year anniversary as the host of Bold Dominion, what will you have accomplished in that year?

Mary Garner McGehee  

I'd love to see people get engaged with these topics and see these conversations happening between listeners. I mentioned I love the Brian Lehrer call-in show. And I think one cool thing about that is that, listeners are responding in real-time to each other often. I would love to see that happen. Hopefully, we're cooking up some ideas about how to maybe, um, foster that. I'm excited to learn a lot about living in Virginia, in these systems, and the government policies that impact our lives.

Michael Pope  

For our listeners, if you've got any ideas, hit up the folks at WTJU because they want your ideas about topics that they could explore as an explainer for state politics in a changing Virginia.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yes, absolutely. Like I said, the best email for that is wtjupodcast@virginia.edu. I should also say that all of the stuff we're exploring on the podcast, the guests, and stuff like that. We do not speak for the University of Virginia.

Michael Pope  

But you would be making a lot of money if you did. You have been listening to the new host of the Bold Dominion podcast, Mary Garner McGee; thanks for joining us on Pod Virginia.

Mary Garner McGehee  

Yeah. Thank you so much. It was an honor.