On March 31, Maine freelance radio producer, podcaster and documentarian, Caroline Losneck, visited the IMRC to discuss her experiences in the media business, specifically her efforts to find and recount unique stories of the lives of unsung individuals across Maine. “Making Stories in Maine,” as it was called, was one part of “From Talkies to TikTok – A Century of Storytelling,” the 2024-25 edition of the McGillicuddy Humanities Center Annual Symposium.
The speech began with an introduction that detailed the producer’s first foray into documenting lesser-known facets of North American culture. During her time living in British Columbia, she worked with the forestry department on the west coast of Vancouver Island as a treaty between the Canadian government and the Huwayat band of Nuxalk Indians (likely while the Maa-Nulth Final Agreement, signed in 2009 and implemented in 2011 was being drafted). Her role was to survey the old-growth woods for “culturally-modified trees,” ones that had been altered by the First Nations people, in some cases having been carved into entire unfinished dugout canoes. Such trees could then be declared off-limits to logging.
Somewhere far away from the Pacific Northwest, but surprisingly similar in geography, lies the coast of Maine, off of which is North Haven Island, the setting of the first podcast Losneck played during the lecture. The similarities don’t end there, as it was the Seattle-founded “Riot grrrl” feminist-punk movement that influenced locals Fiona Robins, Claire Donnelly and Courtney Naliboff to create their own feminist punk band, “Bait Bag.” Its name is both a reference to an item used by local fishermen and the antonyms “jailbait” and “old bag,” applied derisively to women, which the group seeks to reclaim the meaning of by intentionally using in spite of unsavory connotations. Based on the sample of music played in the podcast, I didn’t think the group had much lyrical originality or musical virtuosity to speak of, a sentiment echoed by one man Losneck interviewed during the ferry ride to the island, though neither he nor another interviewee who was more positive about their music were bigoted against the underlying sentiment.
Though relatively light on background details about her line of work, Losneck’s speech did bring up a few interesting points, the first of which pertained to editorial content. Apparently, major publications such as the New York Times are, to this day, less eager to hear gritty details about the lives of Mainers, as they instead prefer to present a stereotyped view of the state.
With the Times in particular being simultaneously praised for its liberal and worldly attitude and derided as an “ivory tower,” it is perhaps easier to see whence the latter charge originates if, as one may suspect based on Losneck’s assessment, they see economically and politically different parts of their home country as something of an “acceptable target” and do not hold themselves to the same standards of balance as they would when covering, for instance, a crisis in Africa.
Another reality of radio production, according to Losneck, is that there can sometimes be up to 40 minutes of raw audio behind one minute of a published interview. This was the case for “Music as a Refuge,” a radio segment about the Somali-born lutist Hadithi Abdulle and his experiences moving to Maine as a refugee. Growing up in Somalia, Hadithi had been fascinated by the oud — the Arabian version of the lute — for as long as he can remember, and not being otherwise drawn to academics, it was his local schoolteacher’s experience with the instrument that motivated him to not skip class as a child.
As his country grew increasingly war-torn, he witnessed his father get in trouble for writing anti-government poetry and was himself accosted by extremists for being “anti-Islamic,” even though there was nothing plainly blasphemous about his lyrics. As such, he decided in 2016 to seek refuge in Lewiston, like many other Somalis. Though he struggled with racism and poverty, as long as he had his trusty lute beside him, he could always take enough comfort in his music to never find the situation dire. The radio segment concludes by detailing his work with local music teacher Greg Boardman, to whose attention he first came via the Internet whilst still in Somalia, and volunteering at a local center for grieving children.
Losneck’s final work showcased during the talk was an op-doc: a short, opinionated documentary that she produced on behalf of the New York Times. Focusing on the hard but fulfilling life of scallop fisherman James Sewell of Cushing, Maine, “Diving for Scallops” immerses viewers in the often bleak, yet always iconic North Atlantic environment familiar to everyone who lives in Maine or is fond of it via media depictions, with underwater photographers following James as he picks scallops off the seafloor. Its focus on emotions over facts and downplaying of the trauma in the man’s life — it is only halfway through the video that we are shown that he has to do all of this with one arm, having lost the other in a snowmobile accident — was not Losneck’s creative decision. She mentioned that most of the “newsy” content she had wanted to include, including mentions of climate change, were cut at the behest of the Times.
All in all, “Making Stories in Maine” was an interesting look at the efforts of one journalist to cover lesser-known but fascinating local stories that make the state of Maine truly special.
