Bandwagon Follows Bernie Sanders' Fans

A public radio producer and recent Middlebury College grad is devoting the entire inaugural season of his new podcast series to following the presidential aspirations of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — or, more accurately, to following people around the country who are "feeling the Bern."

Bandwagon, which bills itself as "a podcast about being a part of something larger than yourself," is the brainchild of Josh Swartz, who graduated Middlebury in January 2015. The 23-year-old radio producer, who lives in Providence, R.I., and works for Public Radio Exchange in Cambridge, Mass., has been following Sanders' supporters in real time since he launched the series over the summer. In each episode, Swartz profiles a different Bernie backer, or group of backers, as they try to build momentum for Sanders' national grassroots campaign.

"I'm a big podcast fan," explains Swartz in a phone interview, "and I love the idea of combining the intimate storytelling of podcasting with the newsy journalistic information that ... typical news stories don't have time to get into."

Swartz says he conceived the idea for Bandwagon while attending the Transom Story Workshop, an intensive eight-week program in Woods Hole, Mass., that teaches public radio tools and techniques to aspiring producers.

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