Martina Castro is an Uruguayan-American audio journalist, editor, producer, and educator. She is the CEO and founder of Adonde Media, a podcast production company and host of the Duolingo Spanish and The Vivo Songbook Podcasts. She co-founded and produced Radio Ambulante, the first Spanish-language podcast distributed by NPR.
Martina Castro | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1982 (age 41–42) Maryland, United States |
| Alma mater | Amherst College |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, editor, producer, educator |
| Website | martinacastro |
Early life and education
editCastro was born in 1982 in Maryland to a mother and father from Montevideo, Uruguay.[1] As a young child, she first spoke Spanish and then learned English,[2] and then immersed herself in Spanish during a month-long visit to Uruguay when she was 13, after which she has said she began to think in Spanish.[1] Throughout her childhood, she regularly visited her family in Uruguay.[3]
Castro attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia,[citation needed] and then attended Amherst College. While in college, Castro wrote the first blog for NPR's Next Generation Radio program.[3] Castro graduated from Amherst in 2004,[4] majoring in women's and gender studies.
Career
editAfter graduating college, Castro had an internship at NPR, and then worked at NPR for four and a half years on a variety of NPR's newsprograms.[3] After NPR, she worked at KALW, an NPR member station in San Francisco, California. At KALW, she was a managing editor of the KALW show Crosscurrents and produced a series titled Audiophiles.[5]
In 2011, Castro co-founded Radio Ambulante with Daniel Alarcón, Carolina Guerrero, and Annie Correal;[6][7][8] the show is now distributed by NPR,[9] and Castro also worked as a sound designer for the project.[10] Castro has also worked independently on other projects for All Things Considered and Morning Edition.
In 2015, Castro received a Fulbright grant to teach the art of audio storytelling at the University of Montevideo in Uruguay. She then moved to Chile and applied to the incubator program StartUp Chile.[2] In that program, she started Adonde Media, a global production company focused on podcasts in Spanish.[3]
Since its founding in 2017, Adonde Media clients have included Duolingo, TED, Spotify, Vice News, and Georgetown University.[9] In 2017, the Duolingo Spanish Podcast launched, hosted and co-produced by Castro, to support English speakers learning Spanish, using true first-person stories from around the Spanish-speaking world.[11][12] In 2020, Castro narrated a six-part series titled "El Gran Robo Argentino" ("The Great Argentine Heist") on the Duolingo Spanish Podcast, focused on the true story of a 2006 bank robbery in Argentina,[13] with interviews of people related to the historical event.[14][15]
Castro has also focused on data collection about podcast user interests and habits; in 2019, the community of Spanish language podcasters that she co-founded called Podcaster@s, conducted the first collaborative podcast listener survey,[16] and in 2020, Adonde Media was a funder of the first U.S. Latino Podcast Listener Report by Edison Research.[9][17]
In 2020, Adonde Media announced it would produce and distribute the fifth season of the Spanish-language podcast, Las Raras, with Castro as the executive producer.[9] Castro was the executive producer of the Las Raras episode "Cruces en el desierto" (Crosses in the Desert),[18] which won the 2020 Best Audio Documentary award from the International Documentary Association.[19] In 2021, Adonde Media and Hrishikesh Hirway announced their partnership with support from PRX's Radiotopia to produce a spinoff of Song Exploder, titled Canción Exploder, for Spanish-speaking audiences.[20]
Awards and honors
edit- 2010 New Voices Scholar, Association of Independents in Radio[21]
- 2014 National Edward R. Murrow award for News Documentary[22] (host, editor, and producer of The Race to an Emergency)[23]
- 2020 Best Audio Documentary award, International Documentary Association (executive producer of Crosses in the Desert / Cruces en el desierto)[19][24][25]
References
edit- ^ a b Guerra Correa, Fabio (2016-03-04). "Hablame de vos". Brecha (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ a b "Storyteller Extraordinaire Martina Castro Has Her Own Exceptional Story" (PDF). Latina to Latina. Lantigua Williams & Co. February 17, 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ a b c d "How this Latina Built her Career in Podcasting: The Martina Castro Story". SerProducer. 2020-01-17. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
- ^ Duke, Katherine (December 5, 2018). ""Gracias por escuchar" | Amherst Creates | Amherst College". www.amherst.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
- ^ "Entering the soundscape with Bernie Krause". KALW. March 21, 2013. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
- ^ Linares, Albinson (September 27, 2017). "Radio Ambulante, donde los latinoamericanos cuentan América Latina". The New York Times (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 October 2021.
- ^ Egaña, Crysly (2021-03-05). "Radio Ambulante: una década de riguroso contenido artesanal". El Nacional (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ De Los Monteros, Maria Jesus Espinosa (October 16, 2020). "El imparable auge del 'podcast'". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 October 2021.
- ^ a b c d Quah, Nicholas (2020-10-27). "The Rise of the Politician Podcast". Vulture. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
- ^ "This animated video shows what it was like to grow up in Pinochet's Chile". PRI. March 6, 2014. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ "Duolingo Rolls Out New Language-Learning Podcast". Language Magazine. December 8, 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Sesin, Carmen (2017-12-12). "If you're trying to get better at Spanish, this travel stories podcast will keep you engaged". NBC News. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ "A 15 años del Robo del Siglo: se evaporaron 17 millones de dólares y los ladrones ya están libres". La Capital (in Spanish). January 13, 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Lyons, Kim (2020-10-22). "Duolingo's bilingual true crime podcast will entertain you while you learn Spanish". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ "Un podcast propone documentar "El verdadero robo del siglo"". Télam (in Spanish). February 2, 2021. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ Moore, Justine; Moore, Olivia (August 21, 2019). "After a breakout year, looking ahead to the future of podcasting". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ Reyes, Eréndira (July 29, 2020). "Las plataformas de aprendizaje se transforman en plataformas de entretenimiento". Expansión (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 October 2021.
- ^ Pacchiani, Serena (February 10, 2021). "A journey with no return: Cruces en el desierto". BrusselsMorning. Retrieved 22 October 2021.
- ^ a b "36th Annual IDA Documentary Awards". International Documentary Association. 27 October 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Spangler, Todd (2021-09-09). "James Bond 'No Time to Die' Official Podcast Goes Live (Podcast News Roundup)". Variety. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
- ^ "Announcing AIR's 2019 New Voices Scholars | AIR". airmedia.org. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
- ^ "2014 National Edward R. Murrow Award Winners". www.rtdna.org. Retrieved 2021-06-01.
- ^ "Credits". The Race to an Emergency. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Thompson, Anne (November 24, 2020). "Netflix's 'Crip Camp' Leads International Documentary Association Awards Nominations". IndieWire. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
- ^ Feinberg, Scott (November 24, 2020). "IDA Awards: 'Crip Camp,' 'MLK/FBI,' 'Time' and 'Truffle Hunters' Among Nom Leaders". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 21 October 2021.