Do you listen to podcasts? Do you tune in to find out what’s happening in the world? To stay up-to-date on sports, music, film, fashion or TV? To get advice? To laugh? To hear a good story? To learn something new?
Imagine you — or you and several of your friends — were behind the microphone. What would you talk about? Who might you like to interview? What thoughts, talents, insights, opinions or stories would you want to share with the world?
In our Seventh Annual Podcast Contest, we invite teenagers to submit original podcasts of five minutes or less. Your creation can be about anything that interests you, in any form that you like. Our favorites will be featured on The Learning Network.
Take a look at the guidelines and related resources below. Please post any questions you have in the comments and we’ll answer you there, or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com.
The Challenge
Produce a podcast of five minutes or less that informs or entertains.
You can create a podcast on any topic you like in any format you like, whether that’s an interview with an expert, an informal conversation with a friend, a journalistic investigation, a fictional story or anything else you can think of. We welcome podcasts across genres, including, comedy, true crime, news documentary, history, radio theater and sports — let your imagination run wild.
Just make sure that whatever you produce is a complete listening experience. That is, your podcast should have a clear beginning, middle and end.
Your submission can be an excerpt from a longer podcast, as long as you demonstrate thoughtfulness about how you are using time. The beginning, for example, should give listeners some context as to what they’re hearing; the ending can be a hard “end” of the podcast, or it can be the conclusion of a segment, or even the closing of an introduction within a longer episode.
A Few Rules
In addition to the guidelines above, here are a few more details:
You must be a student ages 13 to 19 in middle school or high school to participate, and all students must have parent or guardian permission to enter. Please see the F.A.Q. section for additional eligibility details.
Please be sure to use non-copyrighted sound effects or music, with some exceptions. You can find royalty-free music and sound effects on Freesound and SoundBible, or by doing a web search for royalty-free files. You can also use audio editing software to create your own music or sound effects. There are limited fair use exceptions when you can legally use copyrighted music or sound effects, such as when you are critiquing a song or reporting on a film. Read more about those exceptions to ensure that your use of copyrighted material does not infringe on copyright protections. If you use any music or sounds effects, please list the sources in the designated field in the submission form.
We suggest uploading your podcast to SoundCloud to make it easier for our judges to listen to your work. Make sure that the track settings are set to “public.” Our judges will also listen to entries hosted on other podcasting sites, including Podomatic, Buzzsprout, Anchor, Spreaker and Podbean. Please make sure you follow your hosting site’s terms of service. Note: Our judges have often had difficulty listening to podcasts hosted on GoogleDrive, so we strongly recommend you use a different method.
Your piece should be no longer than five minutes. Please be sure to check the length of your audio file before submitting. Just to be very clear, 5:01 is longer than five minutes.
The work you submit should be fundamentally your own — it should not be plagiarized, written by someone else or generated by artificial intelligence.
Your podcast must be original for this contest. That means it should not already have been published at the time of submission, whether by a radio station, another contest or an any other site (not including your own page or a teacher’s class page). However, after you submit to this contest, you are allowed to submit your entry to another publication or contest for possible publication.
Keep in mind that the work you send in should be appropriate for a Times audience — that is, something that could be published in a family newspaper (so, please, no curse words).
You may work alone or with a group, but students should submit only one entry each.
You must also submit a short, informal “artist’s statement” as part of your submission, that describes your process. These statements, which will not be used to choose finalists, help us to design and refine our contests. See the F.A.Q. to learn more.
All entries must be submitted by May 15, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time using the electronic form below.
Resources for Teachers and Students
Use these resources to help you create a podcast:
A unit plan on writing for podcasts, which includes writing prompts to inspire your work; a mentor text featuring past winners of our contest; a lesson plan that focuses on storytelling, interviewing, editing and producing; and much more.
Three short videos from two Times audio producers and one student contest winner who share tips on how to plan, script and record meaningful podcasts.
A recorded webinar on writing for podcasts in which you’ll hear from a school librarian with experience teaching podcasting to students, New York Times podcast producers and previous student winners of our contest.
Our winners from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018, as well as a video with advice from several of them (below).
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to your questions about writing, judging, the rules and teaching with this contest. Please read these thoroughly and, if you still can’t find what you’re looking for, post your query in the comments or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com.
QUESTIONS ABOUT PODCASTING
What is a podcast?
Simply put: Podcasts are audio programs that can take almost any form. They can be a news report or a one-act play; a formal interview or a friendly conversation; a personal narrative or a book review. Some podcasts are informative, others are entertaining, and others try to persuade. They can be funny, serious, thought-provoking or emotional. In short, your podcast can be pretty much whatever you want it to be.
How can I make my podcast stand out?
We are primarily looking for thoughtful pieces with a clear beginning, middle and ending. Here are a few tips to get your podcast noticed by our judges:
Choose a topic that matters to you. Not only will your passion sustain you during the creative process, but it will shine through in the final product. Remember, though, you have only five minutes, so make sure you choose something that you can do justice in that time. For example, you probably won’t be able to take on all of climate change, but you can focus on a small aspect of it, like food waste in your community.
Use a format that brings your topic to life. Ask yourself: What is the best way to tell this story? Is it appropriate to tell the story from your own point of view or should you interview an expert? Does it make sense for the podcast to have a rigid structure or should it be more of a free flowing conversation? Should it be nonfiction or could a fictional story be more entertaining or meaningful?
Prepare. Before recording your podcast, create an outline or a script. Having a plan will both help you make the most use of your five minutes, and make it easier for your listener to follow along.
Make sure your audio is clear. You don’t need to have high-grade recording equipment to make a great podcast, but do be mindful to speak clearly and to eliminate background noise as much as possible.
Use sound thoughtfully and intentionally. Spoken word, music, sound effects and environmental noise can all make for a compelling listening experience. Consider how you might use them strategically to provide context, create structure for your podcast and engage your listeners’ emotions.
How do I come up with a topic for my podcast?
Your podcast can be about anything. To get ideas, start by browsing our list of 1,000 writing prompts, which includes questions on everything from video games and fashion to smartphones and parenting. Try responding to a few prompts that interest you. Then, you might choose one you enjoyed writing about as inspiration for your podcast.
If you’re thinking about sharing a personal story, take a look at these prompts for personal and narrative writing. If you want to assert an opinion or engage in a debate, look at this list of prompts for argumentative writing. You can find even more in our Writing Prompts column, where we publish a new question every school day.
Can someone else produce or edit my work?
You are welcome to get feedback on and suggestions for your podcast, but the work you submit, including the editing and production, should be fundamentally your own.
Where can I find examples of podcasts in The Times?
You can find all regular Times podcasts in the Podcast column, and special narrative projects from Serial Productions here. Here are a few of our favorites:
“The Daily,” a 20-minute morning news program powered by New York Times journalism.
“Still Processing,” a show about all things culture, from television and music to dating and the internet.
“Modern Love,” stories that explore the complicated love lives of real people.
“Popcast,” a podcast by the The Times’s pop music team on music news, new songs and albums, and artists of note.
“The Opinions,” short (5-10 minutes) audio essays from the Opinion section.
But remember, you’re not limited to The Times for inspiration. You can find other podcast recommendations in the Arts section, such as this list of suggestions from 36 podcast personalities.
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QUESTIONS ABOUT JUDGING
How will my podcast be judged?
Your work will be listened to by producers and journalists on The New York Times podcast team as well as by Learning Network staff members, professional podcasters and educators from around the United States. We will use this rubric to judge entries.
Why are you asking for an Artist’s Statement about our process? What will you do with it?
All of us who work on The Learning Network are former teachers. One of the many things we miss, now that we work in a newsroom rather than a classroom, is being able to see how students are reacting to our “assignments” in real time — and to offer help, or tweaks, to make those assignments better. We’re asking you to reflect on what you did and why, and what was hard or easy about it, in large part so that we can improve our contests and the curriculum we create to support them. This is especially important for new contests, like this one.
Another reason? We have heard from many teachers that writing these statements is immensely helpful to students. Stepping back from a piece and trying to put into words what you wanted to express, and why and how you made artistic choices to do that, can help you see your piece anew and figure out how to make it stronger. For our staff, they offer important context that help us understand individual students and submissions, and learn more about the conditions under which students around the world create.
What’s the prize?
Having your work published on The Learning Network.
When will the winners be announced?
About two months after the contest has closed.
My podcast wasn’t selected as a winner. Can you tell me why?
We typically receive over a thousand entries for this contest, so, unfortunately, our team does not have the capacity to provide individual feedback.
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QUESTIONS ABOUT TEACHING WITH THIS CONTEST
I’m a teacher. What resources do you have to help me teach with this contest?
Start with our unit plan for creating a podcast. It includes writing prompts, mentor texts and lesson plans that can support this contest. To learn more about how to teach with this unit, watch our on-demand webinar.
Do my students need a New York Times subscription to use these resources?
No. The Learning Network is completely free.
What can you tell me about student copyright and privacy issues?
Students retain the copyright in their work. That means that they own their work, and can sell it and/or have it published elsewhere after submitting it to our contest.
However, by submitting an entry, a student — or if they are not yet 18 years old, then their parent or guardian — agrees that The Times can use the submission in print in The New York Times and online at nytimes.com. And they agree that The Times can authorize third parties to do so as well. The permission form is part of the submission process.
Students are not required to provide their full name. We let students and their families decide how they want to identify themselves if their entry is selected as a finalist.
Please contact us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com if you have other concerns about privacy issues.
Submission Form
We will post the submission form here on April 17, the day the contest opens.
