Alana Casanova-Burgess Interview
Alana Casanova-Burgess is the host and co-creator of La Brega, a podcast that “tells stories of an island and a people trying to cope with too many challenges, and who deserve and demand better.” That island, of course, is Puerto Rico. Their second season recently launched, just before I talked with Alana via email.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I started as an intern at WNYC (New York Public Radio) when I was in graduate school like 12 or 13 years ago, and actually initially didn’t really want to be working in radio. But I was with The Brian Lehrer Show for a summer (that’s the live public affairs call-in show for NYC and surrounding areas), and I just loved the sense of community that that show fosters. Brian and his team “convene a conversation” and it really feels like the whole city is coming together to talk over an issue. I ended up getting hired and sticking around for four or five years, and then I pitched an episode about Latino/Spanish-language media to another WNYC program called On the Media, and that was a gateway into feeling how satisfying it can be to do produced interviews—you know, where you record a long conversation and then cut it down to the best parts with a beginning, a middle, and an end. On the Media definitely has a point of view. Brooke Gladstone and her team are always thinking harder and deeper about issues, really pushing beyond the obvious analysis. And I grew a lot there in terms of critical thinking but also learning from Brooke’s writing (she gets a lot of props in the industry for her editing, but I think it’s her writing that really makes the show shine).
I had already done some reporting from Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, so the station sent me to Puerto Rico to cover the aftermath for a few different shows. The thinking there was that there’s such a big Puerto Rican population in our listening area. The reporting that I did from there got me noticed, I guess, and also gave me more of an appetite for reporting pieces in my own voice, or even just pitching more ambitious field-reported pieces with Brooke. And then Futuro Studios and Marlon Bishop asked if I would be interested in doing a narrative podcast about Puerto Rico, and we figured out a way to make it work under the WNYC umbrella. The rest is history. A lot of it was about getting an inkling of something I wanted to try next and then leaning into that.