A conversation with Tegan Taylor of ABC’s Coronacast

Images courtesy of the ABC.

As part of the 2021 ASRA Conference, Survival and Revival, we will be talking to Tegan Taylor, one of the presenters of the ABC podcast, Coronacast.

In late February, 2020, the ABC decided to launch a daily podcast about the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, no one thought the podcast would still be running more than 18 months later. The podcast is produced by a small team: co-hosts Dr Norman Swan and Tegan Taylor with producer Will Ockenden. The team lives across three different cities, which have been subject to various restrictions over the course of the pandemic, forcing creativity in how the podcast is produced. A variety of ABC studios, walk-in wardrobes, cars, doonas and towels have been involved in getting a consistent sound. The response of the audience to Coronacast has been huge – the ABC has received hundreds of thousands of questions over the course of the pandemic, and Coronacast has quickly become one of the biggest podcasts in Australia, demonstrating people’s hunger for information about the pandemic.

There is no doubt that Coronacast has become a bastion for well-researched and strong information in a time when we are overloaded with news, social media, theories, reports, gossip and other sources of information. As such, we know that this conversation will provide an insight into the processes of providing such a calming and reassuring voice for the masses.

A conversation with Tegan Taylor of ABC’s Coronacast will be held at 10am on Wednesday, November 10, as part of the 2021 ASRA conference. Registrations and the full program can be found on the ‘conferences’ page of this website.