Salman Ahad Khan ’22 just had the kind of summer he would’ve only dreamed about during his undergraduate days at Georgetown University’s campus in Qatar. The “Clarence X” episode of the “More Perfect” podcast he works on at WNYC made a number of best-of podcast lists, including in Vogue and in New York Magazine’s Vulture.
The reaction to that bombshell episode about Clarence Thomas’s early years capped off a whirlwind post-Newmark J-School year for Khan, an Arts and Culture graduate whose family is from Pakistan and who was born and raised in Qatar. Now one of the producers on the Supreme Court-focused podcast, Khan was wrapping up production on an upcoming episode about the Moore V. Harper gerrymandering case — in collaboration with The New Yorker — when we chatted in the late summer.
Here, Khan (who, full disclosure, was a Craft student of mine in 2021 when I co-taught the class with Wil Cruz, a member of the Newmark J-School faculty) walks us through what it was like to produce the groundbreaking episode on Clarence Thomas, and what life has been like since his days at 219 W. 40th St.
— Salma Abdelnour Gilman, Head of Newmark J-School’s Alumni Affairs Department
Congrats on making all those best-of podcast lists for “More Perfect,” and especially on the shoutouts for the “Clarence X” episode you worked on. Can you describe your role in producing that Clarence Thomas episode?
Khan: When I joined the show, we were two months away from launch and they already had the idea to do a Clarence Thomas episode based on a book by a CUNY professor, Corey Robin, called “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas.”
Honestly, most of us don’t listen to Supreme Court judges that often in our day-to-day lives. Especially Clarence Thomas, because for years he barely ever spoke. “He’s Scalia’s puppet. He’s one of the most conservative:” Those are the things most people knew about his legal philosophy.
So, how did this person who was a follower of Malcolm X and went to civil rights protests end up being this guy? We wanted to talk about one specific thing: How did Black nationalism influence Thomas’ judicial opinions?
My first week on the job, I was handed the Corey Robin book and some law review articles, so I got a head start on the story. We wanted to figure out who would be the best people to interview to start to find out who Clarence Thomas was in his younger days. We wanted Clarence Thomas’s voice to weave in and out of the episodes.
Since we didn’t interview Clarence Thomas, I sat through dozens of hours of interviews [with Thomas]. One of the first people we reached out to was Juan Williams, who is now at Fox but used to write for The Atlantic. Williams had done multiple articles on Thomas over the years, and had spent a five-year period following him around. He was pretty much the first person to write about Clarence Thomas back when he was just an aide to a senator, and his first article about Thomas for The Washington Post basically put him into the spotlight. We wanted to know [from Williams]: What was it like to be the person who put Clarence Thomas on the map and what was he like back then?
Take us through what it was like for you behind the scenes, producing the extraordinary interviews that made it into the podcast.
Before we go into an interview, we sketch out in a lot of detail exactly what questions we want to ask and an idea of the narrative arc of the story. We usually have a good idea of what we want to get out of the interview– for example with Juan Williams, we wanted him to talk about how he ran into Clarence Thomas in the first place, to put us in the scene, and to talk about how his views evolved over time.
Every episode has one lead producer assigned. For the “Clarence X” episode, I was lead producer, working directly with Julia Longoria, who was the co-producer and host.
Since this episode was hosted by Julia, I was talking to Julia on the back end, so we had a separate chat going while she was doing the interviews. All the interviews were done virtually.
While she’s interviewing, the producer is usually chatting with her to say, for example, why don’t we push him on this question, or ask this next?
I usually write the first draft of the questions, then she goes in and writes them how she would ask them. This is the most inspiring part of the process for me. It’s magical to see Julia in an interview because of how much she’s able to get people talking in a really engaging way from the get-go. I also interned with Julia in my internship in my spring semester on the show she was working on before, “The Experiment,” with The Atlantic. You’re watching a real professional do their thing.
What’s been the reaction to the Clarence Thomas episode from listeners?
We got some really good feedback and got featured on a couple of end-of-year lists, and also got negative feedback about why we even chose to feature him on an episode, which we also kind of expected since he’s such a controversial figure.
But from the very beginning, we wanted to focus on the things that don’t get talked about as much and so we focused our episode around the development of his legal philosophy, with a focus on his approach to affirmative action. How does this guy who benefited from affirmative action end up opposed to it? I think our episode did a good job of laying that out.
What was your path to getting this job, since graduating from Newmark in December 2022?
In my spring semester in J-School, I applied for an internship at WNYC’s “The Experiment” and I got it. By that time I had more audio experience than most interns because I had been doing audio stuff on the side independently, so I knew my way around audio software and could sound design as well. My manager asked me if I had any goals for the internship, so I put in a big pipe dream goal: I’d like to produce an episode during my internship.
It was a small team but a supportive team, and since they knew that I knew how to cut tape, they said if you want to pitch a story, pitch it. In my second or third week there, the Ukraine war had already started and The Atlantic folks were eager to do a story on it featuring one of their writers. I pitched a story and they said go for it. I ended up being the lead producer on that episode, “One American Family’s Debt to Ukraine.”
While working on that story, I felt like I had 50 safety nets behind me, a team of some of the best producers in the business saying, “Hey, you’re in charge now. What do you want this episode to do?” It was such a supportive and nurturing environment. It gave me the confidence to take a lot of risks. Bad analogy: It’s like you’re given the steering wheel to a really well-built Formula One car but if you veer off course, a lot of people are there to help. I didn’t feel stressed while doing it. If I had done anything wrong, I was working with three of the best producers in the business who would step in to make everything better!
How did you end up at “More Perfect” after that?
After I finished the internship at “The Experiment,” the show got canceled by The Atlantic, so at that point I was looking for a job. I ended up getting a job through another J-School professor of mine, Mia Lobel. She recommended me to someone at Pushkin, which is Malcolm Gladwell’s audio production company, and I ended up working on a couple shows there for the summer. I was also still in touch with the WNYC people, and when [“The Experiment”] was canceled, I wanted to do everything I could to get back to working with the same team.
When “The Experiment” shut down, WNYC announced they would be re-launching “More Perfect.” It had started back in 2016 and shut down in 2019, then they were launching it with a new team that included the producers who I had previously worked with at “The Experiment.” I heard from Julia [Longoria[ that they would have an AP position open there and encouraged me to apply. During the job hunt, I went through so many interviews and edits tests and made it to the final rounds at a couple of places, but then I often got ghosted or rejected at the last stage. I actually moved back to Qatar because I thought I wouldn’t end up getting a job here. I’m also an international student, so there are a lot of extra barriers to getting a job. But then, I finally heard from “More Perfect” when I had moved back home so I finally came back to the U.S., in mid-February 2023.
How did you initially decide to go to J-School after you did your undergrad in Qatar?
I studied politics in undergrad but ended up not working in politics — though now I’m working on a really political show. I was working at a non-profit in Qatar called Qatar Foundation, doing comms and content work. I had started pitching them a podcast and was telling them why they should be investing in podcasts. I wanted to do a show with a colleague about education, and to ask lofty questions and do it in this narrative style. That show got canceled when we were in the middle of production.
That cancellation was the trigger for me to do journalism and production work full-time. I had started working on a series on Muslim history and culture with a professor [in Qatar], and I realized I needed some experience working with people who did this for a living. I remember when I left Qatar, I thought the only reason I would want to stay in the U.S. [after J-School] is if I got a job at Gimlet, WNYC or the Times, and thankfully, I did end up getting a job at one of those places!
What sealed your decision to attend Newmark J-School at the City University of New York?
I came to CUNY because it has a fantastic audio program. I had met Kalli [Anderson] at an online audio conference when I was in Qatar, and she offered to let me sit in on a class. I sat in on an audio documentary class and thought, I want to be part of this setting. CUNY has great professors, great value, and a great network of alumni everywhere.
It was a school that I wasn’t familiar with, coming from Pakistan and Qatar. The other school I was thinking about was Columbia, but it’s insanely expensive and they don’t have as fleshed-out an audio program.
I also really wanted to work with producers like Amanda Aronczyk because I loved “Planet Money,” but when I started the program, she wasn’t teaching any classes at the school anymore. So in my second semester, I actually proposed an independent study to see if she might be interested in working with me one-on-one on a story and she agreed! Working with Amanda was truly one of the best experiences. I learned so much in that semester and we’ve kept in touch.
At WNYC, a senior editor once told me that they love CUNY alumni at WNYC, and that they often bring something special. After I started working here, I realized how true that really was and discovered there are CUNY students and alumni in the newsroom everywhere.