Nikolas Harter

“We produced a podcast pilot episode together. Our collaboration was on many levels a pleasure: I very much appreciated Nik’s open-minded approach, his critical and constructive feedback, and his great audio editing skills. I admired the way Nik conducted personal interviews, with the perfect balance of persistence, curiosity, and respect for the person he was talking to.”

“I was relieved to be welcomed in such an engaging manner by Nik Harter, when I visited the City College of San Francisco's radio studios seeking help in setting up the Poetry for the People Podcast, in connection with creative writing courses I was taking at the campus. Nik turned out to be as artful and technically proficient in his engineering and editing as he was friendly in those repeated sessions, which involved positioning me (as host) and several of my fellow student poets in a studio, recording our lively interactions and readings, and then (after we'd departed) editing the results and adding theme music, etc., to make for entertaining podcasts, still available on the Web. ”

“Nik revitalized City College of San Francisco's radio station during his tenure as General Manager. He re-oriented the station towards public affairs programming and community service. Other recommendations on this page attest to his skills as storyteller, interviewer, audio engineer and podcast coach, and I agree with all of them. I can add that Nik is an inspiring leader who brought peace and productivity to this student-run radio station. Nik is a supremely thoughtful and caring person, which was apparent in his management style and his multimedia journalism. It was a pleasure to be his faculty advisor and he has my highest recommendation. ”

“This is Jonathan Freedman, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author. I give my highest recommendation to Nikolas Harter as a podcast producer. Let me tell you why. Prior to meeting Nikolas, I had written several books and numerous articles, appeared on radio and television interviews, but I had no experience recording a podcast. Dr. Steven Mayers, a professor at City College of San Francisco (CCSF), and I had recently co-edited a book, Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders With Youth Refugees From Central America. The book was a work of contemporary oral history involving fifteen youth migrants who told their stories. We wanted to create a podcast that would bring these stories to life in an audio format. We approached Nikolas at CCSF radio, and he coached us on how to conduct a podcast. We brought two of our narrators into the studio. We were all rather nervous and inexperienced. Nikolas put us at ease with his warm and easy manner, set up the microphones and within minutes gave us the signal to start recording. We conducted four interviews, each running about 45 minutes long. The interviews had gaps and needed editing. We hired Nikolas to review the recordings and to edit them. He then took music that Steven Mayers and a jazz combo had performed, and incorporated the music into the podcasts, giving them a dramatic resonance that enhanced them greatly. Nikolas then uploaded the podcasts to Soundcloud. All through this process, Nikolas maintained a warm, calm and friendly manner that enabled the different participants to express themselves and tell their stories. It was an amazing experience! Nikolas charged us reasonable rates, which we were glad to pay. He's a great guy to work with. If you have a project, please contact him and explain what you want to do. He'll help you at every stage of the process, and if there are things that need editing or redoing, which often is the case, you'll find him attentive, flexible and committed to making your podcast a success. On time and within budget.”