Dublin Teens' Podcast Encourages Peers To Broaden Their Horizons

DUBLIN, CA — Two Dublin High School seniors have launched a podcast to educate their peers on complex topics and encourage them to seek perspectives from all sides of a story.

Longtime friends Parth Joshi and Pratham Dalal said they launched The Parth and Pratham Show podcast to bridge the gap between a younger generation and adult experts. Guests on the podcast have discussed the pandemic's impact on teens, the environment and the restaurant industry.

They talked police brutality with the school's Black Student Union president and learned about police reform from a Dublin Police Department captain. State Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan has been a guest, too.

"We kind of want to target ignorance," Joshi said. "People who just aren't looking at other people's perspectives, people who aren't opening up their horizon."

Dalal — a student journalist with experience in podcasting — is the people person with a knack for interviews. Joshi is more science, technology, engineering and math-minded and takes the lead on technical aspects of production, including editing and their website.

Joshi and Dalal act as the stand-in for their listener — typically a young adult or teen — and try to present the expert information in a way that is comprehensible to younger minds. They said they know what their target audience needs because they're in that demographic, too.

"We want to create a multi-generational line of communication," Dalal said.

Young people are keen on tuning in to podcasts, so the duo identified this medium as one that could help effectively communicate messages from adult experts.

Joshi and Dalal said protests in the wake of George Floyd's death prompted them to launch the podcast. Joshi felt he wasn't doing enough to learn and called up Dalal to see if he'd be interested in collaborating on a podcast. Dalal was onboard and had been brainstorming something similar, Joshi said.

Joshi and Dalal use their show's Instagram account to notify listeners in advance of their guests and give them the opportunity to ask questions.

They hope that by informing their listeners of these issues at a younger age, they'll be better prepared to confront these matters as adults.

"We are the future," Joshi said. "The changes and things that have to be made have to be made by us."

Watch video recordings of The Parth and Pratham Show here, and listen on Spotify and other podcasting platforms. Listeners can keep in touch with Joshi and Dalal by checking out their website and emailing parthandprathamshow@gmail.com.