Reintroducing FEDtalk
Summary
Hosts introduce FEDtalk 3.0 as the next generation of the FEDtalk podcast, with a new format and approach while maintaining a focus on improving and informing the federal community. Hosts Jason Briefel and Natalia Castro discuss the history of FEDtalk, starting with its origins as a live call-in radio show for legal advice and employment matters. Next, learn about the transition to FEDtalk 2.0, a live recording in a studio. Then, the shift to remote recording during the pandemic is highlighted as a transformative experience. FEDtalk 3.0 is features co-hosts and a new season-based format. Season 1, Federal Government in Flux, airs January thru May 2024.
Takeaways
FEDtalk 3.0 is the next generation of the FEDtalk podcast, with a new format and approach.
The history of FEDtalk includes its origins as a live call-in radio show for legal advice and employment matters. Mike Causey invited Jerry Shaw to start FEDtalk on the early Federal News Radio.
FEDtalk 2.0 involved live recordings in a studio, while FEDtalk 3.0 embraced remote recording during the pandemic and the same wide range of engaging guests.
FEDtalk 3.0 will be co-hosted by Jason Briefel & Natalia Castro and follows a new season-based format. Season 1 will air January – May 2024.
FEDtalk Season 1 2024 – Federal Government in Flux will explore how change is affecting all 3 branches of government
The FEDtalk podcast archives (prior to 2024) can be accessed here.
Chapters
00:00Introduction to FEDtalk and History of FEDtalk
03:07Transition to FEDtalk 2.0
05:40Transition to FEDtalk 3.0
07:23Overview of FEDtalk 3.0 and Season 1: Federal Government In Flux
09:43Approach of FEDtalk 3.0 and Co-Hosting: Jason Briefel & Natalia Castro
11:36Focus on Branches of Government and Major Problems
13:51Importance of Big Questions and Impact on Trust in Government
16:05Preview of First Part of FEDtalk Season 1, 2024
17:44Closing Remarks and Invitation to Listen
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Natalia Castro (00:05.822)
Good morning and welcome to Fed Talk. My name is Natalia Castro.
Jason Briefel (00:10.416)
And I'm Jason Breifel.
Natalia Castro (00:12.058)
and we're your hosts. Today, we are kicking off Fed Talk 3.0, the next generation of our Fed Talk podcast. Fed Talk has been around since the early 90s, and it was not always a podcast, and it was not always a kind of conversation among dynamic guests as it is today. So today, we are going to walk you through the history of Fed Talk to introduce Fed Talk 3.0.
the next generation of this podcast with a totally new format, a new approach, but the same timeless content focused on improving the federal community. Jason, why don't you kick those off by talking about FedTalk 1.0?
Jason Briefel (00:55.886)
Sure thing, Natalia, happy to do so. This is kind of an urban legend here at Shaw Bransford and Roth of how this all happened and how this went down. And as I understand it, in the very, very early days of federal news radio when they were broadcasting out of a house somewhere in Arlington, Northern Virginia with the big antenna strapped to the rooftop, Mike Causey, when he had left the Washington Post and the Federal Diary Post there.
Natalia Castro (01:16.789)
Heh.
Jason Briefel (01:24.006)
helped that new station get off the ground and he called his buddy Jerry Shaw up to talk about firing his program.
Natalia Castro (01:34.106)
Jerry Shaw, the original founder of our law firm and our namesake, Shaw, Bransford and Roth. So the history of Fed Talk really does begin at the start of our law firm's history. Now that show wasn't exactly what we have today where we host conversations about key things going on in the federal community. The format was pretty different, right?
Jason Briefel (01:57.546)
Yeah, as I understand it, this was literally like a live call in radio show for legal advice and employment matters. And so people would have issues or questions about personnel management, and they would call in and get some kind of advice about this. I can admit to never having listened to these, although we recently got a big box of tapes back from our storage unit.
Natalia Castro (02:23.086)
And we do mean tapes. We're not even talking CDs yet. We got the tapes.
Jason Briefel (02:29.11)
We got the real tapes. But as you might imagine, that was not without some risks and challenges, as a law firm giving out advice. In that way, it was something that we moved away from over time and moved toward the format that folks have come to know and appreciate that we have here on FedTech, where we're having conversations still about these critical issues that are in the federal community, but less explicitly
the legal ins and outs and how to navigate some of those tricky employment personnel situations.
Natalia Castro (03:07.59)
And that takes us to Fed Talk 2.0 on Federal News Radio at the time. And that, oh, that's when I started Fed Talk. So this is a really interesting generation of Fed Talk for me. We would go into the WTOP Federal News Radio studio. We would sit around a table with a microphone. As soon as 1105 hit the clock, we would start recording our live.
program. It was a little bit stressful. I'm not gonna lie, you're always kind of watching the clock making sure that you don't run over anything like that. The guests needed to arrive right on time so we could be on air at the right time. And it was a really fun and interesting way to do Fed Talk. It was the first time I had ever been kind of live on radio 1500 am. But it was also a little bit inflexible.
Jason Briefel (03:53.3)
Yeah.
Jason Briefel (04:05.514)
Yeah, you're right. And I will tell you in the early days, when I first started doing Fed Talk, there was at least one episode where I threw up beforehand because I was so nervous. That was just once, but it happened. And you're right, you know, there's a lot of work to outline and prep and get everyone there and then to do it right in one shot. You know, you don't have the ability to rewind history when you're broadcasting live.
on air on a high-power signal in the DC area.
Natalia Castro (04:38.746)
Yeah, we could go on and on the live taping horror stories. I'll never forget when my guest accidentally went to our office 30 minutes away from the studio at the meeting time instead of the studio. And then we had to start taping the episode without our guests. And he just kind of ran in halfway through and sat down with us. Oh my goodness, the horror stories.
Jason Briefel (05:00.419)
Thank you.
Jason Briefel (05:04.582)
I think I remember the phone calls from that morning when he was at our office. So that was not so good.
Natalia Castro (05:11.866)
Not so good, but then the pandemic happened and there was this radical shift, not just for us, but for the entire nation. We started embracing remote recording, pre-recording. Oh my goodness, for the first time, we didn't all have to be in the same room at the exact same time. We could just meet online and immediately, I think we saw the impact of that technology
Jason Briefel (05:32.7)
Thanks for watching!
Natalia Castro (05:40.88)
have them sit down remotely from across the country and have so much more interesting conversations because we had the ability to kind of navigate the conversation in the moment. Pause the recording, let's go in this direction, get guests from across the country. It was really a transformative experience for me.
Jason Briefel (06:03.39)
I think so too, Natalia. And, you know, we said that before that was bad times. Obviously the pandemic was bad times. But for the reasons that you laid out, it really was a sea change for how we approached this program, how we approached building the discussions and who we were able to get to the table. You know, I was super proud that we were able to bring in senators, members of Congress, other
business and association leaders, some of whom are here in DC, many of whom are not, but the folks who might have been too busy to come down to the studio and do all of that, you know, we were able to grab those folks and bring them in and add their voices into the Fed Talk discussion. And I think that, you know, where we're going with this new season-based format is kind of a continuation of that trend and theme.
And we're also going to be kind of wrapping our approach in looking at these issues through kind of an overarching umbrella, a topical umbrella for the first five months of the year here, January through May, which is very different than the past when every episode was kind of an episode in a box, a discussion in a box on a key topic.
Natalia Castro (07:23.454)
Absolutely, and here we are, Fed Talk 3.0, where we have much more creative control, as you mentioned. We've changed the format to fit these seasons so that we can really have a series of dynamic conversations on an overarching topic. So this season, the federal government influx, the first season of our new Fed Talk iteration. Jason.
We picked the season, we had kind of full control, designed the episodes, laid out the plan, why the federal government influx.
Jason Briefel (08:03.19)
Because it is in flux. I mean, this is what's going on. And like everything, there's a lot of change. There's change everywhere. And one of the things that we're trying to do is to identify and look at how each branch of government is facing change, how it's navigating and charting its course forward, but also looking at how those three different branches of government play together.
You know, our founders devised this brilliant constitutional system. And, you know, as one ship rises or falls, the others are going to react. You know, everything is related here. But I think oftentimes folks are focused on a specific policy or a specific agency where they're looking at just one branch. And, you know, that's really a limiting way in my mind to think about these things, both because
Well, what if the court stops that policy from being implemented or put boundaries on it? Well, then we need to take some steps back. And what does that mean? Did somebody misplay their hand? Or is this something that requires clarification, which means Congress needs to act. And we know that they're having some trouble with that these days. And that's why I think there's a lot going on here.
And you and I bring very different perspectives approaching these issues, which is also really different for us here at Fed Talk. In the past, it was a single host, marshaling each episode. We're gonna be bringing our unique and different perspectives and experiences to the table through the season and weaving through these discussions.
Natalia Castro (09:43.706)
Yeah, absolutely, I think that...
the format of the show even highlighted that we were victims to the exact problem that you just addressed. Previously, we would switch off hosting. You were interested in kind of the management side challenges, the policy side challenges, brought more of a somewhat more progressive viewpoint to the program. And I've always been more focused on the law enforcement issues and the national and homeland security issues coming from more of an administrative
Natalia Castro (10:15.968)
administrative law background. And those were the conversations we had, you know, I hosted programs with a lot of our law enforcement partners, you hosted programs with a lot of our management partners. And that's the focus we took. But now, like you said, the silos aren't working, they're not making sense anymore. And we need to bridge these gaps. And you and I are going to be teaming up, we're going to be co hosting every episode together, so that we can have more of
balanced and well-rounded conversations that cover all of the issues, rather than just taking issues from one perspective to another. And part of our vision for making these conversations more dynamic and to really address the challenges that our government is facing, structural challenges, what do the branches of government look like, what do federal agencies look like, legal challenges, these issues we're seeing in the courts.
Jason Briefel (11:02.785)
you
Natalia Castro (11:15.343)
What is the correct role of politics and policy within federal agencies? Who does what? I think one of the key ways that we are going to dive into that in this season in particular is by going branch by branch, looking at Congress, looking at the executive, looking at the judiciary, identifying the major problems that we have.
And in each episode really carrying that thread so that we can understand not just how to make small changes But how to make radical changes that are going to improve our government in the long run
Jason Briefel (11:36.206)
Thanks for watching!
Jason Briefel (11:48.734)
Yeah, and that's, in my mind, it's not just making changes, but I think by looking at these issues in the way that we're envisioning doing so and as we've crafted this first season, it's kind of almost bringing a lens of strategic foresight to the table. We see challenges to agency constitutional structures. We see challenges to the decision-making ability of...
certain federal officials within agencies, for example, administrative law judges. What power do they have? Who can oversee them and judge their decisions? Is putting a citizen in front of an AIJ in some way depriving that citizen of some constitutional or administrative right? And if those things change, what does that mean? Do we need more judges? Do we need less federal employees? Is the president more or less empowered?
And, you know, obviously, as you said, politics is a lens through which all of this is happening, but oftentimes in this country, we wait until we get past the point of disaster to start trying to figure out how we're going to address it. And you know, if I've learned nothing else in 11 years of working at this law firm, and probably even more working with you for the past four years, Natalia, on these issues,
some of these administrative and constitutional law questions and issues were just nowhere on my radar because I was focused on uh... my knitting, you know, in Title V and the Code of Federal Regulations and federal employment law and human capital policy and while those things are important there is a bigger picture here and I think we're, I think part of the service and value that we're hoping to provide through this program and the way that we're approaching the content this season is
What does this really look like? Where might we be going and trying to help drive those discussions again before we're past the end of the road?
Natalia Castro (13:51.726)
And one thing I think we're really going to emphasize this season, and we're going to see, especially in our first couple of programs of the year, is that those big questions, those questions that the average federal employee might feel is above their head, is actually not above their head at all and has a direct impact on trust in government.
on perceptions about accountability in government and the way that the government serves the American people. You know, it might be easy for the average IRS employee at a small tax payers advocate office to not feel like some of these big constitutional questions impact them and their day-to-day work, but they do. And I think one of the things we're gonna try to do is really bring that down from the 10,000 foot level.
to your level and make sure that every federal employee understands why these big questions impact them and how they impact the American people overall.
Jason Briefel (14:51.962)
Yeah, and as I said, I think I am excited about learning a lot from our guests and from our discussions this year, because I don't have all the answers. You don't have all the answers. I think we're at a unique point in time in our nation's history where a lot of norms and conventions are being challenged. And so there's not really a playbook for where we're going. And that can be very unsettling.
and I feel unsettled by it. But you know, you have two choices, to cover your eyes or to try to open them up and figure out where the heck we're going. And you know, again, we hope that the conversations and the expert guests that we'll bring on can help eliminate that path so that we can see the way.
Natalia Castro (15:23.358)
I'm gonna go to bed.
Natalia Castro (15:46.718)
couldn't agree more Jason. I'm so excited for what this season has to offer. Our first two shows, our listeners can tune into them and check out the content. Can you give me a little bit of a preview for our audience about what's to come in the first part of the season?
Jason Briefel (16:05.254)
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we do have a top federal employment cases of 2023 show, featuring two of our colleagues from here at Shaw, Bransford and Roth. I know it is not a groundbreaking year in terms of federal personnel policy, but there have been some important decisions that have been made and there has been important clarification to which standards and policies and procedures should be followed. And so again,
When you understand there are these big political debates around accountability and performance, then you drop down to this level. Okay, judges are saying that an arbitrator needs to consider all of the facts in a case before making a decision as opposed to just doing whatever the heck they want. For example, you know, these things matter because it's where the rubber meets the road. The difference between the policy as stated and its intention and whether agencies are following.
And then we'll also be helping us kick off this season. I can think of no better guest than our good friend, Max Stier, the CEO and President of the Partnership for Public Service. You know, he's been at this for over 20 years with a specific focus on the executive branch in Congress. So he'll be sharing with us kind of what he sees going on in this space and the way ahead and also, you know, how...
how he and the team are staying optimistic and in the long-term fight that we have here to improve our government and its ability and capacity to deliver for the American people.
Natalia Castro (17:44.238)
All right, everyone, go ahead. Listen now to these first programs of the season, season one of the next generation of Fed Talk, a federal government in flux, we are really excited to have some dynamic, interesting and difficult conversations and to bring you the insights that you need to excel at your job and as just an American citizen focused on good governance. Jason can't wait for an awesome season.
Jason Briefel (17:50.242)
Thank you.
Natalia Castro (18:13.702)
That's all the time we have for today.
Jason Briefel (18:15.97)
Thanks so much, Natalia, and we look forward to our listeners joining us on this ride. Ring that bell in your favorite podcast platform so you know when every new episode hits the inbox and we look forward to having you along for the ride for Fet Talk 3.0 in 2024.
Natalia Castro (18:33.51)
You're listening to Fed Talk. Have a great day.
