Launched this year (and including a bunch of content from Camp Boom last year), Chewing the Facts was a 10 piece podcast delving into the complexities and myths surrounding weight in Aotearoa New Zealand, launched via NZ Herald and New Zealand Media and Entertainment’s (NZME’s) Podcast Network.
Fat people are used to receiving pretty shitty mainstream media coverage, because capitalism, but amazingly, despite the odds, Chewing the Facts was good. Creator Sasha Borissenko will talk to us about her work, the things she learned that surprised her the most, and how she was able to leverage her position as a not fat person to do the work while staying in her lane.
Meet Sasha
Sasha Borissenko is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Al Jazeera, VICE, the New York Times, Broadsheet, WOMAN magazine, Capital, Sauce, and more. She spent her early career as a justice reporter but has since found a love of investigative work, feature-writing, and penning a weekly legal column for the NZ Herald.
She otherwise spends her time championing the 12 access media stations across Aotearoa in her capacity as the Community Access Media Alliance representative, and teaching the odd paper at Massey University.
Hailing from Tauranga, Sasha has spent her years living in Dunedin, Nelson, Auckland, Denmark, and Hungary. She’s now back in Wellington and desperately longs to own a cocker spaniel but she’s limited to caring for her dying succulents in her 52sqm apartment.
Camp Boom 