Updated schedule:
I’m shaking up the schedule slightly because we are planning a reporting day/field trip on Tuesday, Nov 8. (More details forthcoming at a later date!) So I’ll be doing the intro to radio today and then another radio-oriented class on Tuesday. Next Thursday will remain a production day, and the deadline for the photo essay rough draft will still be midnight that night.
Intro to Radio Reporting
For your radio stories, you’ll be creating something called a wrap: a scripted feature with narration, natural sounds, and sound bites all woven together.
Sample wrap.
Sample radio script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ne3UyzGKmSLVoENy-UrZ-boJ2KanUPIlCmLhQPjiRNQ/edit.
Here are some basics you’ll want to keep in mind as you set out to collect sound:
Choose your environment wisely. Be aware of your surroundings. If you interview someone under a subway track, your recording will be impossible to understand. Pick a relatively quiet space. A little background noise is fine and adds atmosphere – except for music. Music makes editing difficult, so avoid it if possible.
Cell phones off or on airplane mode. Yours and theirs. If you’re using your phone to record, make sure it’s set to silent.
Don’t forget your nats. Natural sound is a crucial element of any audio piece. Think about what sounds will most effectively place your listener in the scene. Footsteps, dishes clinking, phones ringing. Don’t be afraid to get in there and get close. Music is fine to use as a nat sound, but not as background to an interview. It will mess up your ability to edit.
Don’t forget your ambi. “Ambi” refers to ambient sound, also known as room tone. Basically, this is the background noise from wherever you happen to conduct your interviews. Even if you record in a very quiet place, nothing still usually sounds like something because of how the acoustics vary in different rooms. Before or after every interview, always record 90 seconds to two minutes of ambi. This will go under your narration to make the story feel seamless.
Ask open-ended questions. Yes or no questions won’t give you good long responses filled with usable quotes.
Get close, but not too close. Putting a mic right up against someone’s mouth can result in popping and crackling sounds on the recording. Make sure to test your equipment so you know roughly where to hold your recorder for optimal sound quality.
Ask your question, then shut up. Active listening is a fantastic skill for a journalist to have, but if you keep murmuring “Uh-huh,” “Yeah,” and “Sure,” while they’re answering your questions, you won’t be able to use the material. Stick with smiling and nodding.
Keep control of the mic. Always monitor your sound with headphones while recording, if possible. (This is not possible with the Voice Memos app, unfortunately.) Hold the mic 1-2 feet from the interviewee’s mouth. Never let the person you’re interviewing hold it. Try to keep handling noise to a minimum.
If recording an interview remotely, try to do a tape sync. A tape sync means recording both ends of a phone interview in person and then editing them together. This will allow the sound quality for both voices to be high-quality and clear. Typically, radio hosts hire freelancers who live in the same city as their interviewee to go out and record the tape syncs, but in the pandemic it’s become more common to ask the interviewee to do it themselves and then send it to you.
A couple more radio stories:
Example of a clever host intro:
Need to release stress? Scream into Iceland’s abyss.
Great example of a local NYC story:
At this Brooklyn restaurant, you can get Korean food with a side of Russian history
Some radio stories reported by Baruch multimedia students last year: