Month: July 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic forced most New York city residents to stay home but essential workers. Several weeks after the shutdown companies like Wholefoods and Trader Joes announced they would give their workers a 2-dollar wage increase as a result of the situation. Unlike the large chain companies most small businesses workers don’t have the same privileges. Several workers especially immigrants can lack health care, decent wages and even protective equipment.

I will be reporting on someone who is currently working at a small business, showcasing their experience at their job.

With this pandemic going on in the world, the sick and elderly are especially susceptible to the aftermaths of COVID. While I’m grateful that my grandma is healthy and safe at home, I’m aware not every elderly person has a home/family to go to. For this upcoming radio assignment, I would like to interview a friend of mine who works at a nursing home. I want to focus on what measures are nursing homes taking to keep everyone safe, adjustments that the workers are making etc.

Quarantine for many of us was a time to learn a new skill, catch up on work and those other things we did not feel we had enough time to do, exercise, get more sleep, etc. But for some, they faced new challenges being alone and indoors, unable to see friends or family. For this assignment, I would like to  speak on the topic of mental health and interview a friend of mine who has suffered from episodes of depression all of her life. I want to know how she copes with her depressive states and how corona virus, the BLM movement, and not working has affected it. I also want to know how she takes care of her mental and physical health, especially on those days where she is feeling down and has no motivation to do anything. I’d ask her what tips she’d like to share with those going through similar situations, as well as the type of help she has received, if any. I also would like to ask about how working out has helped her become more happy, as well as how she plans to move forward and continue to take care of herself so that she doesn’t fall back into her depression.

is after seeing a really great friend of mine prepare for grad school during the pandemic. Having to study GRE through online classes. The struggles of learning the content and not having the teacher during prep present and working with you in person 

For my radio pitch I want to focus on the Black Lives Matter peaceful protests that are still going on despite not getting as much recognition in the news.

This Friday there’s a protest for change in Brooklyn at the Pulaski Bridge, which is just one of the many coast to coast protests addressing police criminality and racist police policies happening this week. It’s expected to be a 2+ hour march as they walk over the bridge to Queens and then to the Bronx and ending in Harlem for important speeches. 

One of the people that are going to speak is Ian Ward, a college student that helped organize the event. I reached out to him and he agreed to speak with me after the event as well as record his speech. He already expressed to me his anger with the lack of news coverage once the protests became peaceful which makes it hard for the general public to recognize that they are still going strong, and so his speech and my story will likely revolve around that. 

Practice Exercise

Find a family member/friend/partner to interview or pair up with a classmate. Take turns interviewing each other (over the phone, if necessary, and share your recordings with each other) about something they’ve done this summer (whether their job, how they’ve adapted to life in the pandemic, maybe they bought a bike so they can get around the city more safely, etc). Remember to ask open-ended questions. Interviews should be 3-5  minutes long. Record some natural sound if there is any.

When you’re finished, save your sound files to the computer (and send them to your partner if you did the interview remotely). Transcribe your interview. Pick out your top three sound bites and write a short script following this format:

Recording Narration

• Record your narration in an improvised at-home “studio.” Aim to record in a space that absorbs sound: a room with carpeting, curtains, bedding, etc. Some tried-and-true methods that radio journalists use in a pinch is to go in their closet or simply to throw a blanket over their head. Take a look at the way some WNYC journalists are setting themselves up at home for inspiration: https://twitter.com/WNYC/status/1239896211903086592

• Conduct interviews over the phone and record them.​
• If your subject is willing and has access to a landline or a borrowed phone, ask them to record a “tape sync” for you by recording their end of the call with their Voice Memos app (or equivalent) and then sending you the file along with at least 90 seconds of room tone. Make sure they know where the phone mic is located (on iPhones, it’s on the bottom of the phone.) Make sure you record the call from your end, too, as a backup.
• To record a call from your end, there are a few options. 1) Google Voice is free to use: create a number, route it to your phone and press “4” during any call to start recording. 2) TapeACall is also a great app which lots of professionals use, but it’s not free. 3) Put the phone on speaker and record it with your audio recorder or a borrowed phone.
• Download Audio Hijack, which allows you to record the system audio from your computer for up to ten minutes. This will allow you to grab audio from Cuomo/de Blasio press conferences, YouTube or Instagram videos, etc., depending on what you’re covering.
• Record natural sound only if it’s something you can do at home or by going for a solitary walk or bike ride outside and from a distance of greater than six feet. You can also use clips of audio from online videos as natural sound if relevant to the story (like the Iceland screaming story we listened to).

For Wednesday:

Post your script to the class blog *and record your narration* by class time on Wednesday. We will use your script and sound from this exercise to edit together a practice radio story that day in Audacity.

 

Since Coronavirus has completely uprooted and changed my life, I’m curious to see how others have maintained peace and happiness in their lives during a pandemic and quarantine. Coronavirus has forced many of us to completely change our everyday routines and find new ways to spend our time. Many have turned to outside activities to maintain a healthy distance from others while taking a break from being stuck inside for so long. During quarantine, as I mentioned in my previous assignment, I was able to enjoy things in life that I didn’t have time for before, and I have connected with the outdoors more than I ever have. I want to know how others have felt during quarantine, and how their lives have changed as well.

I will interview an employee at a local farmer at a shop in Colorado where I have been traveling. I have shopped here often and I want to ask how this pandemic has been affecting the business as well as their personal life. Since I had the opportunity to work in a farm market back in Michigan which was prospering during the pandemic, I’m curious to know if the pandemic has affected their business the same way. I’m also hoping to learn how people in Colorado feel about the pandemic and their attitudes compared to those in the other states I traveled through such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

After doing my first assignment on my father’s local business, I wanted to expand into the other local businesses in town to see how they’ve fared during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of focusing on businesses that have perhaps re-opened in the past few months, I was interested in doing my radio story on a local laundromat/cafe that has managed to operate successfully throughout quarantine and was quick to adhere to safety protocols where plenty of other businesses, even upon re-opening, have made it clear through signs on their doors that mask-wearing to is a question of personal choice and not a public safety requirement.

I want to interview the owner of the laundromat, who fell ill in keeping the business running but who runs it now with his sons and with the help of some friends in the community. The laundromat is quite old fashioned, with no drop-off service, and has still thrived given the circumstances and I think I can get a good description of the place for my script, good background noise, and decent soundbites from the interviewees (owners, family, customers?). I want to see if I can get some information on another local Laundromat that perhaps doesn’t require mask-wearing, and what that might tell us about the health concerns people should have about the businesses they rely on for maintaining personal hygiene, especially now during a pandemic.

As we have seen with the nationwide protest for police reform, activists have pushed for major changes in how we people can gain more trust of officers, and how can we manage resources to effectively help people in our communities. The unraveling of police brutally has been seen all across social media, and constituents are becoming more conscious about the flaws in the current system.

A few days ago I saw a post from a Suffolk County resident I meet at a political organization, he has made an initiative to improve the Suffolk County police. The initiative includes the creation of a police board that can provide more transparency between our local government, police department, and residents in the community. From my understanding, the structure of the board will closely mirror that of the board of public education. The officials of Suffolk County will hold a monthly or bi-monthly assembly, people will be allowed to express concerns and issues.

I will be reporting on his experience of getting into contact with these public officials.

More than ever before, recent nationwide movements like Black Lives Matter are forcing or bringing to public attention certain societal changes that people feel need to be made concerning racism and stereotyping in the U.S.  For instance, protestors have been tearing down Confederate monuments and memorials which also prompted the House to vote for removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol on Wednesday, an NFL team decided to change its mascot after much controversy (Washington Red Skins), states are changing street names that have a connection to slavery, and a slew of retail companies are changing branding with racist roots (i.e. Aunt Jemima).

Three weeks ago, a Change.org petition was started by a high school senior in California urging the national grocery chain Trader Joe’s to remove and rename certain food branding and packaging, including Trader Giotto, Trader Jose and Trader Ming’s, saying the labels are racist and perpetuate harmful cultural stereotypes. The petition was signed by well over 4,000 signatures to date.

So I would like to interview a store manager of a local Trader Joe’s to see how she feels about the on-going petition, whether of not she thinks Trader Joe’s response to the petition was the right thing to do and why, whether shoppers have previously complained or made comments regarding this matter, whether there has been any kind of backlash or positive impact (i.e. have sales gone up or down) since the petition was started, what she thinks of this change in light of the recent events happening around the country, what changes are taking place in the store (changes to signs and/or advertisement, staff training or internal meetings prompted by the petition), etc.  Trader Joe’s story is in response to a presently larger story happening in the U.S; I would like to address the broader issues by approaching it from a more local, personal standpoint.