Capstone Research / Progress (2nd Week of March)

This week I have begun on starting the story writing and editing process. Personally, I believe this is one of the most difficult parts of the entire podcast assignment for me because I have to listen through and find possible sound bytes that can be used in the podcast and structure a story around those bytes. However, I have done some reading on the process which could assist me.

In the intro of Creating Powerful Radio by Valerie Geller and Turi Ryder, it is mentioned that before anything goes on air one should ask themselves the following:

• Is it relevant?
• Does it matter?
• Do you care?
• Do your listeners care? (2).

Basically, stories that are being planned should be thought of ahead of time in this way. This is a part of the original decision that I made on what stories that I should cover for my podcasts. In a way, this part came naturally, but I believe that a simple reevaluation would be beneficial.

[ I also found a section with additional guidelines on choosing radio programming, and the one tip that seemed to compliment with the four questions above was to "use your own life as a show resource and always answer the questions: why is this on air? and why should someone listen to this?" (4). ]


Story Structure Basics: (this info is from Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production by Jonathan Kern).

• The Intro: Typically this is done by a host (but in my case I am the sole person working on the    project). It is considered one of the most important part of a radio story (Sound Reporting 102). The intro is created to explain why a story is worth listening to and it also sets the scene or mood of the upcoming report (Sound Reporting 102). Intros also lead into the first voice track of the reporter (Sound Reporting 103).

• The First Track: One problem that occurs during this is that an echo may occur if the intro mentions similar facts (and it often does) that are to be mentioned right away in the story. Getting around this problem can be as easy as starting the section with sound (Sound Reporting 105). Other methods include starting with an actuality or a voice track, but no matter how the first track starts the reporter should read as though they heard the intro (Sound Reporting 106). However, no actual recipe exists for creating an intro or first track (Sound Reporting 108).

Geller, Valerie, and Turi Ryder. Creating Powerful Radio: Getting, Keeping, and Growing Audiences for News, Talk, Information, and Personality. Amsterdam: Focal, 2007. Print.

Kern, Jonathan. Sound Reporting: the NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008. Print.