Journalism School Road Trip

Very Public Radio

// November 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // The Road

By Emily Johnson

Seeing as we were at a public radio conference in Chicago, it was only fitting to check out the bastion of public radio in that fair city. The Third Coast Festival was actually founded as part of Chicago Public Radio – which broadcasts as WBEZ-FM in the city – back in 2000 before it split off to bec0me a non-profit last year.

WBEZ is located on scenic Navy Pier, just past the Ferris wheel and across from the Billy Goat Tavern, another Windy City institution made famous by the SNL skit with Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and John Belushi.

WBEZ intern Lars Weborg graciously welcomed us Friday afternoon for a tour. He works on Eight Forty-Eight, the local news magazine show which many people mistakenly believe refers to the time the show airs. In point of fact, the show starts at nine and the name refers to the station’s street address on Navy Pier. “They think we start twelve minutes late every time,” he said.

WBEZ’s 2008 Emmy award (“Outstanding Nonfiction Series”) for This American Life:

Where the magic happens:

The newsroom:

Approaching the headquarters of Vocalo:

Vocalo is a program that began in 2007 under the umbrella of Chicago Public Radio in an attempt to reach a more diverse audience than that of NPR. “Make the radio you want to hear,” says the Vocalo.org Facebook page.

Since we at the entrepreneurially-minded CUNY Graduate School of Journalism love a good community-based, innovative journalistic endeavor, we were excited to learn about a public radio program that truly incorporates the public. It relies largely on user-generated content: music, stories, questions. As of last year, it reported more than 5,000 contributors.

Vocalo DJ’s Sarah and Luis, about to go on air:

Listen to Lars talk about Vocalo:

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Conversations With Windy Citizens

// November 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // The Road

By Emily Johnson

One of the biggest national stories this past weekend was the Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive in Washington, D.C., and one of the biggest local stories was the satellite rally held in Chicago’s Grant Park. On the scene, we met up with Brad Flora, founder of The Windy Citizen, who said CUNY J-School’s own Jeff Jarvis was one of his inspirations when he began brainstorming ideas for what he described initially as “a Huffington Post for Chicago.”

Brad and his cadre of interns, bloggers, and tweeters gave us an up-close look at how a young, modern company covers a local story and fosters community discussion online.

Conversations With Windy Citizens from Emily Johnson on Vimeo.

Third Coast Session Spotlight

// November 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // The Road

By Emily Johnson

The Third Coast Audio Festival was memorable and inspiring for many reasons, but most of these reasons boiled down to hearing an excess of fantastic radio. At an award show, we heard pieces that stung our eyes with tales of justice lost and justice found, of acts of humanity and lives filled with loneliness and love. During the opening session, we listened to three-minute documentaries that showcased what clever editing and sly humor can do in the right hands. And during the “Beyond the Front Lines” session with Jamie Tarabay, I found my breath stolen by a chilling intimacy evoked with the simple sound of sloshing water.

Tarabay is an NPR reporter who spoke with candor and feeling about her time covering the war in Iraq. She played several pieces that she worked on during those years; one of them told the story of people who dived in the river to retrieve bodies. A man spoke of seeing a human head float by. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The story left an impression; Tarabay noted that the NPR audience responded to the piece in a gratifying way. “These people are so amazing,” she said. “We had so many calling in and saying, ‘Who do I give money to so this guy can get a life jacket?’”

Between showing examples of her work, Tarabay answered questions from a curious audience who asked about topics that ranged from the logistical (how to prepare for reporting in dangerous countries) to the philosopical (what radio offers that is different from television) and personal (how the things she has seen affect her current life).

Tarabay listened quietly, her head down, as she played the heartbreaking tale of an NPR reporter and friend whose father was kidnapped. “This one’s still hard for me to listen to,” she noted.

She spoke of the tug-of-war of that conflict reporting plays with the people who do it: she missed weddings, Christmases. She is haunted by the many dead bodies she has seen, waking up at 4 in the morning with apocalyptic nightmares. Still, she felt a powerful urge to go to Haiti after the earthquake and found it difficult to reconcile not being there. “It’s addicting,” she explained.

She also talked about the popular misconception that the correspondents were living in the lap of luxury during the war in fortified surroundings. “We were never in the ‘green zone,’” she said.

Listen to Tarabay talk about their living and reporting conditions here:

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Public Radio’s Multimedia Shift

// November 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 Third Coast Conference, The Road

By Shuka Kalantari

Google reader, RSS feeds, podcasts – today’s consumers have the tools to tailor their news intake exactly how they want it. NPR listeners want to read stories online. New York Times readers want to hear a podcast. Some editors are following consumer demands and increasingly seeking multimedia packages from their reporters. Doing a print story? Bring a flip video camera along. Radio? Bring a still camera for an audio slide show, too.

Sue Schardt, executive director of AIR

Sue Schardt, the executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), sees the push towards online journalism reflected in AIR’s new members. “We’re seeing a strong shift in age and orientation,” Schardt explained. She says one-third of new members work in online journalism primarily, compared to only seven percent of the entire membership.

Listen to an interview with Sue Schardt at the Third Coast Conference:

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News packages like Mapping Main Street, KQED Public Media’s QUEST, and NPR’s Argo Blog Project, are combining different media platforms, including slideshows, blogs, and video, to enhance radio. Radio reporters with savvy web design skills may get the upper-hand when they’re looking for a job in today’s market. Radio editors often want new talent to have online skills, too.

Carl Scott, an AIR scholarship recipient and self-described “computer tech-guy,” says his know-how in web-design has definitely helped him get work. “I’ve been able to stay afloat in journalism because of that background,” said Scott.

But more multimedia in a story isn’t always merrier, explained Amy O’ Leary, a news editor at NYTimes.com. She thinks journalists should be conscious of the different ways people are experiencing content and that content should not be based on the most recent fad.

O’Leary recalled five years ago when podcasting was a fad.  It wasn’t sustainable, she explained, and only the strongest ones with a focused audience survived.

“I think you have to be really careful about trends and fads,” said O’Leary. “And the idea of, ‘Give us multimedia. Give us bells and whistles.’ That doesn’t necessarily make for good journalism.”

O’Leary used an example from the NYTimes.com to make her point. It was an animated piece about securities lending. She said they chose to make it interactive because it was a hard issue to understand and discuss. But she explained that doesn’t mean news organizations should do animated pieces about everything.

“I think it’s wrong to do multimedia just because you want to,” O’Leary said, “The story should drive that format.”

Audio Editing Apps & the “Power of 10″

// November 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 Third Coast Conference, The Road

By Shuka Kalantari

There aren’t a lot of audio editing applications for smart phones–and they don’t hold a candle to software like Audition and ProTools–but they can be useful for small projects & quick deadlines. Most have the capacity to record, edit, fade, mix, upload and download audio files, etc. The Monle app by American Public Media was featured at the 2010 Third Coast Audio Conference in Chicago.

Monle iPhone Application

The application is not very compatible to the iPhone 4G because it was produced for the iPhone 3G. I have a 4G and the application constantly crashed or froze on me while I was producing on it. Ochen Kaylan is the creator of the program. He says he’s in the process of making it more compatible to the 4G. In a review of Monle and another audio editing app, Hindenburg Mobile from Nsaka, Transom.org’s Jeff Towne noted that the app tended to crash often, though he didn’t mention for which type of iPhone.

The major difference? Hindenburg has one audio track, while Monle has four. Towne says Monle is better for layering audio and Hindenburg is better for editing within tracks. In the Transom.org article, Towne writes that he expects better models of smart phone apps to come soon:

“It’s almost certain that these apps will add more features, and that new programs will join them, so tomorrow, who knows what will be possible? …It’s unlikely that we’ll abandon our full-sized computers completely, especially for long-form and complex productions. But for a time-sensitive story in the field? An iPhone might be enough…”

Here are additional audio editing options for smart phones:

• Poddio (iPhones)
• Audioboo (available for Androids and iPhones)
• Ringdriod (for Androids)
• Meteor (Window Mobile)

Here, Ochen explains why he created Monle:

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Ochen Kaylan, creator of the Monle application

The Monle company held a “Powers of 10″ contest in honor of the 10 year anniversary of the Third Coast Conference. The challenge? Produce sixty-seconds about the number ten in less than forty-eight hours using the app. The winner got an iPad.

People came up with some fun ideas. KQED Public Radio‘s Rachael Myrow produced a montage of ten voices reciting Rumi poetry.  Jim Leesch, a math teacher at North Shore Country Day School in Illinois decided to do something about the mathematical powers of 10 – ie: 10² = 100, 10³ = 1,000, 10⁴ = 10,000, etc. A KALW Radio producer made a piece with people saying “Happy Birthday” to Third Coast in 10 different languages.

I produced a montage of voices talking about memories from when they were ten years old and–not surprisingly–most of them were embarrassing. It’s pretty low audio quality (disclaimer, I did it in an hour!), but kind of fun nonetheless:

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Editing with Radiolab

// November 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 Third Coast Conference, The Road

By Shuka Kalantari

At the Third Coast Conference, I won a raffle for a 20 minute editing session with Jad Abumrad of WNYC’s Radiolab. The plan was this: I’d bring my most recent radio story and he would tell me what he thought of it.

I wasn’t nervous before the meeting. And I wasn’t nervous when I introduced myself to him and sat down at the conference table. Then, he asked me to put the CD in the CD player and press play. Then, I got  nervous.

Jad Abumrad. Image courtesy of Radiolab.org

My feature was good, but it didn’t hold a candle to Radiolab, I thought. I had given myself a long tutorial on Abumrad’s work the night before. (I had heard the show before but wasn’t a weekly listener.) Their production style was powerful, creative, sound-rich–everything radio should be. I, on the other hand, only have a few feature stories under my belt. I’m two years out of graduate school and still navigating the tricks of the trade.

We listened to my feature, and he didn’t leave the room in disgust.

Score one for Shuka!

No, seriously he was very gracious and exceptionally helpful. He had a lot of positive feedback to give, but more importantly, a lot of advice on how I can strengthen the story. Before I go into details, it might help to hear it first.

Toni Bettega in Covelo, California

As part of KQED Public Radio’s program on Native American health in California, I produced a feature exploring prenatal care for American Indian women in rural Northern California:

Abumrad said that first and foremost, I should bring the characters voices out more in the story. Let them tell it, don’t do it for them. The characters are more important than statistics, he said. Yes, one out of every three California American Indian women isn’t getting early prenatal care, but listeners want to hear more about Toni Bettega, the young mother who didn’t know about her first pregnancy until she was eight and half months along. She’s the interesting one.

“Here’s what I remember when I hear the story,” said Abumrad. “She was eight and half months pregnant and didn’t know it. She was scared of the windy roads; and maybe I’ll remember something about infant mortality rate.”

Abumrad said I should find a way to sublimate the stats. Everything should be presented through the experience of the characters. He said when the character is dropped and the narrator delves into numbers and facts, the listener is left wondering, “What about that person I just heard from? What about her over there?”

Abumrad also explained that I should have acknowledge a bit more that eight and half months is a long time, and that the baby was lucky to survive. A lot of people in the community aren’t as lucky. That acknowledgment could be a smooth transition into discussing mortality rates. But he reminds me again: don’t get bogged down in the numbers.

“You don’t need stats if what your doing is trying to connect to me,” he said. “Editors want to get the stats. They want to see the numbers. But listeners don’t want numbers.”

Instead he said to focus on what drives the story. In this case, we have two main characters, “Lady number one in need, and lady number two who wants to help,” said Abumrad. “Zoom in on both of them and give only the information you need.”

Abumrad also had suggestions on gathering sound. “You could keep the audio of the sonogram going underneath during narration,” he said. “Even with idle chat between them in the background. That keeps me in the experience.”

“And don’t dissipate the story,” Amburad says. “She feels prepared, unlike her first pregnancy. She’s lucky. Not everybody is. That’s it.”

So in a nutshell: Weave the facts into and around the character’s story. Don’t start off and bookend with a personal story, instead have that personal story carry the piece from beginning to end. And get ambi, ambi, and more ambi. Too much is better than not enough. I couldn’t agree more. It’s easier to have the “extra” sound and not use it than to drive eight hours along windy mountains roads to get more ambi from a rural health clinic in Covelo, California.

Unpaid Internships

// September 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 NABJ Conference, The Road

By Simone Sebastian

Journalism student Dallas Wright’s perfect summer job needed two things: hands-on experience and a paycheck.

But when the Northwestern University sophomore found the internship that met his criteria, it wasn’t at a newspaper, television station or news site. He signed on with a marketing company that asked him to shoot and edit video and promised to pay him for it. Continue Reading

At “The Power of Change”, Journalists Were Worried About Jobs

// September 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 NABJ Conference

By Erica Butler

Vanessa Longshaw knew exactly what she was looking for when she arrived in San Diego for the National Association Black Journalists Conference (NABJ). Contacts and networking.

What better place to find those things than the annual convention of professional journalists and recruiters.

“I’m trying to set myself up for graduation,” said Longshaw, a broadcast journalism major, who will graduate from Syracuse University in the spring. Continue Reading

Voice of San Diego: The New Face of Non-Profit Journalism

// September 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 NABJ Conference

By Jermaine Taylor

In San Diego, California, Scott Lewis believes he has seen the future of journalism. It’s local, and it’s non-profit. It’s also online. But, says Lewis, it’s still journalism.

“Nothing about online frees us from the ideals of journalism,” says Lewis, CEO of Voice of San Diego. (www.voiceofsandiego.org)

Voice, a non-profit online newspaper website founded in 2004 by veteran San Diego Union-Tribune journalist Neil Morgan and venture capitalist Buzz Woolley, alongside other non-profit news sites such as ProPublica—an investigative news site edited by former Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger—has not only been changing the way many San Diegans get their news but has also been horning in on the almost monopolistic market share of readers enjoyed by the Union-Tribune and others. (ProPublica took home a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 when reporter Sheri Fink won the award for investigative reporting.) Continue Reading

Reader’s Revolt

// September 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010 NABJ Conference, The Road

By Kahliah Laney

When new Editor and Vice President of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jeff Light, laid-off renowned art critic Robert Pincus early this summer, the backlash that ensued was unexpected. Readers in the art, culture and book communities were outraged and organized themselves via Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere.

Pincus had been with the paper for nearly 25 years and had firmly established himself as the voice of San Diego’s arts and culture community. When that voice was lost readers united forming a new voice – one of protest. The culmination of this protest was the July 9th Warwick’s Forum. Continue Reading