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Clickers - make sure you have your clicker and that it is registered properly. Here are the OIT instructions for registering your clicker. Bring it to class. You will need to be on Channel 5 for this course.

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Supplemental readings (these are required)

Elise Malmberg, Telling Stories with Sound (parts 1 and 2)
http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/richmedia/index.html
http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/richmedia/index2.html

Elise Malmberg, Field Recording Techniques (parts 1 and 2)
http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/richmedia/index5.html
http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/richmedia/index6.html

Mary McGuire,  Ethical guidelines for editing audio http://jsource.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=1638

Writing considerations

We went over some of these concepts last week, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of them.

Short words, short sentences. You have to begin to write -- and think -- in unadorned prose. Think nouns and verbs, not adjectives. Think simple. If there is a short word that substitutes for a long word, use it (example: facilitate, ease). Try to keep sentences shorter than you might normally write them.

Declarative sentences. Subject-verb-predicate-period. One or two ideas per sentence. Remember, you or someone else will be reading this aloud. A sentence should never take more than one breath to write.

Pronounceable words. The words you write have to be pronounced. That makes a difference in what you write. As much as possible, you will want to avoid:

• sibilants -- words that have an “s” sound
• alliteration -- words that repeat sounds
• combinations of sibilants and alliteration, such as, She sells sea shells by the seashore.

Conversational but not casual. Your writing should allow those who read your work to sound natural, as if this is something they would say in a business-like conversation.

Contractions. You generally should not use contractions when you are writing for print or writing text for the web. They are fine for audio writing -- as long as they are not overused. And as long as they don't make the announcer sound odd.

Active voice. Be careful about using too much passive voice verbs -- or any at all. The passive can slow the reading down and puts a distance between the reader and the listener.

Current terms and language. Use current terms and phrases as long as their meaning is generally known. Again a caution: you do not want to fall into using cliches. And be careful about using slang.

Titles and names. In writing for sound, titles come before names: President Barack Obama, not Barack Obama, president, . . .

Abbreviations and acronyms. Avoid these. They rarely sound good when spoken aloud, and they can be easily misunderstood.

Phonetic spellings. Help your announcer by sounding difficult or unfamiliar words out.

Standard audio news formats

Formats are simply a way of organizing the information and material that you have to report. The list below is a generalized version of the way professionals talk about audio news formats:

• Reader only. The reporter or announcer simply reads the news story.
  
  
• Reader with actuality. The reporter uses sound that is not his or her own voice: the voice of a news source or the sound of a news event in the story.
  
  
• Wrap around. A reporter introduces or begins the story and introduces an actuality. The actuality plays. The reporter comes back to supplement and conclude the story.
  
  
• Package. The reporter uses a variety of sounds and interweaves his or her own voice in a story that might range from one to five minutes long.
  
  
• Documentary. A documentary is the same as a package but simply longer.

Sound dominant formats

Sound dominant formats take the audio tool from being simply a supplement to the text or pictures of a presentation to being the major way in which the story is presented. Such formats include:

• radio stories, which derive from the longstanding conventions and customs of radio. These stories are a mix of reporting, interviews with sources and ambient sound, and the best of them come from news organizations such as National Public Radio and Voice of America. At their best, these stories require high-quality sound and professional word and sound editing skills.
  Take a look at this script for a story on the book about the movie character Charlie Chan. Now listen to the story produced by VOANews.com
• audio slide shows, a web-originated format that is growing in popularity. Audio slide shows mix still pictures with sound, often but not always the photographer's description of the pictures that he or she has taken. Audio slide shows require photography, writing, speaking and editing skills, but they can be highly effective and entertaining in their presentation of information. (Read more about audio slideshows on JPROF.com)
  Take a look at this script for a short audio slideshow on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Now watch the slideshow on YouTube.
• long-form sound stories, those where time and brevity are not major considerations. These long forms allow reporters, producers and editors all the time they need to tell their stories. They can include all of the sound elements previously mentioned. One of the most creative of these long-form formats is This American Life, an hour-long public radio that deals with only one topic during the hour. This American Life gives ample time for sources to tell their stories, but its editing and production are intelligent and clever so that listeners can easily get caught up int he story.
• talk-show and call-in formats, where audiences are invited to participate. The talk-show format is a highly popular one for traditional radio, and it is growing in popularity on the web with the advent of sites such as TalkShoe.com. Journalists can create their own call-in shows, advertise them and increase their audiences. Some news web sites, such as the Tennessee Journalist, are experimenting with this format to see what it will add to the richness of the site.

The list of formats here is not meant to be inclusive or prescriptive. It simply shows some of the possibilities of the use of sound as a reporting device. Imaginative and creative reporters will undoubtedly develop other formats and standards as online journalism itself develops.

Sound supplemented formats

The audio clip is the first and easiest for the students to master. This is simply a short piece of sound, maybe as short as 15 seconds or as long as two minutes, that accomplishes a single purpose. It allows the audience to hear the voice of a source answering a question or making a salient point about the subject of the story. It is easy to produce and requires little or no editing.

(A good example of the use of an audio clip is in this profile story on a University of Tennessee soccer player.)

Given the ease with which audio clips can be produced, it is surprising that their use is not more widespread. Their absence shows that reporters are simply do not think about using audio, not that the hardware or software is difficult.

Another format is the reporter interview. Here, someone on the news staff other than the reporter interviews the person who covered the story. These interviews vary greatly in length, but they rarely run past five or six minutes. The New York Times (image at right) uses them on a regular basis to give background information on the story. With a minimum of scripting and editing, these reporter interviews can also be easy to produce and effective in enriching the story.

A variation on the reporter interview is the reporter round-table. Here several reporters who have interest and information on the same topic can tell what they know, ask each other questions and exchange views. Length on these pieces may vary, and they should be long enough to give a full airing to the information and views of the reporters. On the other hand, as with everything else on the web, generally shorter is better.

Yet another format is the reporter round-up. This format allows the reporter to tell the story in a one- to two-minute sound clip, much like a radio version of the story. The story is told as completely as possible and is read from a script written by the reporter.

These formats have many variations that will depend on the story that is being covered and the
inclinations of the reporter. At this stage in the development of audio journalism, reporters and editors should be encourage to experiment with these formats and even try to create new ones that may aid in the storytelling.

Editing sound with Audacity

The one piece of software that students should learn for audio journalism is Audacity.

While editing sound has a wide array of possibilities, it has been rendered simple and easy by Audacity, a free and downloadable piece of software from SourceForge.net. Audacity comes with a set of tutorials, the basics of Audacity can be grasped in just a few minutes by those who simply use the software. Audacity allows users to add and delete portions of a soundtrack and to place new soundtracks into a file. Its visual dashboard (below) includes all of the tools for basic sound editing, and it is likely that student will be able to learn the program to create audio files very quickly.

Audio journalism ethics

The audio reporter must abide by the same ethical standards of any other journalism. The audio journalist has the same goal: to provide accurate, significant and interesting information in an accurate context to an audience. Therefore, it is incumbent on the audio journalist to

-- tell the truth, both about the story and the process of reporting

-- make sure the audience knows enough to evaluate the information properly

Audio journalists strive for the accurate (accuracy), the clear (clarity), the significant (significance) and the interesting (interesting) in telling their stories – and in that order.

In addition, audio journalists must

-- always have permission (explicit or implied) to record someone’s voice

-- give equal weight (not necessarily time) to opposing points of view

-- attempt to give voice to those who aren’t usually heard

Audio journalism is more than information via sound. It is also a matter of

• sequence
  Order is important, particularly when people are speaking. Most of the time you will want to preserve that order. When you decide to change the order of people’s words or sentence, be sure that the change is fair and accurate.
• tone
  How people sound is important. Are they happy, sad, surprised, impressed, or what? If someone exhibits some emotion in an interview, make sure that emotion is convey accurately. For instance, a person who has lost a loved one to some accident may make a wry comment just to relieve the tension. Don’t use that if it makes the person sound heartless or cold.
• ambience (context of the sound)
  Context in audio reporting vitally important. Sounds report the conditions under which people talk. The sounds should add to the listener’s understand and impressions, but those impressions must be accurately derived.

All of these have an impact on the  way the story is told and the impression that it leaves on the listener.

 

The editing process

It is easier than ever to record and edit audio. Recorders today are small and powerful. Editing software makes manipulating the audio a quick and almost painless process. An audio journalist can do all sorts of things with a story –  and can do them quickly – that radio journalists of previous days could not do.

So, here are some dos and don’ts:

-- Remove noise that distracts and doesn’t add to a story.

-- Remove sounds of an interviewee that do not present information about his character or demeanor. For instance, most of the time “uhs”s, grunts and other noises can be safely deleted.

-- Rarely, if edit, should you edit our single words.

-- Delete repetitions and reiterations (most of the time).

-- Consider deleting subordinate clauses.

-- Don’t coach an interviewee. Do not tell an interview what to say or give the person a script. Especially a script. If a person is reading something you can tell.

-- Do not edit so that an interviewee sounds as if he or she is answering one question when the person is answering something else.

-- You may remove whole sentences if they are extraneous, but take some care about that. The concept of sequence is important (above).

-- Do not insert sounds that give a false impression to the listener.

-- When you are interviewing, learn to be silent. Nod if you must, but do not utter any sounds.

-- Do not interrupt an interviewee, and if you do, think hard before putting that interruption in the story you produce. In other words, try to stay out of the story.

-- Remember that most of a recorded interview is likely to be cut. Make sure that the part that is left tells an accurate and fair story.

-- Avoid “butt-cuts” – running two interviews together or interweaving them so that it appears that the two people are having a conversation.

-- Be very careful not to leave the listener with a misimpression about you. For instance, don’t edit something to indicate you were there when you weren’t.

-- Don’t use sounds you didn’t record yourself or you didn’t record at the scene to make it seem like they were recorded at the scene. Mary McGuire:

For example, if you interview a carpenter but fail to record the sound of him at work in his workshop, you can't just record yourself using a hammer at home later and pretend, in your report, that it is the sound of the carpenter at work.

-- Use music sparingly.

Sources for this section:

Jonathan Kern, Sound Reproting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production

Mary McGuire,  Ethical guidelines for editing audio http://jsource.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=1638

Weekly news quiz

You can find some of the quiz questions that might be asked in lecture here.