In addition to everything else he does, Krulwich now co-anchors public radio’s Radiolab, which this year won a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for broadcast excellence. As the program explores science and technology, it’s also “rethinking and reinventing American radio,” says Ira Glass of “This American Life” in an appreciation of Radiolab posted at Transom.

Glass deconstructs how Krulwich and his co-host, Jad Abumrad, achieve their chatty on-air style that almost makes listeners feel they’re eavesdropping on an actual conversation instead of listening to a radio story.

They’ll come into the studio together with a script that’s halfway between a real script and a list of story beats they know they need to hit…They’ll ad lib their way through this so-called “script” a few times, rolling tape the whole time. Then Jad or one of the show’s producers cuts together a version. They listen to it. Then they’ll go back and re-record bits of banter, to make a quicker transition from one section to the next, or to slow down and explain some point more thoroughly, or to set up a piece of tape slightly differently. They’ll do this three or four times, jumping into the studio to make little improvements and adjusting as Jad and the other producers layer in the other production elements, the music and sound.

The result of all that effort is an effortless sound, with lots of back-and-forth between the co-anchors, as in the first story in this episode:

Glass notes that other public radio programs, like Planet Money, sometimes use a similar approach of having one reporter or anchor comment on another’s story. “Having two narrators lets them express amazement, underline what’s funny, manipulate the pacing, pause on a difficult idea and bring up opposing arguments in a very graceful way,” Glass writes.

Some commenters on Glass’s post say the presentation style he so admires feels contrived and forced. But I think he’s onto something:

TV news continually loses ratings. And one way we broadcast journalists can fight back and hold our audience is to sound like human beings on the air. Not know-it-all stiffs. One way the opinion guys kick our ass and appeal to an audience is that they talk like normal people, not like news robots speaking their stentorian news-speak. So I wish more broadcast journalism had such human narrators at its center. I think that would help fact-based journalism survive.

If you think public radio is a different beast and what they do there shouldn’t be tried in commercial newscasts, I beg to differ. Sure, Radiolab’s highly-produced techniques obviously would be difficult or maybe impossible to pull off live. But why shouldn’t TV anchors and reporters try a little harder to speak the way ordinary people talk?

Stand-ups can be an effective way of explaining complicated issues or concepts, especially if you can find a simple analogy to illustrate the point. How does a retention pond work? Kind of like a coffee filter. Show-and-tell stand-ups can compensate for a lack of video. Where did the children first see the bear? Right here, next to this tree. These kinds of stand-ups aren’t for every story, every day, but used judiciously, they can help viewers make sense of difficult subjects.

They key word is “judiciously.” Joanne Stevens of Stevens Media Consulting says it’s important to remember that a stand-up is not all about you. “More and more I feel I’m being distracted by reporter stand-ups rather than being further edified about the story,” she writes on the RTDNA website.

You are not in a contest to bring back the most clever or viral standup.  Ideally you can show us something interesting in your standup, or you may ‘just stand there’ and explain where you are and why it’s significant. You are on camera to communicate with us personally, not to assume the Shakespearean role of  ‘I’m on TV and you’re not.’

Another way of adding visual interest to a longer stand-up is to shoot it in multiple takes. This allows you to walk your viewer through a complex process by illustrating individual steps in a visual sequence. Create a simple storyboard in advance to ensure that you’ll have everything you need for editing purposes.

Can you do this as a solo journalist? Absolutely. KUSA’s Kevin Torres does it all the time. The short stand-up in this package is made up of three shots, all framed differently:

“Try to add some natural sound in your stand-ups,” Torres suggests. “This helps break up the piece a lot and helps with the flow.”

Too many stand-ups are an afterthought, thrown together at the end of a shoot just to get something in the can. A stand-up should be an essential part of your narrative, adding new information and moving the story forward. A little forethought and some critical questions can make all the difference:

• Why would I want to include a stand-up in this story?
• What information would I convey in a stand-up?
• Do I have something to show or demonstrate in this stand-up?
• Where and when might I do this stand-up?
• How will the stand-up fit into the finished story?

Before you shoot any stand-up you need a clear idea of your story structure—not a complete script but a mental outline. Sometimes, it’s helpful to shoot more than one version in case that structure changes. But if you wind up with a stand-up that really doesn’t fit, resist the temptation to use it anyway. Then promise yourself that tomorrow, you’ll plan and execute a stand-up that really works.

The Associated Press alert that chimed on my newsroom computer a few years ago was short and direct.  “Bulletin: Jeane Kirkpatrick has died.” I leapt from my desk and shouted across the room to my 5 p.m. newscast producers, “Folks, we have to add an important story. Jeane Kirkpatrick is dead!” The silence was deafening.

Then came the puzzled, if not predictable reply shouted back. “Who’s Jeane Kirkpatrick?”

One of our senior investigative reporters sitting just a desk away burst out laughing and then buried his head in his hands in disgust at what he just heard.  How can anyone in the news business, the very scribes of contemporary history, not know of the first woman U.S. ambassador to the United Nations?

I walked over to his desk and said, “Dude, we gotta cut her some slack, she wasn’t born yet when Reagan made Kirkpatrick a diplomatic rock star.”

Among the most useful insights from this year’s mindset list of our future customers are these:

1.  There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.

9.  “Don’t touch that dial!” …what dial?

12.  Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

30.  Dial-up is soooooo last century.

37.  Music has always been available via free downloads.

63.  They won’t go near a retailer that lacks a website.

The takeaways?  They’re connected, mobile, and consume on their schedule, not the schedule we make for them.

Those very insights mirror portions of my own research on viewers of Fox 9 News in Minneapolis, Minn.  In a survey of 1116 viewers, 42 percent indicate they use the internet to access Fox 9 News content at least three to five days a week.  Twenty-two percent visit Fox 9 online every day. Even more significant, 40 percent of Fox 9’s online audience indicates they access the station’s news content through a mobile device. 

The implications for news organizations and businesses alike could not be more clear.  Our customers are changing and so are their mindsets.  This year’s entering class of 2015 is symbolic of the new generation of emerging consumers. They no longer shop exclusively at stores with shelves and they will not wait until 9 p.m. to watch the latest news—especially from a traditional TV set.  Those of us in legacy industries trying to reach our customers through traditional platforms and channels are in peril of becoming irrelevant in our own mindset.

Yes, today’s next generation of consumers may not know who Jeane Kirkpatrick was, but they know how to find out on their smartphones.  The question is, will we be there to tell them?

1)  Dairy Products. Ann tells her clients to avoid milk and other dairy products for an hour or so before voicing. That’s because dairy can create mucous, which means you might have to clear your throat just when you don’t want to.

2) Excessive Caffeine. A little caffeine isn’t bad, Ann says, because it can increase focus and energy. Too much, though, can cause the shakes. Ann’s advice: consume no more than 200 milligrams or so caffeine a day.  You’d get that in one 16 oz. cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee.

3)  Too Much Sugar. Consuming a lot will make your energy drop about 20 minutes later, Ann says.  “A sugar rush can take your energy away and make you feel more fatigued.”

4)  Too Much Alcohol. Of course you wouldn’t drink just before going on the air–the days of whiskey bottles in the newsroom are long gone. But what if you drink a little too much the night before? That can dehydrate your body and your throat the next day, Ann says.  Not good.

5)  Nuts, Peanut Butter, and Crackers. These can have a similar effect to milk, forcing you to clear your throat or cough, so Ann advises avoiding them around air time.

Be sure to check Ann’s website for more voice tips.

Try it drunk.

Not literally! The Common Language Project at the University of Washington suggests pretending that you’re at the bar, telling a friend about an amazing character you met.

Read your script or tell your story as if it had nothing to do with the radio. Read it through as if you’re drunk, laughing uncontrollably, or even in a complete monotone, a couple of times…Then go back to your normal read.

The concept behind the suggestion is that breaking free from the way you typically sound when recording narrations will not only warm up your voice but loosen you up, as well.

Playing with your voice like this opens you up to new possibilities in your read – your tone, pitch, speed, emphasis – trying it in a new way allows you to hear more of those possibilities, and come up with a read that just sounds right. You’ll be amazed how different it sounds.

Now all you need is a secluded spot where you can try this out! Let us now if it’s helpful. And check out more tips from CLP in their Audio 101 guide.

I’ve found a live phoner can feel even more unnatural that standing in front of a camera. I usually try to think about the techniques I’ve heard cable news reporters use when they’re live from some remote place but in the end I’m never quite sure how I sound.

Perhaps because I started out in radio, I always found going live on the phone much easier than talking to a camera. For one thing, you can look at your notes without worrying about breaking eye contact. For another, talking on the phone is something most of us do all the time so it felt more natural to me than facing a camera, not less.

But since radio isn’t taught in many journalism programs any more, I suspect Pendergrass isn’t alone. So how do you get comfortable doing live phoners?Just like anything else–practice.

Try this: Call your own phone or a friend’s and record “live shots” on your days off. Start by telling where you are and why you’re there. Get used to providing a little more description than you might on TV, when the pictures can help tell the story. Practice in lots of different situations–indoors and out. Take notes, organize them, and “go live” or just describe what you see. And don’t forget to listen to the recordings later and critique your work.

Another suggestion comes from commenter Larry Degala on the RTDNA blog:

I felt audio books were only for the visually impaired, but I find them to be a good research and practice aid for delivering information with audio only. Also, listening to sports on radio rather than watching on television will give you solid clues of describing events strictly through unscripted reporting.

If you have other ideas, feel free to chime in!

Sourced from: Advancing the Story

What’s different this time around? The new edition includes substantial revisions but retains the essentials: how to report, write and produce for multiple platforms. We have chapters on delivery, ethics and job seeking as well. There’s a ton of real-world examples and advice from professional journalists. New screen shots, images and examples are included throughout.

There’s also a new focus on the use of social media and mobile devices in gathering and disseminating news. Difficult to believe, but Twitter didn’t exist when we wrote the first edition. My how times have changed:

A majority of journalists today use social media to do their jobs—mainly to find stories, sources and information quickly and to monitor trends. Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools, once used primarily in breaking news situations, have become a central part of the daily newsgathering process. TV anchor Amy Wood says she gets “lots of tips on breaking news” via her social media sites. One of her Twitter followers told her a hostage crisis at a local bank had been resolved before the police announced it.

We’re hard at work on a new companion website that will be available for use with the book this fall. You’ll be able to buy access to the entire site or to individual modules. Each online module–linked to a chapter in the text–includes interactive exercises, tutorials, resources and examples of multimedia storytelling. The “Ongoing Story” module allows users to report a story from beginning to end, and write a TV package as well as a Web version.

No matter what edition of the text you have, updated chapter-by-chapter content will continue to be available on the Advancing the Story blog.

Sourced from: Advancing the Story

Hinkle says he had to re-learn a lot of technical skills when he took the job in Austin last year but he’s now shooting and editing his own stories daily. “I am expected to turn a package for the 5 p.m., file VO/SOTS for the 6 and 10 p.m. news, do a Web report first thing and update it throughout the day,” he says. “I do the same thing  a reporter and photographer together would do.”

That includes demonstrative, multi-part stand-ups, which Hinkle produces on a regular basis. He decides what he wants to say and show in a stand-up and plans it out, selecting different shots or locations for each segment of the track.

“Sometimes, especially if it’s a multi-part stand-up with more than three parts, I draw out a very quick, rough storyboard on paper, so I remember exactly what each shot is,” Hinkle says. “The storyboard might sound ridiculous, but thinking about the stand-up as a movie instead of just a portion of the story has really helped me.”

Then he records the entire stand-up in every location, so he can use a single take if he doesn’t have time to edit.

Hinkle typically shoots with a 25 lb. XDCam and heavy-duty tripod. But on a couple of occasions, he’s shot entire stories with a Flip cam. On his blog, Living Off the Air, Hinkle describes covering a firefighters’ training exercise in a network of caverns. Photographers from other local stations couldn’t fit through the small opening, but Hinkle grabbed two Flip cams out of his pack and crawled in. Good thing he had two. The first one died.

Taking the camera apart, I noticed moisture was collecting inside around the lens cover. I hadn’t dropped the camera, but I figured the air was saturated enough that far down to cause something like this to happen. I wiped a film of cave condensation from my face and had an idea, as I replaced the out-of-service camera with the one from my pocket.

As we continued on our course, I would stop recording every two or three minutes. Next, I pressed my lips up to the camera lens and breathed in hard. Weird? Sick? Okay, whatever. It worked. I was able to suck away any moisture from inside to keep the camera running the rest of the trip.

A Flip cam also saved the day when Hinkle was overcome by pain that turned out to be kidney stones while on assignment. He couldn’t lift the big camera but managed to shoot this story with his Flip:

Hinkle says he’s often asked how he manages to do it all as a solo journalist. “Car time is phone time,” he says. While driving, he sets up interviews and looks for places to shoot.  Like most solo journalists, he uses a light stand to help him frame and set the focus for his stand-ups.

What else? You’ll find the answers in this light-hearted video Hinkle showed at a recent journalism workshop:

Right. Don’t forget to have fun!

Having the jitters about an assignment increases the odds that it won’t go well. So if you’re concerned about sitting on the set, a little preparation will improve your chances of success.

One obvious step is to take a test run in the studio before you do it for real. Get comfortable with the teleprompter, especially if you have to run it yourself. Have someone talk to you on the IFB while you’re reading. If you don’t have your own earpiece, make sure there’s one available that fits you well so it won’t pop out on the air.

Randy Tatano has some additional, excellent advice on his blog at TV News Grapevine, including this tip:

Make sure you have plenty of breaks in the first newscast. Packages and vo/sots give you a chance to regroup. Nothing is worse for a rookie anchor than to have two straight minutes of copy at the top of the newscast, because if you stumble out of the gate you’ll be a snowball going downhill.

Tatano also suggests meeting with the director before the newscast to make sure you’re both on the same page. And one last useful bit of advice: Have water on the set. “Cotton mouth is a really common problem among rookies,” he says.

If you’ve found other useful ways of preparing to anchor for the first time, please chime in with a comment.

Sourced from: Advancing the Story

In an effort to spread its brand, NPR recently decided to stop calling itself National Public Radio but radio is still its heart and soul. And with 780 member stations, NPR has an impressive farm system, and often calls up some of the best to the big leagues. Reporters like Tamara Keith and Jason Beaubien, for example, got their start at local public radio stations.

NPR’s long-form programs “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” feature radio storytelling at its best. The writing is crisp and evocative, and the stories make great use  of natural sound, which NPR executive Robert Garcia calls “the currency of the realm.”

“It’s what brings people into a story,” Garcia says. “If somebody’s in a Pakistani village you’re going to be listening to [it]. You can practically taste the dust on the road.”

As a regular listener to NPR, it’s always seemed to me that the hourly newscasts just didn’t measure up to the same standards as the programs. The writing was flat, most correspondent reports were straight voicers, many of the sound bites were from phoners of marginal quality and there was almost no use of natural sound. Garcia’s been working to change that.

Now, some 50-second stories include multiple sound bites and nat sound. Instead of filing a report, a correspondents may discuss a story in a Q-and-A format with the anchor, which can run longer. The newscasts also are trying to respond faster to breaking news, something they were notoriously slow about in the past.

“We are getting much better at that out of necessity,” Garcia says, “and I think that’s because more people are turning to National Public Radio as their primary source of information. So it’s incumbent on us to move more quickly.”

About time, I’d say. Because the truth is, I care about radio news. I spent a lot of my early career in radio and it was a great place to start. CBS’s Nagler says it still is. A lot of the best writers in the business, he says, come out of radio, “because you need to think on your feet and write concisely.” There may not be as many places to learn that as there used to be but it’s good to know there are still a few.