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.

Consider this: at many local television stations, reporters cover two or more stories a day and never turn a package. Former news director Geoff Roth, who now teaches at Hofstra University, says the trend toward covering the news with live shots and v/o’s or v/o-sots is not going away. At his last station in Fresno, Calif., reporters were expected to go live at 4 p.m. with a preview and tell the story three more times at 5, 6 and 6:30 using sound and video. No package required. And the network evening newscasts also use fewer traditional packages these days,  relying instead on debriefs.

The TV package is definitely not the standard for online video at newspapers, said Hofstra’s Gregg Smith at last week’s Broadcast Education Association conference. A survey he conducted found that 75% of videos on newspaper sites are not narrated and most of those that were came from the AP.

So is there any good reason for young journalists to even learn how to produce a package? “We have to teach beyond it,” Roth said. “We can’t stop teaching the basics, how to write, how to be good storytellers but do it on the fly.” News directors less interested in whether applicants have a finely honed package on their resume reel, he said, and more at whether they can handle a breaking news live shot.  ”Thinking on the fly, organizing quickly. That’s what will be expected of them.”

Perhaps he’s right. But Peg Achterman of Northwest University, a former television photojournalist, argues that the package has not outlived its usefulness. “We encourage great story thinking when we encourage package production,” she says. “We don’t know where TV will be in 10 years. TV may go back to longer form because shorter form is on the Web. We have to teach them to write visually, communicate visually.”

I’d have to agree with Peg. Even if you work for a newsroom that doesn’t let you write packages, you still have to think about the elements you’d need for a finished product in order to collect the visuals and sound required to tell the story well in some other form. “Package-thinking” teaches shot selection and sequencing. It teaches listening skills and organization. And those are the fundamentals for visual journalists, like footwork and passing for a basketball player.

So what do you think? Is the package passé?

The Wire is a pretty simple idea at heart: a searchable three-day timeline with pop-up boxes for news, events and comments from both newsroom staff and users. Users can click on an entry for more information, including text, photos, video or behind-the-scenes notes from WCCO journalists. Then they can add comments or share the item with their social networks.

The Wire lets users watch in real time as news stories unfold and contribute to them, as well. Whenever information comes in on a story the station adds a new post, so users can scroll back and forth to see what happened when.  Because users will know when the station is working on a story, they “could add to it, or comment about it, which may potentially change the shape or scope of that story,” says WCCO creative director Casey Kespohl in a video introduction to the new project.

The timeline also includes tweets from WCCO staff and from other local news sources, including competing television stations. That’s a pretty bold move, since those tweets include clickable links to the other guys’ websites.

Want to know more about how it works? Here’s a how-to video the station posted on launch day:

The Wire isn’t all about news, though. WCCO obviously hopes the Wire will make money, so organizations and businesses can post events on the timeline “for a nominal fee.” That gives advertisers “brand integration,” says Kespohl. In other words, when they buy their way onto the Wire they’re getting the online equivalent of product placement on the air. That’s a controversial concept, to say the least. But Kespohl justifies it by saying the site isn’t just a news source, it’s more of a community.

Maybe the old rules really don’t apply on a site like the Wire. But it wouldn’t be that hard for events to carry a “paid advertisement” label, would it?

That said, WCCO deserves credit for trying something different, lifting the curtain on how news is made and inviting the public to weigh in in real time. Will people use it? Will it make a difference in the newsroom? And will it ever turn a profit? We’ll have to ask those questions in a few months.

Voice coach Ann Utterback has a great collection of how-to tips on her new Web site. She calls them “15 second fixes” because that’s about all the time it takes to practice what she preaches. Here are just a few:

Tape record yourself talking on the phone to hear the natural volume and projection of your voice. Record yourself reading some copy… Compare the two. See if you can bring a natural, conversational voice into your on-air work.

That’s great advice, and I’d add one more suggestion. This may sound wacky, but try recording your narration while actually holding a phone to your ear. When I worked at CNN, the tracking booth was down the hall and around the corner from the edit rooms. You had to call the editor on the phone to make sure tape was rolling (yes, it was tape back then). Anyway, I found that talking into the phone and mic at the same time seemed to help me sound more conversational.

Here’s another tip from Ann–warm up your vocal muscles before you record. It’s just as important as stretching before running, she says.

Repeat these phrases ten times each before you voice to warm up your articulators.  Be sure to explode the /t/ /d/ and /p/ /b/ ending consonants. “Put a cup.” “Fat lazy cat.” “Hot and cold.”

Go on, try it. Go hide somewhere if you have to. Nobody has to know.

Now about taking care of your voice: I’ve already written about the hazards of smoking but that’s not the only behavior that can damage your voice. Screaming at concerts or sports events is obviously harmful, but so are coughing and clearing your throat. Ann’s advice?

When you feel the urge to clear your throat, take a few sips of water.  Also try to cough silently, using your abdominal muscles as if producing an H sound.  Humming gently and softly can work as well to help avoid throat clearing or coughing.

Keep up with Ann’s 15-second fixes by subscribing to her email list. Just send her a note and she’ll put you on it.

KSTP reporter-photographer John Gross, who also shoots for NFL films, shared a routine at a recent NPPA workshop that he promises works better than a cup of coffee–or even two:

Sourced from: Advancing the Story

When I first started working at CBS News, I sat across from Dallas Townsend, the longtime radio anchor of the morning World News Roundup. He went through two packs of unfiltered cigarettes in an eight-hour shift and it destroyed his voice. Eventually, he was taken off the air. It was a sad end to a distinguished career.

True confession: I’m a former smoker. I quit a long time ago when working conditions in the CBS booth at the White House made it impossible for me to smoke while writing. To this day, I thank my colleagues for pushing me to give up the habit.

But lots of young TV journalists today, especially women, think smoking can improve their broadcast voices by lowering the register. Bad idea, says Dr. Ann Utterback, author of the Broadcast Voice Handbook, in this IJNet video. Ann offers several tips to keep your voice healthy, starting about 4 minutes in. Essential viewing for anyone voicing multimedia stories:

Much has been written about the new and varied media platforms journalists are now asked to master, but one area that has not been explored is what delivery style works best on these new devices…

…We are no longer captives in our homes or offices when we watch television.  Now we hold the news in the palm of our hand and watch it anywhere. The use of headphones increases the intimacy (Wenger & Potter,  Advancing the Story, 2008).  What once was broadcast from across the room is now inside our heads.

To be effective in this era, the broadcaster needs to discard the lectern, step down off the stage and mingle on the same level with the listener.  Just as “announcing” didn’t make a smooth transition into the more conversational “Eyewitness News style,” the delivery we hear today in television news isn’t making a comfortable transition to the new electronic platforms.

So what delivery will work for the new platforms?  One of the pioneers in Internet political coverage on You Tube, James Kotecki, put it like this:

The most important thing… to relay a good image to You Tube viewers is just to relax and not treat this like …an appearance on a place like Fox News…. just learn that low production values can be a very positive thing as long as they’re relaxed and they’re talking directly to the camera and responding directly to You Tube viewers and relating to them as human beings…. (“Fox and Friends,” 3/31/07)

So we can take a cue from You Tube.  Viewers want a delivery that feels like the person is having a latte with them at Starbucks.  They are, after all, often holding that person in their hand as they watch on their iPhone or Blackberry.  It’s not Enlarged Conversation any longer and the idea of standing behind a lectern on a stage and pontificating the news is surely out of date.

Today’s delivery needs to have the feel of a two-way conversation.   Call it Connected Chatting.  This delivery still must be clear and understandable, however, and it cannot be sloppy or totally spontaneous. There still need to be filters in the speaker’s head that filter out inappropriate language or verbal fillers (e.g., “uh,” “okay,” “like”), but rather than sounding like a script being read, it should sound like a casual chat.

What is causing current television news products that appear on the Internet to fail is the simple transfer of television news programs to the Internet and onto handheld devices without any thought to the delivery style being used.   The things that make broadcast delivery work on television are not the same things that will make it work on the Internet.  Simply uploading an evening newscast or packages to the Internet ignores the obvious difference in media.

It’s always easier to hold onto the old style of announcing, but just as the booming voices of the 1950’s did not work on the Eyewitness News style of the 1970’s, that style is not making an easy transition to the 2000’s.  You Tube with its viral videos is telling us what works.  Journalists have much to offer as ethical, educated reporters of the news, but if they are to be heard, they must change their delivery style to meet the times.

This post is excerpted from a revised edition of The Broadcast Voice Handbook, as yet unpublished. Here’s the entire chapter [PDF].

Veteran journalist Paul Davis was born with “great pipes,” as the saying goes, but he doesn’t think you have to be naturally gifted to succeed in broadcast news. The truth is that anyone can improve their on-air delivery with instruction and practice. Try some of Paul’s recommendations to improve yours.

» Speak to people on the air as if you were sitting in the same room with them.

» Never read “words.” Communicate “thoughts” and phrases. For example, a name and a title are not a series of words but a single thought. So are a noun and a verb. Don’t pause between them.

» Always speak in the lower half of your normal voice range, especially when using emphasis or inflection. But don’t try to lower your voice artificially.

» Most sentences have two main parts. Except in rare instances, choose only ONE word for emphasis in each part of the sentence. The rest of your phrasing should follow normal speech patterns, with the “sound” of each part of the sentence going “downhill.”

» Control those spikes! Use emphasis/inflection to show contrast and importance, but don’t overdo it. Try other variations of speech to draw attention to key points–pausing, speeding up, or speaking more softly.

» Avoid melodrama. Don’t work your voice too hard to tell the viewer how funny or sad something is. If you have written good words, the viewers can decide that for themselves.

» Trust the words. Rarely use adverbs or adjectives. Don’t ad lib a “very” when “the latest” will do.

» When doing a stand up or live shot outdoors, always speak to the microphone. There is no need to shout at a distant camera. The microphone is still very close to your mouth.

» On camera, communicate with your eyes. Without “life” in your eyes, there is little connection to the viewer.

Here’s a question I get all the time: What kind of standups and live shots should a reporter include in a resume tape montage? The simple answer is to feature only your very best stuff, with the goal of showing how confident and comfortable you are on camera.

So is there anything you should NOT include? When a young reporter asked that question at a recent workshop, my answer may have sounded a little flippant: “Don’t ride the elephant.” The point I was trying to make is that participatory standups can make you look silly and unprofessional, so you have to draw the line at stunts like riding the elephant when the circus comes to town.

Anything else? Well, yes.

Yes, this was a live shot for the morning show on the Fox station in Los Angeles, Good Day LA, which is more of a lifestyle program than a newscast. But the station’s Web site lists Suzanne Marques as a general assignment reporter, which suggests she also covers daily news. Would she want this live shot on her resume reel? I doubt it. As the anchor asks in the lead-in, “Would Diane Sawyer do this?” Um, no. ‘Nuff said.

Sourced from: Advancing the Story

As a broadcast voice specialist, I can’t listen to the news without cringing at some of the pronunciations I hear. And I’m not talking about blatant mispronunciations like “nucular” for “nuclear.” I’m talking about the erosion of the consonants in words. This erosion can turn the word “center” into “sinner” or “ask” into “ass.” This can cause embarrassment, but more importantly, it can make your sentence unintelligible to the listener.

The best voice quality in the world is worthless if it is not articulated into words correctly. Words in our language are made up of phonemes (individual sounds) that combine to give meaning. We use our articulators, the lips, teeth, tongue, and jaw, to shape sound into phonemes to make words.

The expressions, “lazy tongue” or “lazy mouth,” indicate the importance of flexibility for good articulation. If the articulators are sluggish, it is difficult to articulate sounds clearly. Frequently this is also referred to as “sloppy speech.” Sometimes this is adequate in relaxed conversation, but poor articulation is never acceptable for broadcasting.

Listening to broadcasters, I hear omissions of phonemes to greater or lesser degrees. Intelligibility, credibility, and precision of pronunciation are all linked. For this reason, working to pronounce words correctly is essential.

Precision of pronunciation can be improved with practice. Try taking some copy home and marking all the ending plosive sounds (/t/ /d/, /p/ /b/, /k/ /g/) with a highlighter. These sounds should have an explosion of air when they are produced correctly. Practice by over-pronouncing these endings. When you practice in an overdone way, your brain registers the new, precise articulation more readily.

I don’t suggest marking ending consonants on your actual on-air script because it may cause you to sound overly precise. The goal is to sound conversational while articulating most of the ending consonant plosive sounds.

Tongue twisters can help warm-up the articulators as well. Repeating the phrase, “You see Oz,” in an exaggerated manner stretches the mouth and jaw. Any activity that brings more openness and flexibility into the mouth area and more agility to the tongue can help improve articulation.

Try these sentences to warm up the tongue: Put a cup. Drink buttermilk. The fat lazy cat is old. Say them slowly at first, and then speed up the words trying to keep the ending consonants fully pronounced.

Articulating clearly is only one aspect of good vocal production and the beginning of the process of voice improvement. Breathing correctly and keeping a healthy and relaxed throat are also important in improving broadcast voice.

But just as a pianist or a dancer must practice daily to maintain their skills, broadcasters should think of voice improvement as a lifetime pursuit. Maintaining a good broadcast voice takes hours of practice and a lifetime commitment to sound the best you possibly can on the air.

Ann Utterback is author of BROADCAST VOICE HANDBOOK, UtterbackPublishing