Photo: flickr/morberg

Radio journalists who regularly produce features can get stuck in a rut or develop bad habits. After a while, their work can start sounding a little formulaic. In this two-part post, radio producer and trainer Kyle James offers advice on putting a bit of zing back in your features and taking your audio packages one step further.

All of us radio reporters with a few notches on our belts have been there: we’ve recorded our interviews, have some natural or ambient sound, and have written up a great-looking script. But then when we edit the audio all together and give it a listen, the final result is kind of dull.

I mean, the story might be fine in that it’s got all the necessary components. But maybe it sounds just like the last five features you’ve done, and the five before that – only the topic has changed.

One common reason for this is that we often follow a pattern that we learned in our early days of producing radio features, which goes something like this – we introduce the report with some ambient sound, then we talk a bit and introduce a voice clip, have the voice clip, talk a bit more, another voice clip, and on and on in that way until four to six minutes have elapsed and we sign off. Sure, our listeners might know more about the issue but we haven’t bowled them over. Maybe we’re even yawning ourselves.

So what can we do to get professional sounding pieces that really engage the listener? One thing is to break those patterns we’ve fallen into. The goal – jump out of that rut and make sure our listeners never know quite what to expect.

Keep surprising them and they’ll likely keep tuning in.

Master the fundamentals

Much later Picasso

Early Picasso

But before we talk about the surprises, I want to go over a few of the basic practices that have to become second nature before you head to true greatness.

Just like Picasso, who mastered the accepted academic techniques before breaking the rules and becoming a groundbreaking artist, we radio producers need to make sure our skills foundation is solid.

Then we can start playing around. (Who knows, maybe a future Picasso of the audio world is reading this.)

Keep the language clear, concise and conversational

Many reporters (and not just beginners) think writing a radio piece is like writing a print article and then throwing in some recorded quotes. Nope. We’re writing for the ear, not the eye. The ear can’t take in as much information as the eye can. And on the radio, you can’t press rewind. If a listener gets stuck thinking about an unfamiliar word or figuring out a complex sentence, she’s likely missing the next information you’re presenting. Soon, she’s lost the plot.

Photo: flickr/visualpun.ch

Here’s an example. Why write like this?

At a tumultuous meeting on Thursday, members of the University of California board of regents, in an 8-9 vote, decided to drop race-based admissions starting in the 2014 academic year, although minutes later a group of vociferous demonstrators drove the panel from the meeting room.

Does anyone talk that way? This might be OK for print but it’s too much information for the ear to process. Simplify and split it up.

This is much better:

University of California Board directors narrowly voted tonight to end race-based preferences in school admissions. Minutes later, shouting protesters drove the directors from the meeting room.

It’s simpler and shorter; the sentences are less complicated. While it leaves out some details, it focuses on the most essential information. Bottom line—radio writing has to be tight and clear and above all, interesting.

Grab listeners’ attention from the start

People are busy these days and there’s a lot of opportunity for distraction. If they’re not taken with your piece right away, a quick turn of the dial or a screen swipe will lead them to something else. So, you’ve probably got no more than 10-15 seconds to make your story grab their attention.

Starting off your feature with a minute-long, complex explanation of the issue is usually not a winning strategy. Instead, get listeners into the story right away by using clever language and interesting sound – something that will prick up their ears.

One of my editors said I should definitely get the first voice clip within 15 seconds. That seems a little extreme but the point is not to leave your listeners waiting too long for something to happen.

For this story on people who hate working in the morning in Denmark, I tried to keep the language light and entertaining and I put in a sound effect, although one that was related to the story. If any of my listeners were asleep, they probably weren’t dozing after ten seconds into the piece. Then I put in my first voice clip…a lively one.

Smooth it out with a sound bed

Grabbing as much natural sound as you can is a must for a compelling radio feature. We want to paint pictures in people’s minds through sound, with words helping out along the way.

In the many radio workshops I’ve taught, I always stress the importance of introducing your sound (such as a demonstration, rushing water, crying children, you name it), letting it hang around for a few seconds, and then fading it under the next bit of narration or clip. Don’t just plop the sound in, run it for a few moments, then cut it out completely before the next element. That’s jarring.

Instead, fade the sound down, but not completely out, before the next element begins. Then let it run for a while, fading it out when you feel the time is right.

Most people get this, but there’s a more nuanced way to deal with sound that will make your features sound smoother and much more professional.

Often when you’re recording an interview, you’re not in a studio-silent environment. Maybe there’s construction going on outside or you’re at a demonstration. In fact, you might even want a little sound behind your voice clip. It shows the listener you were there and brings them closer to the event.

But, introducing a voice clip with background noise after narration done in a studio or quiet environment can, again, be jarring. Here’s an example from a feature in which of my interviews was done in a café.

At around 17 second, the voice clips starts and all of the sudden you can hear the noise of the café behind him. While this is not a fatal flaw, it doesn’t sound good.

There is a solution that you should always do. Put down a “sound bed” that features the background noise before the voice clip starts. You fade up the sound under your voice track before the voice clip so it blends smoothly with the sound that was under the interview. You the keep the sound bed running a bit after the clip ends, then fade it out. Again, the goal is a smooth transition.

In this example, I recorded sound of the café, (sometimes called ‘room tone’) after the interview. So I had the clinking of glasses and murmuring of the customers without my interviewee talking. Then, I used that to introduce a scene, tell people I was in a café, and then kept the sound going under my narration until the voice clip started. This made the transition between my narration and the voice clip with the background noise much smoother. I reintroduced the room tone toward the end of the voice clip and kept it running after it ended so the transition from clip to the next narration was also smooth.

On my audio editor, it looked like this:

And it sounded like this:

Better, huh? These sound beds might not seem that big a deal but they separate the pros from the amateurs.

And next week, don’t forget to check out part II of “Taking Your Radio Features to the Next Level” where I’ll look at getting creative with voice clips and a few other things you can do to make your audio features stand out from the pack.

Written by Kyle James, edited by Kate Hairsine

The feature reports were recently produced as part of the 2013 African Stories series of workshops for TV journalists, camera operators, cutters and technicians (scroll to the bottom of the post to see the videos).

TV stations from 16 English and French speaking African countries are taking part in the long-term project to sharpen their skills and at the same time, produce compelling stories about everyday people and everday lives in Africa (you can find out more about the African Stories project here).

In August, TV teams from Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda met in Kampala for an 11-day workshop. This time, the DW Akademie trainers stepped up the challenge by introducing techniques for filming with a moving camera – a skill that needs some practice.

“This was new to me at the beginning and it wasn’t easy to grasp,” said camera operator Richard Ocloo-Dzaba from Nigeria. “But with more and more practice, I got the knack of it and when we did our production in the field it proved to be not only a very efficient way to work but provided very lively and realistic footage.”

Watch what participants say about the African Stories II Workshop

Twelve of the 16 participating teams will later have the chance to produce longer TV features in a series of coproductions with DW Akademie journalists. As well as learning new film techniques, those participants who make it into the final round will also be trained in how to pass their newly acquired skills to their colleagues.

“I am looking forward to the train-the-trainers part of the project,” said Lwanga Andrew Kisegerwa from Uganda. “Many of my work mates have received little, if any training and could perform much better and more efficiently if introduced properly to the trade.”

Banana Wilt – AIT TV, Nigeria: Omoregbe Darryl Bazuaye, Gbenga Stephen Janehin, Richard Ocloo-Dzaba

The banana wilt plant disease is devastating the cooking banana harvest in Uganda. This report looks at what can be done to prevent the spread of banana wilt and what measures could be taken to ensure a reliable supply of this major food staple.

Living with HIV in Uganda- KTN TV, Kenya: Wilkister Nyalal Nyabwa, Brian Masheti Mulindi, Calvin Omondi Jabedo

The story shows the daily life of an HIV-positive woman who isn’t afraid to speak out openly about her status. As an HIV/AIDS activist, she fights hard to convice people to get tested and inform themselves about the disease.

The Godfather of Electronics in Kampala – Star TV, Tanzania: Paul Charles Mabuga, David Julius Ngahyoma, Emmanuel Mkina Makwaya

Known at the ‘Godfather of Electronics’, an elderly man teaches young people in Kampala to repair technical equipment. Thanks to his help, they can earn a living and support their families.

Briquette Making in Uganda – WBS TV, Uganda: Kennes Odongo Bwire, Ismail Shafik, Lwanga Andrew Kisegerwa

Briquette makers turn the organic waste found in garbage into an environmentally friendly and cheap source of energy. Compressed briquettes are increasingly been praised as an alternative to wood charcoal, the production of which causes extensive deforestation.

Do you have an Android smartphone? Then you’re set to produce multimedia stories. StoryMaker is an open source Android app designed to help you learn how to gather, produce and publish multimedia stories.

You can use the app to shoot and edit photo and video; record audio; produce an audio slideshow, and, write text. You can then combine these multimedia elements into a finished story and publish it on your social media networks and on the StoryMaker platform. But as well as being a story production and publishing tool, StoryMaker is a training app offering lessons on journalism, audio, photography, videography and security.

StoryMaker was developed by Small World News and a number of partners including The Guardian Project, Free Press Unlimited and the Open Tech Fund

At the moment, the app is mostly used by journalists in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Zimbabwe, with stories being posted in English and Arabic.

The co-founder of Small World News, Brian Conley, spoke to DW Akademie’s Steffen Leidel recently about StoryMaker and says the app is aimed at “people who want to become journalists and tell stories, who are willing to take any effort they can to create a media experience”.

Moreover, says Conley, they are targeting people who want to tell stories that are not being covered in the international press.

“If we can help people tell stories easily, create content and organize it in one place, it’ll have a huge impact both on the local media and the international press coverage”.

How can journalists use StoryMaker?

As a single app for multimedia production and publishing, StoryMaker is particularly good news for Android users who might look on with envy at some iPhone apps.

For journalists, or anyone who wants to tell a compelling multimedia story, StoryMaker lets you gather materials quickly and then guides you through the process of creating a story using a selection of story templates.

Getting started is straightforward. After you download and install the app from Google Play you can either begin exploring the lessons or start producing a story.

We would recommend to take a look at the lessons covering the basics of storytelling and audio, photo and video production.

To create a story, tap on Quick capture (video, photo or audio icon) in the top left corner of the main page or go to Stories and select New.

You can then arrange the story templates in the right order and add other elements to the story. For example, record a voice over for the video you captured and add a description. You can also do basic editing and add other clips and photos from your device to your story.

Check out the video tutorial below that walks you through producing a story.

In the settings you can also adjust how you compress video as well as the frame width and height. You can also choose a server for hosting the stories you produce and connect your StoryMaker account with YouTube for sharing video and SoundCloud for audio.

Digital security is another interesting feature of StoryMaker. Users are able to send data from their smartphone through the Tor network making it difficult to trace.

A chapter on security is also included in StoryMaker’s training section. “Journalists – professionals as well as amateurs – don’t understand the risk of confidentiality and privacy that is posed by their phone,” says Brian Conley.

“Their phone is very easy to track. If you are not taking reasonable steps, you can’t say to your sources “I’m keeping you safe”. (Small World News has published guides to online and mobile security)

A few bugs in beta 

StoryMaker is still in beta and we tested the app on a Google Nexus 7 tablet running Android 4.2.2.

The app sometimes crashes. And some functions such as adding photos stored on our device did not work properly.

We found if you flip your device from vertical to horizontal when exploring the lessons, the app returned to the start. The same thing happens if you tap on a video link. After watching the video, you’ll find yourself not where you stopped but at the beginning.

The interface is simple, but at the moment not so intuitive. For example, there’s also no progression bar to track your progress and tell you where you’re up to in the lessons.

But given that it’s in beta we hope these minor bugs will be fixed in later versions.

What else should journalists know about StoryMaker?

Costs: Free

Lessons: Tap on a category to download lessons from the server. You can only start the next lesson after you have completed the previous one. At the end of each lesson, there’s a quiz with multiple choice questions. However, if you don’t want to go through all the lessons, just go to the left-hand column to select Settings  -> Debug -> Disable lesson completion.

Sharing: Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, basically any service or platform available for Android.

Languages: English and Arabic. The app has also been translated to Spanish, and in the next release the Spanish language should be available. Anyone who wants to contribute a translation can assist by joining the project on Transifex.

Author:Natalia Karbasova

Be creative, experiment and learn through play.

This is something I’m always trying to encourage participants to do during any workshop. But particularly when it comes to learning about multimedia, or using a mobile phone for reporting, and getting used to new types of media for storytelling.

So what’s up with using the mobile messaging service WhatsApp as a tool to complement training in workshops? Well, potentially a lot… particularly for practical exercises. But first, if you haven’t yet dialled into the world of WhatsApp, here’s a quick overview.

More than just SMS

In short, WhatsApp is a mobile multimedia messaging application.
You can use WhatsApp to send text, photos, audio and video, as well as your map location. WhatsApp encrypts messages. It’s also a cross-platform application meaning that it works on iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry and Nokia (Symbian) mobile phones – a good thing for training workshops where it’s BYOD – bring your own device.

The application uses mobile data networks to exchange messages. So, if you have a good mobile phone plan for web browsing, WhatsApp is very attractive because you can avoid paying for text messages or multimedia messages.

Depending on where you are training, you might find that all of your participants are already addicted to WhatsApp.  Moreover, given that it’s an app that works across different types of phones, there’s a good chance that most of your participants will be able to download and install it.

Mobile journalism guru Marcus Boesch first introduced me to WhatsApp while we were training in Turkey. With a local data SIM card it seemed like the perfect app for staying in touch with friends and family. Not only could I send text messages and photos, but it was also a fun way to send little audio or video messages. Straight away I was learning to use the app by playing.

If you’re still wondering about what all the fuss is about messaging applications such as WhatsApp, it’s a very competitive market. Facebook has recently opened its Messenger app on iOS and Android phones to non-Facebook users in select countries. Like WhatsApp all you need is a phone and a number and Messenger also lets you send audio messages. And Skype has just released a new version (only for Mac + iOS) allowing users to send short video messages within Skype IM chats.

And if these figures are anything to go by, WhatsApp had quite a busy day on New Year’s Eve.

Getting started

Once installed, it’s pretty simple – and that’s what we like for workshops. There’s no account registration or log in. All you have to do is verify your phone number with the service. But do give some thought as to when you ask participants to install the app. Installing apps and troubleshooting can be a huge thief of time during workshops. If your workshop involves participants bringing their own devices, I find it’s always better for them to try and install all apps before the course. Or, depending on how long your course is, set aside some dedicated time to trouble shoot. Someone’s phone will always have problems whether it’s with hardware or firmware.

When you launch WhatsApp you can check through your phone contacts to see who is already using the app. You then click on a contact name and send them a message. You can also send non-users an invite to install the app. But keep in mind that WhatsApp has run into some problems on this function with regulators over privacy and storing of information. Dutch and Canadian data protection authorities are concerned that WhatsApp keeps phone numbers of non-users: even though the numbers are stored in a hashed or anonymous format. It would be worth monitoring how WhatsApp resolves this problem.

Costs

At the moment for the iPhone, WhatsApp costs a one-off purchase fee of US$0.99 when you purchase through iTunes – this may change. For other phones, it’s free to download and use for a year. After that, you’ll have to purchase the app.

For many of our journalist participants, airtime and mobile data are very precious necessities for both work and home. Airtime expenses are often not reimbursed by their employer. But for short courses, providing airtime/data for participants is something that can budgeted for.

So what can you produce with WhatsApp?

Text
Simple. But unlike an SMS, you’re not limited to 160 characters. And yes, you can also add emoticons .

Photo or video
There is the option to either take a photo or record video directly when you’re producing the message, or choose an existing image or video from your phone’s album – that means you produce an image or video on another app and share via WhatsApp. Unfortunately you can’t include text in a photo message. You can also forward an image or video to another WhatsApp user or someone else via email.

Audio
When you select the Audio Note option a red Record button appears. You can record up to 2 minutes of audio.

Location
When you select this option, a map appears pin-pointing your location. If this is not accurate enough, you can either directly enter your address into the search bar, or select a nearby location from the list. On my iPhone the location service is powered by foursquare. For some reason you can not forward a location message.

Send a message to a group
Group chat is one of the functions that makes WhatsApp interesting for journalists. You can add up to 30 contacts for a group chat.

For training, a specific group could be established for participants and trainers during the workshop to exchange multimedia content. Small newsrooms might also find good uses for group messages. In Israel, the government and police services are using @WhatsApp groups to communicate with journalists working specific beats. In India, during the recent Kumbh Mela, Indian police use WhatsApp to share information on lost & found people.

Email entire conversation as a .txt document
Not quite an obvious function. But this might be useful for archiving conversations (including all of the media exchanged) for research. Or, perhaps you’ve conducted a text or multimedia interview with someone, you could email the entire conversation to yourself and publish the material on another platform.

Using WhatsApp as a training tool

Getting participants excited about using new types of media and social media – that’s the key. WhatsApp is not going to be the primary tool they’ll use for newsgathering, but it’s a great way of encouraging them to produce and share simple multimedia elements. I always think if it’s fun to do then participants will keep on practicing skills that they learn in the workshop.

 Ideas for practical exercises

Multimedia street safari
Working in pairs or in small groups, participants can find an interesting street or market and document what they see and hear. They can take photos, make short video clips, record interesting sounds or produce short interviews. They can send materials to each other, or to the trainers who will be able to see what they are producing straightaway and send feedback on the spot.

Explore a specific theme
If you set up a group for your participants on WhatsApp you could get everyone sharing content with each other on a specific theme – maybe public transport, or street vendors or local food?  It be could be anything. Brainstorm ideas with your participants. This could even be a fun little exercise that everyone does everyday after the workshop.

Multimedia interviews
A slightly different type of interview. Participants could interview each other via WhatsApp. For instance about their media outlet and their day to day work as journalists. Questions and answers could be exchanged in different forms of media: text, audio or video. And consider this: depending on the recording quality of a phone, the Audio Note function of WhatsApp might also help radio news journalists looking for a quick soundbite from an interview partner.

WhatsApp is just one of a number of cross platform tools you could use in training to encourage participants to produce and share simple multimedia elements with their mobile phones – social media or blogging platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr are obvious ones too (and I’d like to see Twitter added as a message forwarding option to WhatsApp). But given the growth of messaging applications, and the possibility of simply exchanging messages between participants makes, it an interesting tool to explore for training.

Are you using WhatsApp in an innovative way? Or is it a tool you are using for journalism or journalism trainng? We would really like to know how you might be using the app.

Author: Guy Degen

Digital technologies are completely changing the face of journalism. This transformation presents new challenges for training journalists because it’s no longer practicable for upcoming reporters to only have skills in a single medium.

Instead, during their training, journalists need to be exposed to diverse narrative forms and modes of representation used in all media, from radio and television to print and online.

In a recent publication, German academics Klaus Meier, Vanessa Giese and Tobias Schweigmann called for a cross-media training concept.

“The ability to be innovative is the new challenge that every future journalist has to face,” they write in their article, Crossing the Media.

“And that means instead of media lecturers and trainers teaching journalism as they have in the past decades, they need to be open to new ideas and need to be able to assess where the transformation of journalism and the media is taking journalism.”

The three lecturers believe journalism training needs to focus on imparting new skills in three main areas.

1. Cross-media editorial management and job organization.

“Journalism students need to be taught, and experience for themselves, the organizational challenges of differing cross-media editorial models as well as gaining news desk and newsroom experience. The students shouldn’t just learn about the ensuing organizational issues but also about editorial concepts, editorial marketing and quality management.

How can diverse media channels reach their public by strategically complementing each other instead of competing with each other as was previously the case? How do you organize cross-media meetings and how do you coordinate the diverse media channels? How can all media channels accommodate an active public and feedback that mostly is on the Internet.”

2. Research and storytelling across media boundaries

Journalism students need to learn how to handle the recurring daily challenge of deciding which media channel is best suited to a certain topic and also which step in the publication workflow is most suitable.

“A mandatory skill for journalist students is to ‘think in all media’. Individuals can then decide if they want to learn to produce in all media. Specialists who only ‘think’ in other media may continue to exist. But there will be an increasing number of generalists who will learn and become skilled in all media formats.

In every cross-media training, the basic conflict always arises between generalists (disparaged as ‘egg-laying woolly pigs’ in extreme cases) and specialists (disparaged as ‘wearing blinkers’). Basically, within limits, it should be left to upcoming journalists to decide if they want to deepen their knowledge of a particular media and becomes specialists (for example, for long and complex narrative forms of a media) or whether they want to make a name for themselves as generalists in a converging media world.”

3. The hypermediality of the Internet

“All journalism students need to learn about online narrative styles and procedures for dealing with an active public because sooner or later they will all have something to do with the Internet (even those who are offline media specialists).

Learning about multimedia narration means learning how video, audio, photos and text are used differently on the Internet compared to TV, radio and print channels.”

This excerpt was taken from the article ‘Crossing the media: the concept of the cross-medial laboratory’ by Klaus Meier, Vanessa Giese and Tobias Schweigmann in “Didactics of Journalism”, 2012, 314-315.

Translation: Kate Hirsine

Photo credit: Guy Degen