Mastering Audio Journalism for Engaging Stories

1. Journalism 285 Course Info: patrickhowej285.wordpress.com Patrick Howe Lecturer

2. Audio Journalism • Paints a picture with sound • Captures emotion • Draws listeners in to a story • More than just interviews and narration • We’re all plugged in these days • Example(Beep Baseball) • Another

3. Using Audio in MMJ • Podcasts • Audio slideshows • Breaking news. All you need is a cell phone. • Radio-type news or feature story • While you’re doing something else

4. Writing for the Ear • Conversational: write like you talk • One idea per sentence. Break long sentences into multiple short ones. • Don’t use jargon or assume listener knows what you know. • Identify who you interview. • Beginning and end of story are most important. • Build up to a good ending.

5. Write like you talk • NOT GOOD: Authorities apprehended the suspect as he was attempting to scale the fence. • BETTER: Police grabbed the man while he was climbing over the fence.

6. Exercise Make this conversational: Pope Benedict XVI joined U.S. President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II on Friday by launching his much-anticipated YouTube channel, a sign the Vatican is increasingly reaching out to the digital generation.

7. Exercise President Obama has a YouTube channel. So does Queen Elizabeth. Now Pope Benedict has one too. The pope wants to use the new channel to reach out to young people.

8. What’s a Better Way to Say: • Youth • Officials • At large • Citizens • Physician

9. 5 Steps to an Audio Story An audio story is your narrated script with sound bites mixed in • Interview your source(s) • Log your sound bites • Write a script, incorporating the bite(s) • Record your script • Edit it together with the bite(s)

10. Getting Good Sound • Gathering Sound(video) • Get the microphone close! • Watch out for background noise like wind, airplanes and traffic • Wear earphones • Record your own questions • Record natural sound • Examples: Kids’ Digital Day, Jennifer Sirchuk

11. Recording Yourself • Speak clearly • Confirm pronunciation (especially of names) • Slow down • Keep it conversational • Play it back • Do multiple takes

12. Editing Audio Options • Audacity (free, can use in Mac and Windows, widely used) • Garageband (powerful and fairly easy; lots of help online)

13. Audio Hosting withSoundCloud

14. There’s an App for ThatFree Voice Recorder Apps iPhone • QuickVoice (.caf files) • VR+ (MP3 with watermark) Android • Hi-Q MP3 Rec (Lite)

15. LAB: Practice Audio Story • Use tutorial to set up Garageband. • Interview peer about their beat for at least 3 minutes (record your questions too) • Import the audio and edit it down to a one minute piece. • Add in some natural sound: Record your own OR download from pacdv.com/sounds • Include fade-ins and fade-outs. • Let me hear it when you’re done