When Anthropology Meets Audio Storytelling
The other day, I started listening to Stay Away From Matthew MaGill from Pineapple Street Studios. I’m very intrigued by it. Eric Mennel, the reporter and producer, is a clear and engaging guide to...
View ArticleThe Kids Will Have Their Say
Some years ago, I worked with Blunt Youth Radio in Portland, Maine. It was incredibly rewarding. The young people I spent time with were grateful an adult cared enough to hand them a microphone —...
View ArticleNarrative Justice
What’s the truest form of journalism? “Letting others speak their own truth… Give them their voice. Letting them speak from their heart… It actually conveys a truer sense of what you’re trying to get...
View ArticleFireworks
I called up the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies out of the blue. I had read that Salt, a school in Portland, Maine, was considering adding a radio track to their longstanding writing and...
View ArticleStand-Ups (Rerun)
I thought the whole thing was kinda strange. It was some years ago. I was working with a producer and a reporter on a collaboration between the BBC and Marketplace. We were reporting on the Brazilian...
View ArticleGoldstein on Writing, Fonts, and “The Goldstein”
It’s hard to imagine an experienced storyteller like Jonathan Goldstein feeling anxious about writing and putting a story together. But, he says the anxiety is always there. Ever since he was a kid and...
View ArticleSounds Easy, But…
This is true: I was so smitten by a story from the Kitchen Sisters airing on NPR’s All Things Considered, I brought my radio into the bathroom so I could shower and listen and get to where I needed to...
View ArticleThe Megan Tan Way
There’s an illustration I’m sure you’ve seen. Look at it one way and you’ll see an older woman in a veil. Look at the same drawing a while longer and you see a younger woman wearing a hat with a...
View ArticleInterviewing for Story (Rerun)
Alix Spiegel is a master of narrative storytelling. Listen to any of the episodes of Invisibilia she hosted or any of the stories she produced for This American Life and, I suspect, you’ll agree. Even...
View ArticleFrom Memoir to Radio Story
Last year, during the pandemic, Ruby Schwartz says she was questioning everything about her identity and whether she should be an audio producer and reporter. On top of that, she was wrestling with a...
View ArticleThe World Orchestra Is Always Playing
Download a transcript of this episode here. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me with disdain “I’m sick of how formulaic podcasts have become.” This lament probably started two or three...
View ArticleA Sonic Conjuring (Rerun)
Download a transcript of this episode here. Take a look at the photo above, the two strips of film from the collection at the Imperial War Museum in London. They document the sound of Armistice Day,...
View ArticleThe Lake
Aaron Smale (Ngāti Porou), Host, Researcher, Co-writer: Lake Alice has been on a shortlist of stories I’ve wanted to tell in an expansive way for several years. I’d been researching state institutions...
View ArticleHouse of Pod Closes the House
Cat Jaffee is clear. Podcasting is not about talking into a mic. It’s about listening. Cat’s a firm believer in “a better world through better listening,” as she puts it. As a podcaster, she feels the...
View ArticleDarts and Laurels
Download a transcript of this episode here. I can think of two rock-solid reasons why radio should be a subject for podcasts (and for radio broadcasters, too). And I don’t mean actual radios, I mean...
View ArticleExquisitely Challenging: Reporting on Suicide
Download a transcript of this episode here. Erica Heilman’s story “Finn and the Bell” is the best I’ve heard all year. Yes. It’s that good. The documentary tells the story of Finn Rooney, a young man...
View ArticleSo You Want To Start A Podcast, Eh?
Download a transcript of this episode here. Last I heard, there are two million podcasts — two million! On one hand, that’s amazing. So many people picking up microphones and saying what they want to...
View ArticleGet Close
Dear you, I’m reading these words aloud as I type them. Words carrying sounds on their backs are my path to you and I’m trying to close the gap between us. Because at root, whether through words,...
View ArticleNavigating Tricky Story Dynamics
Download a transcript of this episode here. Aviva DeKornfeld says there’s just not enough satisfying reporting on climate grief — especially stories of young people experiencing climate grief. So, when...
View ArticleMombinary
Where It Came From This piece is almost all directly from my journal entries from the Winter of 2020/2021. I first became aware of the concept of gender as a spectrum in 2010, when I learned about it...
View ArticleAl Letson’s Covenant with Listeners About True Crime Stories
Download a transcript of this episode here. A few episodes ago, I took an iHeartMedia podcast to task because the 1-minute trailer and the 1-minute opening to its first episode were exactly the same....
View ArticleAudio Message In A Bottle
Download a transcript of this episode here. So what are we going to do, audio producers? What are we going to do to make our work fresh and sonically interesting? I ask because I’m flummoxed by the...
View ArticleRadio Silence (Rerun)
Download a transcript of this episode. “If you think about it, the leaves grow in silence. Grass grows in silence. Flowers grow in silence. The stars come out in silence. . . ” Virginia Phillips lists...
View ArticleRiding Shotgun
Trust, Reporting, and the Urban-Rural Divide It’s morning in camp and the Elzinga sisters are saddling up their horses and getting ready for another long day on horseback. They’ll be herding several...
View ArticleEngage Listeners To Build Trust
Angela Evancie says journalism is witnessing the decline of local news, especially in the world of newspapers. To make matters worse for journalism, Angela says we’re also experiencing unprecedented...
View ArticleA Soldier’s Heart
Self-doubt is healthy, and so are emotions! On those wonderful occasions when I have the opportunity to speak with students, there’s one question that I can almost always count on: When you’re...
View ArticleRemember To Breathe
When I teach digital audio editing, I spend an inordinate amount of time on something that seems utterly small and insignificant: breaths. Students think I’m out of mind but breaths are ridiculously...
View ArticleThinking In Scenes
Back when he was just starting out, Bradley Campbell, a former student of mine, was jonesing to understand story structure. He figured if he could just decipher the structure of stories, he’d have the...
View ArticleMore Darts And Laurels
I find random sound effects in stories aggravating. (Insert sound of an irritated, roaring lion.) They’re a distraction. They add no value. And, frankly, I think they infantilize the audience. (Insert...
View ArticleSpatial Audio
Introduction The world of “3D” or spatial audio is still unfamiliar to many, but to audio producers it’s a compelling area to explore — intriguing, and at times confusing; the landscape is constantly...
View ArticleCollaboration Is The Only Way Forward
For years, semester after semester, while teaching at Transom and at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, on the first day of class we’d listen to “Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later” by The...
View ArticleProducing YA Fiction
You might think, after so many years working in radio and podcasting, I might not be “wowed” by all the effort producers put into making their stories sound perfect. You’d be wrong. My mind is blown...
View ArticleElegy in Water
Elegy in Water For Scott Foley, In Memoriam 1. I see the boys of summer in their ruin. — Dylan Thomas __________ Back for Scott’s funeral, my memories of him rattle loose. Like these strip mall-gutters...
View ArticleWho Am I To Be Here?
In this archive episode of HowSound, Andrea Silenzi poses a question: “Who am I to be here?” It may be one of the most important questions in journalism. Andrea is now a seasoned reporter and producer...
View ArticleDelicately Revealing Your Identity in the Story
I was given a “writer’s block” as a gift, recently. It’s a little wooden cube. On each side there’s a Henry David Thoreau reference — his signature, a wood cut image of his shack at Walden, a reference...
View ArticleShare the Script?
There are a few things it’s important to say to an interviewee at the start of an interview to make sure you’re both on the same page. Even if a reporter has talked to this person on the phone or by...
View ArticleNausea, Forehead Mics, and Immersion
One of my favorite narrative journalism reporters is Ted Conover. Two books of his in particular stand out because he dives in and becomes a character in the story he’s reporting: Rolling Nowhere:...
View ArticleTips For Interviewing Shy People (Especially Nuns)
Not too long ago, a colleague and I interviewed someone for a story. I wouldn’t describe the interviewee as shy, per se, but they were definitely guarded, as though monitoring everything they said. To...
View ArticleWolves, Horses, Boars, Birds, and Bugs
There’s a haunting, high-pitched, dissonant sound that rises from the woods every spring in New England. Peepers. Incredibly small frogs about the size of a thumbnail. They’re so small it seems...
View ArticleTwo Years of Reporting Whittled Down to Fourteen Minutes
Here’s a question: When you’re reporting on an incarcerated person, how many details do you provide in the story about the crime they committed? I was struck by that question listening to Elissa...
View ArticleHere’s What It Takes To Produce A Story At Any Level
A transformation of HowSound from Transom and PRX It’s magic, right? Download a podcast. Press play. Boom. There it is. A great story told in sound. Same with radio. Turn it on, and “Voila!” It all...
View ArticleAriana Martinez, Part 1
A Time-Based Medium Intro: An Invitation “But time is not what you do something with — time does something with you.”—Sheila Heti, Motherhood Do you remember the last time you surrendered to an...
View ArticleDarts and Laurels Minus The Darts
There’s a rule for interviewers: shut up. Interviewers are not supposed to talk while an interviewee gives an answer. In particular, don’t say “mm-hm” or “oh!” or “Hunh”… keep all the little utterances...
View ArticleGetting Honest
On this archive episode of the Sound School Podcast, a gift. A gift from producer Will Coley and editor Viki Merrick. Frequently, what takes place between a producer and an editor during production is...
View Article32-Bit Float Audio
It’s not often that we experience fundamental shifts in the technology we use to record audio. In the portable-recorder world, there have been a couple of leaps in the last three decades: the shift...
View ArticleHand Over The Cash?
There’s the anecdote about the trampoline. It goes like this: Phoenix Jones, a real-life superhero who wears a Batman-type outfit, chases a bad guy down a street in Seattle. The bad guy tries to get...
View ArticleAn Indie Audio Maker’s Manifesto
We’re living through an era of social and political tumult, when civic discourse is breaking down and the founding notions of democracy are being challenged. In times like these, it’s more important...
View ArticleWe Need More Words to Describe Audio Stories
According to Music Genre List, there are 54 different types of jazz. From Acid Jazz to West Coast Jazz. Apparently, there are 41 styles of Country music. Bluegrass is listed under Country with two...
View ArticleAriana Martinez, Part 2
Making Time (Re)Introduction I actually remember, precisely, when I came to understand the importance of daydreaming and, more broadly, of Slowness. This lesson came to me through a children’s book....
View ArticleStory Dissection: When The Lede Gives It All Away
For the first time in a long time, I pulled into my driveway, sat there, finished listening to an episode of a podcast, went inside my home, and listened to the next episode. I was that drawn in. What...
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