Big Broadwater Story Part 2

A few weeks after Nancy Cohen reported on Broadwater's place in the overall LNG landscape for WNPR, she wrote an entirely new story, adding new information for National Public Radio's Morning Edition. It's a very different story - written for a different audience. (Image Credit, Wes Rand Hartford Courant)

Spots of different spots

"Spot" News can be breaking stories, daily updates, important items, and total trivia. The idea is that these stories encapsulate what's happening right now, that radio listeners should hear. And hear quickly. For our purposes, the spot news story is no longer than 1:15.

A few examples include the sad but silly story of "The Nut Lady," a 94-year-old Connecticut resident who devoted her life to, well...nuts. It includes a few interesting, archival pieces of tape - telling the important parts of a life in a very short bit of time.

A "newsier" spot might include the elements of this story about pending legislation at the state capitol. A controversial issue, where you hear both sides of the story...again, very quickly. When we include audio in a story like this, it's a "wrap."

Here's another story, basically ripped from the day's newspaper. It's what we call a "voicer" - just a story, written by a reporter, and read as a script. There's no sound bite involved.

"Thank you for joining us this morning"

When faced with a Washington news policy piece, there's sometimes little a reporter can do to make it interesting and lively. The chances to find ambient sound, quirky events, or connections with real people are very difficult...especially under deadline. That's why I love what NPR's Andrea Seabrook did with her story "Can We Afford State of the Union Proposals?".

She uses some techniques that I wouldn't try too often, including the way she introduces the story's first character. But look at the writing, and the way she uses very conversational, non-sentences to explain...or "translate" what the subjects are saying.

NHL Hockey back in Hartford?

NHL Hockey left Hartford back in 1997. Most people think it's never coming back. Here's Lucy Nalpathanchil's story about an attempt to make it happen.

This story has some great little moments - as usual, it's the tape with "regular people" that really makes it.

Coliseum comes tumbling down

Few stories have the raw impact of a building being imploded. TV News loves it, of course - great visuals. But there are also a million little stories to tell: What was the building's history? What memories do people have of the place? Now that it's gone what goes in it's place? What would the people who built it think?

WNPR's Diane Orson got to cover the implosion of the New Haven Coliseum - a troubled, and some would say ugly, building...that once held a lot of hope for the city.

Her report has so many of the elements you want in a radio story:

- Great characters
- A compelling narrative
- And, of course...amazing tape

Listen for how the elements are put together - how else could you mix & match them?
(photo credit: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN, HARTFORD COURANT)

The "99 Ways"

For both intriguing listening, and an excellent production lesson, take a listen to 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story at the Third Coast International Audio Festival site. The premise is simple: Set up some basic rules about what the story should contain - but limit the production style in no other way.

This results in some straightforwardly compelling pieces, and some just downright strange ones.

Garrels goes back to Baghdad

This week, NPR correspondent Anne Garrels goes back to Iraq for the first time since November. Where We Live went to her house in Connecticut to talk about what she expects to find when she gets there. She says from all reports the violence in the city is as bad or worse as when she left, and she'll be covering the long run-up to U.S. troop increases there. She's not terribly hopeful that it will help.

Our interview aired Thursday morning on Where We Live - here is an audio link.

Updike Manifesto Pt. 2

Part two of the Updike manifesto is a step-by-step about how to write to tape. She includes some perfect examples, and boils it down to a few key points:

~ Don't repeat the tape.
~ Let the tape have the money shot.
~ Tell listeners what they need to know to get the most out of the tape.

Updike Manifesto

One of the problems I've had in teaching "Writing for the Ear" classes in the past is finding - for lack of a better word - "inspirational" writing about radio writing. Here is part of a radio production manifesto by Nancy Updike who has done stories for This American Life among others. It gives a really good sense of how to start a radio story.

"Wailing like a lost soul..." or "Moaning like a lost spirit..."

During a new, monthly "listening lunch" at WNPR, Nancy Cohen reminded us of this amazing piece of reporting by NPR's John Burnett. It's a story about a sandstorm hitting U.S. Troops in Iraq. Listen for the evocative writing...and the few things left in that could have been left out.

Big Broadwater Story

The Federal Energy Regulatory commission is holding some of its last public hearings on Broadwater. FERC is expected to decide whether to approve the floating liquefied natural gas terminal sometime this year.

But as WNPR's Nancy Cohen reports even if the federal government okays it that doesn't guarantee it'll be built.

This story generated quite a bit of discussion in the environmental and energy communities...and they must have been listening in Governor Rell's office...they ripped off a line from Nancy's story for the Governor's statement at the hearing!