New London Rocks

Where We Live staged the most elaborate, community-builiding live music event we've tried so far. We highlighted the thriving music scene in New London, with an interview about the city's music scene, an old-time banjo band and a country-tinged duo.

(The photo is by WNPR intern Chion Wolf - it shows Where We Live technical director George Goodrich with the band The Can Kickers)

Connecticut students look for in-state tuition

Here's the story that the folks from my "Writing For The Ear" class are reporting on this week. WNPR's Lucy Nalpathanchil is covering the continuing story of undocumented students in Connecticut and the attempt to get them in-state tuition rates.

The story's been covered by The Hartford Courant extensively this week. Mark Spencer's story in the paper includes an interesting reader survey. As of the time of this writing, some 80 percent of people responding said "No" to the idea.

Clearly, this sort of survey isn't scientific, but the reaction to an obviously sympathetic article is surprising.

(The photo is from The Hartford Courant)

On a roll...

WNPR's Where We Live had a really good couple of weeks. Our producers put together an amazing series of guests and ideas. Two of Connecticut's leading pollsters came in to talk about the ever-expanding importance of polls - especially to the already heated 2008 Presidential campaign.

The next day - we talked about AIDS in Africa and the U.S. through the lens of an acclaimed play, an important documentary, and a current conversation.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of the best-selling confessional Prozac Nation joined us to talk about depression, writing, and what's she's doing at Yale Law School. Her new writing ideas are coming from her experience in Manhattan during 9/11.

That event - which killed thousands, and wrecked Elizabeth Wurtzel's nearby apartment building - also led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Clark Kent Ervin was the agency's first inspector general. What he uncovered about the department got this long-time Republican "dis-invited" from his job, and led him on a new career, writing about the current threats to America. He talks about his deep disagreements with the Bush Administration.

Author Susan Eaton and attorneys John Brittain and Wes Horton helped us uncover the history and look ahead to the future of the desegregation case Sheff v. O'Neill. Eaton's astounding book, The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial chronicles the case from the beginning, and updates it with the story of students struggling in Hartford's failing schools.

Finally, Filmmaker Ken Burns visited to talk about his upcoming documentary "The War" - to be seen on PBS stations in September. There's a reason why people like his movies. It's pretty clear he really cares about history, and knows it cold.

"Your skin would feel like it's burning..."

David Kestenbaum is a great storyteller. He's a trained physicist who does science reporting because he seems to truly love putting a human face on stuffy scientists.

In this story about a new, experimental, non-lethal weapon he uses some great techniques that we can all apply to our radio reporting. He sets up the story with a "host intro" that really makes us want to listen.

Then, he starts his copy with a very simple technique...he goes back "to the beginning" where the technology was still young. He's found a way to illustrate just what the ray-gun does by using a personal experience of someone who helped build it, and who's been hit by it. We "feel" it in a way we wouldn't if the reporter just explained what he "heard" it felt like.

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!