Sunday, March 10, 2013

Response to "Sound Reporting"

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The first part of the reading was really selling radio, and it was doing a decent job until it started listing things to keep in mind. These were things like "A radio news magazine may not have readily identifiable 'sections'," "Radio listeners, unlike readers, can't skip a story or segment of a program,"and "People can't relisten to a story, the way they can reread a newspaper article." I understand that the section was trying to show creators why making great content is a must, but as a consumer it seemed as though I was just reading a list of why TV or Internet news was better than radio.

But "Sound Reporting" is right about radio persisting even in the face of new media journalism and programming. It may have diminished in importance, but it's definitely still around and it appears as though it will stay that way. So the next part of the reading I found very compelling. The writer discussed how to create great content for the radio, which will be very helpful when I make my own radio content here in the next couple of weeks.

The overall theme here is simplification. Whatever you do, make it easy for the average listener to understand, and make it entertaining so that you hold their attention. Speak as though you're talking to one person as opposed to many, and speak like you would in real life, minus all the "uh"s and "um"s.

I found the reading to be very informative, and I plan on using what I've learned for my upcoming projects.