Airwaves & Liberty

Pacifica Radio presents:
GRASSROOTS RADIO JOURNALISM

A few of the basics to start producing radio journalism for the community.

WRITING FOR RADIO
This document comes primarily from Free Speech Radio News training materials, with a few additions and edits by Nathan Moore. It explains many of the basics about writing for broadcast.

KPFA reporter Brian Edwards-Tiekert created this instruction guide on broadcast writing. It includes good info on the structure of a news story and the process of composing a news story. And it’s one of the best step-by-step explanations I’ve seen for how to turn raw information (or text from a print source) into broadcast-style writing.

The Community News Production Institute (CNPI) uses a couple of training documents for broadcast writing. This document builds on the basic syntax and writing structure to explain the elements needed to tell a story. This document notes some issues in news writing that reporters often face.

BBC radio makes their BBC Style Guide available as a PDF for all to see and learn from. It’s the BBC, so it’s a bit… well, British, complete with an explanation of peculiar Americanisms. But it’s a very good document to improve one’s broadcast writing.

INTERVIEWING SKILLS
The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) has a discussion of interviewing tips in this document. It offers suggestions about the physicality of radio - creating environments that will lead to more successful interviews - as well as types of questions to ask.

This document, used by CNPI, briefly discusses types of guests, types of interviews, and preparing your guests for interviews.

This document was written by Nathan Moore, compiled from various sources, especially including Dick Brooks and John Sawatsky. It focuses primarily on the questions we should ask to get colorful, honest answers. The document also includes some tips from producers at Free Speech Radio News and Alternative Radio.

BBC radio has four different interview training modules at this webpage.

Also, KPFT Program Director Ernesto Aguilar has posted a bunch of homegrown video tutorials on at his blog Urban Unrest. KPFT News Co-Anchor Marlo Blue discusses on-mic voice techniques (she happens to be a voice-over artist for her day job). KPFT Assistant News Director Ron Reynolds discusses how to do crsip interviews. And Dick Brooks leads a workshop at the NFCB about developing professional interviewing skills.

FIELD RECORDING
Which recorder to purchase and use? Minidiscs still record good audio, but digital recorders are now reliable and affordable enough for many people to produce broadcast quality audio. Transom.org’s tech reviewer Jeff Towne offers a side-by-side comparison chart of digital field recorders at this webpage. The Vermont Folklife Center site includes a thorough online equipment guide that can also help guide your decision as to which recorder to purchase. The two sites don’t always agree on which device is bad, good, better, or best, but they’re honest opinions that can help inform you.

Which microphone to purchase and use? The BBC has a very cute introduction to different types of microphones at this webpage. Just click on “Start module 1.” Also, transom.org has done some legwork on mic research — listen to audio samples from various handheld mics at this webpage. There’s another discussion of field mics at the online equipment guide put out by the Vermont Folklife Center.

Okay, you’ve got your gear, now go out in the field! This document provides some tips on voice and microphone technique as you’re recording.

STORY CONSTRUCTION
This brief document outlines some of the common forms that grassroots journalism segments take, including live interviews, reads, cut-and-copy stories, and packaged features. The document also suggests some tips for processing the information and audio you gather in order to put together a story.

Obviously, there are many ways to construct audio stories, and each producer has their own way of processing information and constructing the story. This webpage at AIR’s site lists several independent producers discussing their working method. It’s from 1995 and a bit dated - they talk about cutting tape, which no one does anymore - but it’s an interesting read.

For some additional suggestions about story organization, refer to Brian Edwards-Tiekert’s writing guide listed above.

FINDING A FORUM FOR YOUR AUDIO
So you’re producing terrific grassroots journalism for the community. Now what? What do you actually do with all this audio?

Try your hand at “new media.” Start your own internet distributed public affairs or interiew-based program. Publicize it to people in your community. Post it to your local Indymedia and any community blogs in your area. Spread the word. Try to hook up with a local community or alternative newspaper in your area to begin a multimedia partnership.

Try to hook up with a community radio station in your area. The National Federation of Community Radio Broadcasters lists its members by state at nfcb.org. Pacifica sister and affiliate stations are listed at pacificanetwork.org. Democracy Now lists the radio and TV stations that carry that program at democracynow.org. None of these lists every community station in the country, but between them, they list most.

Work with Pacifica productions or independent production houses that produce regular national programs. There are various ways for experienced reporters and producers to plug in, from Free Speech Radio News reporting to suggesting ideas for Pacifica national specials. This document explains them. If you find yourself working with Pacifica stations or affiliates, chances are you’ll distribute your audio via Audioport.org, Pacifica’s online content delivery system. KPFT Program Director Ernesto Aguilar has posted a video tutorial for using AudioPort at his blog.

Many independent public and community radio programs around the country rely on stringers for material. Some of these (with an especially grassroots radio bent) are listed in the document above. Many independent production companies in noncommercial radio pay their stringers; some NPR-oriented programs pay rather well. The stringer rates (from 2005) for various public radio programs are listed in this document.

INSTALL AUDACITY
There are several good audio editing programs on the market. Some are quite expensive, some more affordable, and one is free and open source. It’s called Audacity.

Click here to install Audacity (version 1.2.6) for Windows. Click here to install the same version for Mac and here for Linux. Also be sure to install the LAME MP3 encoder for Audacity from the same download pages linked above. The mp3 encoder allows you to export your audio files as mp3 files - not just as wav files, which is what you’re limited to without the encoder.

To learn more about Audacity, including documentation, tutorials, and details of its open source license, visit and explore this website.

EDIT IN AUDACITY
A copy of the Audacity user manual is online - click here to open and check out the manual.

There’s a very good Audacity tutorial put together by Peter Graff. This PDF document should get you started in editing. Another tutorial that covers the basics was created by Dan Eliot and lives at this site.

KPFT Program Director Ernesto Aguilar has a 15-minute Audacity video tutorial at his blog training site. Check it out at Urban Unrest.

Additional text tutorials for specific tasks are located online at this website.

Note on software: If you don’t have a copy of Microsoft Word on your computer, you can still view the Word documents contained on this site. Click here to download and install Open Office, an open source version of Microsoft Office. Similarly, if you need a copy of Adobe Reader to open the PDF documents on this site, you can download and install it by clicking here.

About this training site: This page is a work in progress and you’re looking at the first version. It is certainly not a complete guide to all broadcast skills, nor a representation of all perspectives of what “grassroots” journalism is or should be. But it’s intended to serve as an introduction and hopefully you’ll find it useful. This page was developed by Nathan Moore at Pacifica radio.