Bringing it to Life

I fished around on washingtonpost.com for a good 20 minutes before choosing a story to bring to life with sound. The first article I saw was the piece on "the D.C. Madam" suicide. Not quite what I had in mind, so I kept looking. In the Post's religion section, I found an interesting story about a man who turned his auto body shop into a temporary Hindu temple. This one was ripe for audio, what with the "chanting devotees" mentioned in the story, but it also seemed ripe for photos. Once I saw an image of the elaborate alter the owner created, I didn't want to suggest that the story could be fully covered in audio.

After checking the politics section and some slide shows on the recent opening of the Newseum, I finally settled on an education story, "Time's Up on Multiple-Choice Test for College."

The article is about the decisions high school seniors face when choosing between various universities' offers of admission. It features James Watkins, a D.C. senior with a May 1 deadline to pick just one from among the eight colleges at which he was accepted.

An audio version of the story could begin with a few seconds of natural sound of students walking to class as the bells chime at an area university. The reporter could then say something to the effect of, "For the thousands of students walking to class on college campuses across the country, May 1 is just an ordinary day. But for many high school seniors, it's the day they must decide which college they'll attend in the fall. And for some, the decision is especially difficult. James Watkins of the District has been weighing the merits of eight different colleges at which he was accepted."

That could lead into a sound byte from an interview with Watkins. The reporter should "step in" to guide the story along where necessary, but as a listener, I don't want to hear too much from the reporter.

I'm more interested in what Watkins says about how he finally settled on Bates College in rural Maine, and what his mother (who was featured in the print story) says about the high value she placed on education as Watkins was growing up. I also want to hear a quick clip or two from Watkins' school adviser, who could provide an overall picture of the decision making process his students experience.

A nice addition: sound bytes from interviews with current college students discussing whether they made the right decision about which school to attend. Conducting these "man on the campus" interviews outdoors would bring a sense of natural space to the piece.

The presence of a reporter in an audio story like this one is important to set the scene, guide the listener through the piece, and tie it together at the end. But the strength of the audio story lies in the reporter's ability to capture (and edit!) articulate, to-the-point interview clips and interesting natural sound.