a 10-step radio reporter’s guide to making

RADIO PACKAGES

A step-by-step guide to producing a complete radio story

1 Start with an idea…

Boil it down to the basics:

What’s interesting about the story? Who will listen?

Who’s affected by the story? Whom should you talk to? What’s the best angle?

Write a focus statement…

Remember the five Ws and an H!

who what why when where how

2 Get going…

There are three main ways to dive into a story:

Events–is your story centered around an event?

Interviews–discover all the people you should talk to and make appointments (see “Art of Interviewing”).

Research–the issue may have a rich history already written.

You may focus on one of these methods or use all of them in a story.

3 Collect your sound…

The quality of the sound you get in your interviews and at the events you attend is essential!

Always listen through headphones while you record.

Don’t be afraid to get close enough to get a good sound level.

Collect ambient sound! The more sounds the better!

4 Re-write your focus statement…

Be flexible! Once your reporting is finished, you might realize your story focus is different than you thought.

Open a new document and re-write your focus statement at the top of the page to help you get started.

5 Listen to your sound…

Play back your interviews and take notes. What stands out?

Choose a bunch of quotes you like.

Save them on the computer and transcribe them in a word document.

6 It’s time to write!

Don’t be afraid of the blank page…Besides, you’ve already got your quotes!

Write down what you remember best from your reporting—without using notes and without worrying about sentence structure or anything. Just write freely.

Now, organize your story. It’s cut and paste from here, you have all the parts!

Start with your focus statement.

Place the strongest quote near the top of your story.

Figure out the order you want your quotes to appear.

What are the important parts of the story? Look to your by- memory notes. Where do they fit in relation to your quotes?

Now that you’ve got all the parts organized, it’s a matter of writing between everything so your story makes sense.

If you have it, where does your ambient sound fit in?

Read your script out loud so you can hear what it sounds like. Have you structured sentences that are hard to say? Are your sentences too long to say in one breath? Have you used conversational words? Is anything unclear?

7 It’s time to record!

You’ve pulled all your sound already–your quotes and any ambient sound you want to use. (Make sure you save all those parts in the same folder.) You can do wonders editing quotes, but what ever you do, you don’t want to change the meaning of what someone says. Remember, less is almost always more with quotes. They should range between 10 and 20 seconds in length.

It’s your turn. Read your script onto a minidisk or directly into your computer. Concentrate on telling a story versus reading a story. This makes a BIG difference to the listener. People like to be talked-to, not read-to. Make sure you open your mouth and fully articulate your words–stretch your mouth out before you begin and warm-up your voice by making funny sounds.

8 Edit your package together…

Follow your script to arrange your voice track, quotes and ambient sound in the right order. Concentrate on smooth transitions and even audio levels. This will take practice.

9 Write a host lead…

The host lead is the part you write for the host to read when he or she introduces your story.

Remember these three things when writing your host leads:

Don’t give your whole story away.

Tell them enough that listeners stay tuned to your story

If there’s any information regarding a date, put it in the host lead because it can change, your story can’t.

10 Listen back to the whole thing…

Now that you’re finished with your package, sit down and listen to the whole thing without any interruptions. You’ll catch any editing or scripting errors before it’s too late!

Great job! You’ve finished an awesome radio package.