OK, It seems that I read this transom.org piece by mistake, because the "Print This Story" link on one of the readings we were actually assigned pointed to this article instead. But I am posting it because I found it A: entertaining and B: useful and C: refreshing in its entertaining usefulness. In any case, a radio neophyte tells about how she successfully pitched, reported and edited her first Morning Edition feature on the White Stripes on a lark, without any previous experience in traditional journalism or audio reporting.
Enter The White Stripes, by Whitney Pastorek - The Idea/Pitch:
http://www.transom.org/tools/beginnings/2002/200211.pastorek.01.php
The Interview:
http://www.transom.org/tools/beginnings/2002/200211.pastorek.02.php
The Edit:
http://www.transom.org/tools/beginnings/2002/200211.pastorek.03.php
Interview with the Editor:
http://www.transom.org/tools/beginnings/2002/200211.pastorek.04.php
- Amanda Zamora. 1.28.08
The White Stripes piece was well written and informative and a pretty good primer for anyone new at the journalism biz. Also found some of the other radio-based pieces fairly interesting, especially in terms of the way they do edits. Food for thought.
In J-school they always pound in your head that you are supposed to be “objective,” but I’ve always contended that it is impossible to be totally objective. You have to be fair and you have to be balanced, (not to mention accurate). But let’s face it, most reporters gather way more info than they will ever have space for – it’s part of making sure you learn all that you can and that you gather a complete-as-possible picture. Even so, much of that information and the majority of quotes from lengthy interviews ends up on the editing room floor.
So who picks the content? We, the writers or interviewers, (sometimes editors) do. Sounds pretty subjective to me, but I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing and certainly not out of bounds. Really, there’s little choice. Space and time dictate that. But within the parameters of “fair and balanced” most good interviewer/writers do a pretty fair if not great job. Nonetheless, subjectivity is happening. We’re doing the picking and choosing.
So along comes Web space, a limitless amount of open territory to get it all down. And I think in many cases that is being done. Certainly on newspaper Websites you can find entire speeches or documents and I think that is a good thing, and totally objective, reaching the goal of one of the tenants of journalism – let the reader absorb and decide. Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of room for, shall we say, garbage, too. It’s a two-sided coin, but the reader can still call heads or tails.
-- tcbrown 1/28/08
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