Category Archives: Pubmedia

NPR Storytelling→ Introducing training.npr.org

2015-11-02 Today we’re very excited to unveil a new site – training.npr.org.We created it for the many journalists working in public media. Sometimes it can feel impossible to find the time and space to hone your storytelling techniques, learn something n …›

NPR Storytelling→ Do you even Snapchat, bro?

2015-10-30 NPR’s social media intern Vesta Partovi has taken our Snapchat/Periscope game to a new level with this custom iPhone rig (dubbed “Wombat”). She put it together with the help of two NPR engineers and photographer John Poole. She writes: The idea …›

NPR Storytelling→ Audio people! Don’t forget to tell stories about soundSometimes,…

2015-10-21 Audio people! Don’t forget to tell stories about soundSometimes, it’s helpful to offer reminders of the obvious: Radio/audio is a really good medium for stories about sound.This segment from All Things Considered last week, especially its intro*, i …›

NPR Storytelling→ Why so many people clicked play on this story’s audio from a congressional hearing

2015-09-30 When people visit NPR.org stories that include audio, few typically click “play” – only about 13 percent. But this piece by NPR’s Eyder Peralta? It got hundreds of thousands of views and about 62 percent of them resulted in a “play.”   …›

NPR Storytelling→ How to make scenes that breathe and move and WORK

2015-09-24 Thanks to an invitation from Storybench.org to write about NPR stories that “breathe life into a neighborhood scene,” I’ve been thinking about what distinguishes audio scenes that are, well … meh … from those that really sing.I cam …›

NPR Storytelling→ Public radio people told a story exclusively on Snapchat…

2015-09-10 Public radio people told a story exclusively on Snapchat … and lived to tell the tale!A couple of weeks ago, Alison MacAdam and I spent a day showing a new employee how a story comes together at NPR, from start to finish. It’s an extensive process …›

NPR Storytelling→ When should you reveal the big magical number?

2015-09-04 When you have a story that’s centered around a huge and surprising number, when do you reveal it?This piece by NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce illustrates how the answer could be different for audio and digital.  It’s about researchers who discovere …›

NPR Storytelling→ Building a neighborhood scene

2015-08-31 On Friday, August 28, two stories on Morning Edition achieved the same thing: They painted effective scenes of single, emblematic streets. The first street is in LA - in this diminutive piece by NPR’s Nathan Rott about Californians limiting their …›

NPR Storytelling→ How doodling can improve your audio story

2015-08-20 Here’s a handy trick from NPR’s Don Gonyea, who has endured more campaign airplanes, Iowa State Fairs, and overstuffed spin rooms than almost anyone. Don is nearly always on a tight deadline, and it turns out he sketches pictures like the doodle b …›

NPR Storytelling→ When you can’t get a story out of your head, write an explainer

2015-08-18 You’ve probably seen the photos: shockingly orange water cascading through Colorado’s Animas River, the contamination the result of an accident by the Environmental Protection Agency at a nearby mine. KUNC reporter Stephanie Paige Ogburn has been …›

NPR Storytelling→ How to tell a powerful story… in real timeAugust 14 is…

2015-08-10 How to tell a powerful story… in real timeAugust 14 is Melissa Block’s last day as host of All Things Considered. After 12 years “in the chair,” she leaves behind thousands of memorable moments. But none are more powerful than her stories from …›

NPR Storytelling→ Listen to the work of your colleagues

2015-08-07 From Sara Sarasohn, longtime NPR editor and producer, now editorial leader of NPR One:“When I stopped being a producer, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation and figured that I had mixed more than a thousand reporter pieces. That is what taught me …›

NPR Storytelling→ Tell a small story in order to tell a large one*

2015-08-05 Compliments to Rachel Martin, Jordana Hochman and Connor Donevan at Weekend Edition for this great story last Sunday. They produced an 11-minute piece about two sisters who were stranded in the New Orleans Superdome with thousands of other people aft …›

NPR Storytelling→ One secret to good visual storytelling

2015-07-30 The NPR Visuals team has gotten raves for this story, produced by David Eads and Claire O’Neill in 2014. “Demolished,” about Chicago’s public housing projects, won the top award given out by the Society of News Designers.So why is “Demolis …›

NPR Storytelling→ Sense of place: Learning from “insiders” with outside perspective

2015-07-24 Why would anyone want to trade the comforts of British Columbia for a partially-destroyed, periodically war-torn, 7 mile-long enclave squeezed between Israel and the sea? NPR’s Emily Harris (with editing by Larry Kaplow) recently told the story of …›

NPR Storytelling→ No studio on the road? No problem

2015-07-21 Every radio producer and reporter knows you have to get creative when tracking while traveling. Our engineer, Kevin Wait, says you should try to recreate the studio environment as much as possible — find the quietest area and use something soft above …›