The week of NPR’s Next Generation Radio flew by. If anything, it reminded me of how much I truly love radio, multimedia storytelling and constructing a space for people to tell their stories freely.
I used to listen to the radio all the time when I was in China. Radio kept me company when I spent most of my time growing up alone. It taught me about the world, the arts, human emotions … and most importantly, how stories can be told and how different ways of storytelling affect the audience.
I pitched a more timely, “newsy” story for this project because I wanted to do something different from my usual writing. The subject matter in the story, how a development can wreck many homes if the developers aren’t respecting the community, is an evergreen topic. My mentor, Nomin, is an experienced news reporter and taught me a lot of important news writing and reporting skills, which was something I’ve always lacked. It was also really nice to have hands-on opportunities with audio editing. I’m familiar with the tools, but being able to work next to an experienced sound engineer provided a whole different level of insight.
The only thing I might have done differently is the interview questions. My mentor and I have been following the Royals vs. Crossroads stories since the beginning, so the subject is a bit too familiar at this point. Looking back, we could have added more questions so our source could directly provide more context to people less familiar with the topic, especially given that this is an NPR project, not just with our local stations. If we want a story to have its maximum impact, we need to factor in how easy it is for those not from the local community to understand our subject and what she’s going through.
As the project comes to an end, I think I’ll start pitching more multimedia stories to our local outlets rather than my usual written story pitches. From here on, I’ll also look to pivot my career toward public media, especially the radio. I’ve always said radio hits differently, and this week’s experience has again proven that to me.