Liz Torres

- Print & Multimedia Journalism Major at Emerson College - Sports Correspondent for The Boston Globe -

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Narration and effective voiceovers

Angela Grant's Preparing Yourself to Record a Voiceover, triggered my memory of my freshman year at Emerson when an instructor came into my class to teach vocal exercises that better prepare one's voice for broadcast. 

Like Grant mentioned in her article, the vocal exercises are a bit quirky but they actually do help. As a print/multimedia major, my broadcast experience is not that extensive and with today's technology, it is important to not only effectively communicate but to clearly speak with projection. 

As a journalist, you also have to be a narrator in order to explain to your audience any visual or audio components and the warm-ups in the additional reading really helped me slow down my pace and really enunciate my words. 

However, these tutorials are processes that need to be applied over and over with practice in order to proficiently broadcast material. 

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Audacity refresher

The Audacity tutorial is a useful beginner's guide to editing audio with a simplistic and cost free program. (FREE is key). Programs like FinalCut or GarageBand can be complicated for users who are not suited in the complexities of video and audio editing. 

That's where Audacity comes in.

Although bland, Audacity's interface is simple and straightforward. Uploading files is simple and fairly quick and editing is merely a cut and paste method. This is useful for getting audio bits out on deadline because the program acts as a time-saver. 

When it comes to audio, solely, Audacity is the way to go. 

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The Art of the Interview

The Seattle Times' Eric Nalder delivers very strong points in 'Loosening Lips,' which at first, I overlooked because I found it very basic BUT these are essentials that journalists, whether starting or in practice, NEED.

I still find that preparation is key in the interviewing process and the way you cultivate your questions -- the wording, the tone, etc. -- is pivotal. Understanding how to effectively communicate with simplicity and yet a purpose is a vital quality all reporters need. 

Nalder provides alternatives to obtaining answers when direct questions don't get those simple answers along with other ways to approach an interview.

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Back to basics: ethics

The Canadian Journalism Project's Ethical guidelines for editing audio, provides journalists with the foundations for the interview process and the methods of fairly and accurately depicting what the interviewee has to say. Although the reading dates back to 2007, the lessons are still valued in journalism basics. 

The biggest rule of thumb is accurately portraying what the interviewee intended and vocalized to the reporter -- not shifting quotations to fit your story but using quotations to compliment or add value to your reporting. 

These basics that you would use in a print or online story must be incorporated with editing audio. Audio can be a bit more dangerous because cutting soundbites and rearranging them can remove value from the interviewees intended purpose. This is why authenticity is essential and fluff (various SOT clips for effect) is compromising. 

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It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.

Jerry Seinfeld 

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TweetGrid, the time-saver

When viewing the TweetGrid tutorial, I found it to be like the 'control F' search via a filing cabinet (a.k.a the Twittersphere). TweetGrid was simple enough to use and definitely cut down time one would use in researching a fad via Twitter and it provided more definitive results. I definitely see this tool being useful for reporting on trends or perhaps using such trends for story ideas. TweetGrid would be a great start to linking stories and then publishing them on Storyful or Storify because the search engines on both of those sites could use a bit more accuracy. 

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The Twitterverse

The institution of Twitter has given journalists a medium ripe for 'news-sharing.' Twitter allows news organizations to spit out news and the rate at which news is spreading and audiences are being engaged is rapid. Although we have 'Facebook users' utilizing Twitter like another Facebook page, I take Twitter to be much more professional environment than Facebook, specifically for networking or news-sharing rather than a live rant of opinions. 

The readings proved useful to identifying credible sources for accurate news-sourcing along with the curation of news. Like I've said before, Twitter is a great way for engagement and for establishing yourself as a professional depending on the topics you are sharing and the value behind your tweets. 

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It's not just about consuming content, but sharing it, passing it on, and adding to it

@arianahuff

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'Finding your voice' in the web's vacuum

Philip E. Agre's 'Find Your Voice: Writing for a Webzine' addresses the voice needed to effectively engage users. Agre identifies the two mediums for 'web writing': private and commercial. 

 A private voice makes no concession to others: the only priority is honest expression, regardless of whether anyone will comprehend or identify with your words.

Whereas, 

A commercial voice wants only to produce a predetermined effect in the audience: study the audience and then tell them what they want to hear.

In order to effectively communicate, produce an individual opinion and engage a response from a reader, both of these 'voices' need to be combined. An opinionated blog, article, etc., needs to be carefully crafted to engage readers while keeping one's own voice.

Rather than ranting about an issue, journalists need to pay attention to wording so that he or she can open up reader's minds to an issue instead of merely informing. This day and age is about engaging the user and that is the message Agre is trying to address. With the rapid rate at which readers want news delivered, it is important to be concise, to organize your argument or discussion and to open it up to an audience.

Agre's point is constructive and vital to blogging. It's impressive that he was able to construct such specificity in an outline in 1999. Clearly, he was looking ahead for the future of journalism.