How should I put together a unique local news show?
September 7, 2005 5:55 PM Subscribe
I'm a journalism student and a volunteer at a community radio station, and I'd like to start a weekly morning news program that focuses on local issues.
The show would have a number of volunteer participants (5-10+ other journalism students), $0 budget, portable recording equipment, lots of keener energy, and one hour a week.
So, if you were to design a unique local news show, how would you do it?
Invite local community members (but not politicians running for something) to be on the show. Librarians, teachers, performers.... it'd be fun to hear about different things available in the community.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:01 PM on September 7, 2005 [1 favorite]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:01 PM on September 7, 2005 [1 favorite]
What ThePinkSuperhero said. Whatever you do, don't turn it into "how the inter/national/state news is affecting us here" unless there's a compelling reason. That gets old really fast. Keep the focus on your local newsmakers and community members. Also look for people starting new activities or organizations, and explore who and what makes your community unique.
posted by unknowncommand at 6:31 PM on September 7, 2005
posted by unknowncommand at 6:31 PM on September 7, 2005
Best answer: I used to do a similar show in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I'd have a newsreader go through about 5 short stories in the first ten minutes, and then the rest of the half-hour would be devoted to a single issue. I'd never have more than two guests, and if there were two I'd make sure that one of them was someone who was not usually/ever used as a source by the media. So we might have a City Councilmember talking about rent regulations, and a tenant who had just been evicted. Or we'd have a maintenance worker from a park and a teenager from the local high school have a back-and-forth about graffiti. Good times were had by all.
Above all, skip the stories already being covered by the local press.
posted by Framer at 6:35 PM on September 7, 2005
Above all, skip the stories already being covered by the local press.
posted by Framer at 6:35 PM on September 7, 2005
You might want to check out the goskokie project, which was a community journalism site created by some grad students at Medill/NU in 2004. Although this is a website-based thing instead of a broadcast thing, it's basically about community journalism and relying on its members to provide content.
Near the bottom of this page there's a "download" link to a pdf report on their findings and it outlines a bit about how they managed to get the community involved and on their site with $0 budget. They most likely faced some of the same issues you're looking at.
posted by awegz at 6:40 PM on September 7, 2005
Near the bottom of this page there's a "download" link to a pdf report on their findings and it outlines a bit about how they managed to get the community involved and on their site with $0 budget. They most likely faced some of the same issues you're looking at.
posted by awegz at 6:40 PM on September 7, 2005
Who's your target audience? College students? People who want news but for some reason aren't listening to NPR?
(Framer's ideas sound awesome to me.)
posted by katieinshoes at 6:41 PM on September 7, 2005
(Framer's ideas sound awesome to me.)
posted by katieinshoes at 6:41 PM on September 7, 2005
Create a blog or wiki where ideas can be percolated.
posted by zadcat at 6:50 PM on September 7, 2005
posted by zadcat at 6:50 PM on September 7, 2005
Response by poster: Great ideas so far... Thanks.
Some more questions:
- How could I make the show interactive?
- I like the citizen journalism idea, but how could it be implemented on radio?
And to answer katieinshoes' question: My audience would be students and recent graduates... But also those people who want news but for some reason aren't listening to the CBC. (I'm in Canada)
posted by stokast at 7:41 PM on September 7, 2005
Some more questions:
- How could I make the show interactive?
- I like the citizen journalism idea, but how could it be implemented on radio?
And to answer katieinshoes' question: My audience would be students and recent graduates... But also those people who want news but for some reason aren't listening to the CBC. (I'm in Canada)
posted by stokast at 7:41 PM on September 7, 2005
Just stay away from a listener call-in format. Read choice viewer emails, but having local mouthbreathers who won't turn down the the hifi hijack 3 mins. of airtime makes my preset-pushing-finger itchy.
posted by ernie at 8:32 PM on September 7, 2005
posted by ernie at 8:32 PM on September 7, 2005
Response by poster: are call-ins really that bad? they do seem like the easiest way to involve an audience...
posted by stokast at 8:46 PM on September 7, 2005
posted by stokast at 8:46 PM on September 7, 2005
I see that you're in Nova Scotia...
I'm in Vancouver, so my first impulse would be to contact the various <ethnic> community leaders. The Ukrainians, Greeks, Chinese, Russians, Polish, German, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean, Taiwanese, Egyptian, Persian, Indian &c all have local organizations.
Maybe contact your local business bureau and see if any ethnic groups have registered - I'm sure they'd love to be involved, although the question of in what capacity they'd be able to help is... debatable. Here, at least, they'd be able to suggest recent events/future events and local $ethnic bands.
My mother used to be a regular on a Cantonese language radio show in Van - she was invited mostly to share recipes although she's also done some poetry and story telling (since someone found out that she had prior experience in HK).
Alternatively, I've been involved in a project in Van where non-stable address peoples (ie., "street people" from the Vancouver eastside/skid-row) were invited to come out to UBC to learn about science and to ask questions. When I was first involved I was absolutely floored by how intelligent many of the people were - and how astute their questions were.
I think that it might be interesting if you recruited people from the various science departments at your institution (tell them that playing along = bolstering "leadership" references for when they're asking the gov' for their salaries) and sent out field journalists to liase with the homeless population - and have their questions and answers on the air.
If it doesn't make people realize that many of the homeless aren't simply brain-dead junkies at least it sets the stage for some potentially humourous situations where the "science" people misunderstand the questioners and vice versa.
If this is to work, you're going to need really cool "science" people, and you'll probably get them without dropping the whole "leadership" bait. If you're going to go ahead with something like this, I'd love to be involved, if even only in a "oh shit, what are we going to do *now*" capacity.
If you do go this route, it would probably work better if you set it in some kind of context. Ours was "biotech" (which encompasses far more than what the "average" person thinks biotech involves) but "cancer" or "addiction" (well, maybe not) or "astronomy" might work, astronomy especially if you can get the local telescopes to cooperate.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 9:29 PM on September 7, 2005
I'm in Vancouver, so my first impulse would be to contact the various <ethnic> community leaders. The Ukrainians, Greeks, Chinese, Russians, Polish, German, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean, Taiwanese, Egyptian, Persian, Indian &c all have local organizations.
Maybe contact your local business bureau and see if any ethnic groups have registered - I'm sure they'd love to be involved, although the question of in what capacity they'd be able to help is... debatable. Here, at least, they'd be able to suggest recent events/future events and local $ethnic bands.
My mother used to be a regular on a Cantonese language radio show in Van - she was invited mostly to share recipes although she's also done some poetry and story telling (since someone found out that she had prior experience in HK).
Alternatively, I've been involved in a project in Van where non-stable address peoples (ie., "street people" from the Vancouver eastside/skid-row) were invited to come out to UBC to learn about science and to ask questions. When I was first involved I was absolutely floored by how intelligent many of the people were - and how astute their questions were.
I think that it might be interesting if you recruited people from the various science departments at your institution (tell them that playing along = bolstering "leadership" references for when they're asking the gov' for their salaries) and sent out field journalists to liase with the homeless population - and have their questions and answers on the air.
If it doesn't make people realize that many of the homeless aren't simply brain-dead junkies at least it sets the stage for some potentially humourous situations where the "science" people misunderstand the questioners and vice versa.
If this is to work, you're going to need really cool "science" people, and you'll probably get them without dropping the whole "leadership" bait. If you're going to go ahead with something like this, I'd love to be involved, if even only in a "oh shit, what are we going to do *now*" capacity.
If you do go this route, it would probably work better if you set it in some kind of context. Ours was "biotech" (which encompasses far more than what the "average" person thinks biotech involves) but "cancer" or "addiction" (well, maybe not) or "astronomy" might work, astronomy especially if you can get the local telescopes to cooperate.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 9:29 PM on September 7, 2005
Best answer: Wow, PurplePorpoise, that sounds scummy. I'm not saying it was, since I wasn't there, but what I'm hearing is: get some geeks and have them go discuss arbitrary and fairly meaningless shit with homeless folks, then record and broadcast the (possibly-humorous) results.
While I can see how a call-in science show, or an answer-a-listener's-question show might work out well, I can't see how one would consider finding random homeless folks and harassing them with nuclear physics anything but exploitative.
I guess I don't get why you need to target the homeless. If they have science questions, then by all means let them come and ask. But, seeking them out just to show the world that they're not all schizophrenic boozers seems decidedly weird to me.
Anyway, my suggestion for a show would be as follows: set up some submission system (web-based, but also physical medium-based) whereby folks in the community can send in audio reports--maybe just them reading a typed-up report or a press-release, but whatever. Then, select the best ones, and play those on air. Obviously, you'll need to be doing your own stuff, too, so that if you don't have enough of the community-submitted stuff, you don't have dead air.
My number one suggestion is get your ass out there and do some journalism.
posted by Netzapper at 10:19 PM on September 7, 2005
While I can see how a call-in science show, or an answer-a-listener's-question show might work out well, I can't see how one would consider finding random homeless folks and harassing them with nuclear physics anything but exploitative.
I guess I don't get why you need to target the homeless. If they have science questions, then by all means let them come and ask. But, seeking them out just to show the world that they're not all schizophrenic boozers seems decidedly weird to me.
Anyway, my suggestion for a show would be as follows: set up some submission system (web-based, but also physical medium-based) whereby folks in the community can send in audio reports--maybe just them reading a typed-up report or a press-release, but whatever. Then, select the best ones, and play those on air. Obviously, you'll need to be doing your own stuff, too, so that if you don't have enough of the community-submitted stuff, you don't have dead air.
My number one suggestion is get your ass out there and do some journalism.
posted by Netzapper at 10:19 PM on September 7, 2005
Netzpper
Wow. I'm sorry that it sounds scummy. Honestly, that is the least of my intentions.
We had people who from faults not of their own or otherwise who were in less than ideal cicumstances being invited to the university campus with the explicit intention that "hey, do you want to learn about science, like, *real* "SCIENCE" so you can understand better what's going on around you? Yes, we aren't scientimagically makijng them un-homeless, but at least we can help those who want to think with a structure to continue their thinking.
Our intention was to give some of the less fortunate a hand-up to help them understand the world that they resided in. The program involved a lot of background education as well as a lot of "real life" connections to help people understand the ideas - and how those ideas are implemented in real life.
My crack about "humour" - well, it happens because misunderstanding happens. I was thinking pragmatically - a college radio show typically needs some kind of hook. After the chuckles that I've experienced, we worked hard to help all parties involved to understand why it was humourous to one (and commonly, both, after we all understood the situation) of the groups (we were laughed at by the clients sometimes, too). I was thinking that, as a secondary - or even a 'catch' - the radio show could benefit from a little screwup.
Having undereducated people wanting to find answers, and having the local wanna-be answerers try to answer the questions could be a potential interest to third parties, but as I stated previously it's going to require "cool" (in the context of my elaborations) personelle to make this work.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:58 PM on September 7, 2005
Wow. I'm sorry that it sounds scummy. Honestly, that is the least of my intentions.
We had people who from faults not of their own or otherwise who were in less than ideal cicumstances being invited to the university campus with the explicit intention that "hey, do you want to learn about science, like, *real* "SCIENCE" so you can understand better what's going on around you? Yes, we aren't scientimagically makijng them un-homeless, but at least we can help those who want to think with a structure to continue their thinking.
Our intention was to give some of the less fortunate a hand-up to help them understand the world that they resided in. The program involved a lot of background education as well as a lot of "real life" connections to help people understand the ideas - and how those ideas are implemented in real life.
My crack about "humour" - well, it happens because misunderstanding happens. I was thinking pragmatically - a college radio show typically needs some kind of hook. After the chuckles that I've experienced, we worked hard to help all parties involved to understand why it was humourous to one (and commonly, both, after we all understood the situation) of the groups (we were laughed at by the clients sometimes, too). I was thinking that, as a secondary - or even a 'catch' - the radio show could benefit from a little screwup.
Having undereducated people wanting to find answers, and having the local wanna-be answerers try to answer the questions could be a potential interest to third parties, but as I stated previously it's going to require "cool" (in the context of my elaborations) personelle to make this work.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:58 PM on September 7, 2005
If you do call-in, how about free expert advice on different days? On Tuesdays there is an "Ask a Home Contractor" segment, on other days ask a doctor, lawyer, local politician, newspaper editor, etc.
posted by LarryC at 6:40 AM on September 8, 2005
posted by LarryC at 6:40 AM on September 8, 2005
Response by poster: Lots of excellent suggestions..
Framer's suggestions seemed great. Simple to put together and not overly complicated.
Netzapper: Your idea for user-submitted audio is neat. I'm actually working with the technician at the station to put together a telephone answering system that saves the messages as mp3s.. I wonder how many submissions I will get though.
The idea of a wiki is really appealing. I love wikis, but it's not just everyone who wants to dive into them. I'm worried they might get too complicated. ..Maybe a community blog, with an approval/editorial system? But then that's just text, I guess.
PurplePorpoise -- your suggestions are good, but you're probably right they need more cool than I have. :)
Anyway, keep posting ideas, because I'm listening.
You can check out the progress of the project here.
posted by stokast at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2005
Framer's suggestions seemed great. Simple to put together and not overly complicated.
Netzapper: Your idea for user-submitted audio is neat. I'm actually working with the technician at the station to put together a telephone answering system that saves the messages as mp3s.. I wonder how many submissions I will get though.
The idea of a wiki is really appealing. I love wikis, but it's not just everyone who wants to dive into them. I'm worried they might get too complicated. ..Maybe a community blog, with an approval/editorial system? But then that's just text, I guess.
PurplePorpoise -- your suggestions are good, but you're probably right they need more cool than I have. :)
Anyway, keep posting ideas, because I'm listening.
You can check out the progress of the project here.
posted by stokast at 11:23 AM on September 8, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by stokast at 6:00 PM on September 7, 2005