{"id":1241,"date":"2014-11-14T16:25:09","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T16:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2014\/11\/14\/third-coast-conference-are-journalism-and-storytelling-frenemies\/"},"modified":"2024-03-04T20:31:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T20:31:25","slug":"third-coast-conference-are-journalism-and-storytelling-frenemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2014\/11\/14\/third-coast-conference-are-journalism-and-storytelling-frenemies\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Coast Conference: Are journalism and storytelling “frenemies?”"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Editor\u2019s Note: Every other fall, hundreds of radio producers, journalists, documentarians and other audio artists gather in Chicago for the Third Coast conference<\/a> to examine, explore and celebrate the world of audio storytelling. In the first of a series of dispatches from the 2014 conference, which took place last week, radio producer Julia Barton<\/a> writes about a panel discussion on the question of where storytelling and journalism meet– and collide– in audio. <\/em><\/p>

The session, called \u201cJournalism and Storytelling: Frenemies?,\u201d featured moderator Joe Richman<\/a>, founder and producer of Radio Diaries<\/a>, which gives people tape recorders to report their own lives; Brooke Gladstone<\/a>, the co-host and managing editor of the public radio program \u201cOn the Media;\u201d<\/a> Roman Mars<\/a>, host and creator of the podcast \u201c99% Invisible;\u201d<\/a> and Andrea Silenzi<\/a>, senior producer of Slate\u2019s daily news show, \u201cThe Gist,\u201d<\/a> and host of the radio program \u201cWhy Oh Why?\u201d<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>
Part of what makes the Third Coast International Audio Festival so intense, I\u2019ve come to believe, is the lonely nature of life as an audio producer. Much of the world doesn\u2019t understand the basics of what happens between our headphones and computer screens, and that creates a haze of silence around the professional decisions we have to make every day.

Many of those decisions have to do with interview tape: what to keep, what to remove, and how to balance the needs of a story\u2019s framework while remaining honest to people who have trusted us with their voices.

\u00a0So it\u2019s a relief to be in a room full of people who \u201cget\u201d these problems\u2014problems which are at their core ethical. Radio Diaries producer Joe Richman started off the festival with a lively discussion of ethics, although he and the other panelists all agreed that \u201ccodes of behavior\u201d is perhaps a better term for what audio producers need to develop.<\/p>

It was fascinating to hear where people draw the line in their own work. \u201cOn the Media\u201d co-host and managing editor Brooke Gladstone will cut and re-arrange an interview for length and clarity, and she\u2019s a vicious excisor of \u201cums\u201d and pauses (disclosure: I temped once as a producer at \u201cOn the Media\u201d). But she\u2019ll never insert a pause to slow an interview down.<\/p>

\u201cA pause suggests emotional moment,\u201d Gladstone said. \u201cTo put one in would be like putting a word in the mouth of the person.\u201d<\/p>

But each story comes with its own set of dilemmas. In his “Radio Diaries” documentary<\/a> series on Nelson Mandela, Richman included an interview about curfews in apartheid South Africa. At the sound of an evening bell, blacks knew they had to get off the streets. Richman found a 1940s record of church bells in Johannesburg to mix under the moment when the interviewee recalled the sound of the bell.<\/p>

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t cheat, you shouldn\u2019t take shortcuts,\u201d Richman said. \u201cStill, what if all I could find were bells from 1950s in Durban? Or Nigeria? Or Poughkeepsie?\u201d In other words, when would the audio demands of the story lead us too far astray?<\/p>

\u201cHe\u2019s going \u2018bong bong bong,\u2019 and if you didn\u2019t have \u2018bongs\u2019 in there, you\u2019d go crazy!\u201d Gladstone exclaimed. But \u201cthe closer you can get to his situation is best. That\u2019s your goal as a documentarian.\u201d<\/p>

\u00a0\u201cPoughkeepsie is too far,\u201d \u201c99% Invisible\u201d host Roman Mars said. \u201cThat is your limit.\u201d<\/p>

What made this panel especially useful (and not a bloated discussion of ethics in audio journalism) was its nod to producers who inhabit a still-murky creative realm between audio fiction and verit\u00e9. We tend to trust that voices we hear on the radio are who they say they are, but some producers like to play with that assumption.<\/p>

In addition to producing Slate\u2019s \u201cThe Gist<\/a>,\u201d Andrea Silenzi produces a live program and podcast \u201cWhy Oh Why<\/a>?\u201d at WFMU, a freewheeling, all-volunteer station in New Jersey. Silenzi played a moment with a recurring guest on her show named Randy. At Silenzi\u2019s request, Randy sized her up as a possible date: \u201cYou are a little stumpy,\u201d he declares. \u201cBut you have a clean, rural smell.\u201d Randy\u2019s so creatively obnoxious that some suspect he\u2019s an acted character rather than a \u201creal\u201d person. But Silenzi won\u2019t say whether he\u2019s real or not.<\/p>

Gladstone was not sure she liked that. \u201cIt\u2019s possible to have a relationship with your audience where things are ambiguous,\u201d she told Silenzi. \u201cBut if the energy is dependent on the authenticity, then that might be a violation [of trust].\u201d<\/p>

But for Silenzi\u2014at least in the context of \u201cWhy Oh Why?\u201d\u2014toying with authenticity is part of a new media literacy that can be pleasurable. \u201cI think people do know to ask, \u2018Is it real?\u2019 now with the Internet,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s this fun process where you imagine if it\u2019s real and then ask whether it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>

And artifice is baked into what we do anyway, said Roman Mars. \u201cWhen you introduce microphones to real world, it becomes inauthentic. The craft is working back to making it feel real again.\u201d<\/p>

Julia Barton is a longtime public media editor, working with “Life of the Law<\/a>,” American Public Media, “99% Invisible,” and individual producers. She’s also been the managing editor of Radiotopia, a podcast collective from PRX. Barton’s reporting has appeared on “Radiolab,” “99% Invisible,” “Studio 360,” PRI’s “The World,” and other programs. She lives in Brooklyn in life, online at juliabarton.com<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Every other fall, hundreds of radio producers, journalists, documentarians and other audio artists gather in Chicago for the Third Coast conference to examine, explore and celebrate the world of audio storytelling. 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