I was recently taken with a piece that ran ealier this year in High Country News. Written by Michelle Nijhuis, “Township 13 South, Range 92 West, Section 35” explores the idea of family roots and also offers a brief meditation on Western self-sufficiency. But as much as anything else, it serves as a requiem for a girl who died a [...]
Monthly Archives: December 2009
CBC Dispatches (Part 3): writing for radio
[This is Part 3 in our series stealing the best tips from the audio storytelling handbook of the CBC's Dispatches radio program. Parts 1 and 2 ran earlier this week.]
We at Dispatches have seen thousands of first-draft scripts across the 10 seasons of the program. Most are problematic. Some just require moving a scene or two for the structure to [...]
Lost in the Waves
What could be more dramatic than the story of a father and son swept nine miles out to sea, floating overnight together and then alone, uncertain of survival? In the November issue of Men’s Journal, Justin Heckert takes a rescue story and upstages it with the domestic lives of the survivors—lives he makes even more [...]
Jared Diamond, The New Yorker and the awkwardness of anecdotes
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk, in which she described how stereotypes develop when one community has only a single narrative about another. The post also referenced National Geographic writer Tom O’Neill, who sometimes resists centering a narrative on a single subject when he is reporting from abroad.
Last week in Anthropology [...]
CBC Dispatches (Part 2): composing with sound
[This is Part 2 in our series stealing the best tips from the audio storytelling handbook of the CBC's Dispatches radio program. Part 1 ran yesterday.]
The following are things you should start to figure out before you go out and collect your sound. And continue to figure out while you’re collecting it. And consider again when you’re putting your piece [...]
CBC Dispatches: sounding out your story (Part 1)
Dispatches is a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio News weekly show of documentaries, essays, interviews and reports from around the world. Most are by traveling freelancers. Many are from CBC reporters on the trail of breaking news for our newscasts. So we’re mostly at the mercy of where other people choose to be and for how [...]
