COMM 209: 'Actualities' or radio sound bites

Editor's note. Since we're covering the chapter in our textbook on reporting ... and since I'm offering extra credit for students who contribute to SCI's podcast (as well as the student newspaper), I'm linking to a couple of effective uses of audio as a reporting tool.

In radio, the equivalent of quotes are known as "sound bites" or "actualities." They're the audio clips that feature somebody else's voice -- usually the first-person voice of an eyewitness or somebody who's actually taking part in the news -- and they serve the same purpose as quotes in a print story. They give you that sense of immediacy, that sense of what it's like to be there.

National Public Radio is famous for its actualities. From the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan (formerly part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), where "weddings are traditionally long, loud and expensive," Ivan Watson of NPR reports on a new austerity measure. Listen for a cook sharpening his knives, sound bites in the Tajik language and the bride and groom getting out of a car to the acompaniment of street music and cheers. Closer to home, reporter Nancy Cook reports on the New Hampshire primary campaign. Listen for the sound of children, footsteps, traffic noises in the background ... but most of all sound bites of people in their own voices.

You can find other NPR stories -- and sound bites -- at http://www.npr.org/. Better yet, get in the habit of listening to NPR's shows "All Things Considered" in the evening and "Morning Edition" in, well, in the morning. You can hear them on WUIS-FM at 91.9 kHz.

While we're at it: Print reporters can get out the recorder and tape actualities, too. Here's a link to ... another item in this blog featuring a tape-recorded interview with a teenage sled dog racer. It appeared, with pictures, on the website of The Anchorage Daily News. Listen for when the racer goes out in the yard where the kennels are. Not a bad use of audio for a print reporter.