Media Production Techniques
Tips, Tools and Tricks from Youth Radio’s Award-Winning National Newsroom

At Youth Radio, we model our media production process on the standards of professional broadcast journalism. But from an educational perspective, the actual methodologies our students use open up rich learning experiences related to some of the most important skill sets and pedagogies teachers value in their classrooms, including:

• Project-based inquiry
• Collaborative learning
• Authentic assessment
• Primary-source research
• Creative story-telling
• Multi-modal and digitial literacies
• Inter-textuality
• Evidence-based argumentation
• Culturally relevant content and practice

Here are some Youth Radio guidelines on how to invite your students into the process of producing original media. Please don’t skip this section of “The Fourth R” because you don’t have access to high-end electronic equipment! You can use these ideas to design compelling learning experiences for your students for which they will only need pencil and paper.

Phases of Production

• Pre-production: During pre-production, young people dream up and discuss story ideas, plan projects, prepare tools, and practice skills they will need to carry out their media projects. With radio stories, this phase often involves making a list of the characters they want to interview, the scenes they want to capture, and the sounds that will bring their stories alive. Students often write a 3-4 sentence “pitch” for their stories to present at an editorial meeting attended by peers and adult producers. Here’s where they essentially have to “sell” the story, argue for its relevance, outline their approach, and receive feedback. With a plan in place (but knowing that plan is likely to shift as soon as they get going), they then free-write on topics of their stories, book interviews, and come up with questions for their characters. In designing interview protocols, students learn to push for specific stories and telling details, rather than generic impressions or positions. Simply asking “do you remember a specific moment when…and then what happened…and then what happened…” can keep an interview focused on compelling stories; sticking with “how did you feel about…” kinds of questions sometimes yields superficial answers. Before heading out for interviews, students prepare checklists of the information they absolutely must get from each interviewee before parting ways—always ending their question lists with a request for contact information, so they have the option to get back in touch if necessary.

• Production: Now production begins. Students interview their characters, a line-up that might include friends, teachers, parents, policy-makers, or university-based researchers in a given field. They use recording equipment to capture key scenes—perhaps the day a standardized test is administered at their school, or a group of friends gossiping in someone’s bedroom. The goal is to record scenes where something meaningful actually happens, an interaction that advances the story. Reporters also make sure to gather long beds of audio, called “ambience,” essentially rolling tape of natural sound without saying a word, so they can weave those scene-setting elements throughout their story. Ambience might include the sound of someone’s mom frying fish, unzipping a backpack, passing traffic on a city street, or the rush of students spilling into the hallway between classes. Sometimes young producers download music that resonates with the themes they’re exploring in their stories, to add texture and mood. The reporter’s own narration is called “tracks,” and the interview clips are called “acts,” short for “actualities.” When gathering tape, advanced students learn to think beyond “acts and tracks,” an industry term for radio stories that formulaically alternate between the reporter’s voice and interviewee’s clips. Usually, mixing up this rhythm with naturally occurring scenes, ambience, music, and even “found audio” (e.g., voice mail recordings or the pings and bleeps of a child’s electronic toy) enriches the finished media product. Students without access to audio equipment can easily experiment with this phase of production by writing down interview notes on paper, and describing key scenes and sounds they would use in their stories.

• Post-production: All of these materials—the interviews, the scenes, the beds of ambient sound, even the music—are transcribed, or “logged,” so they can be organized into an outline. One of the most important phases in the entire production process is the moment when young people “pick their best clips”—in other words, when they review all of the elements they’ve collected, and select the bits and pieces they plan to use in their stories. At Youth Radio, we ask students literally to cut and paste the strongest or most relevant two-to-three sentence chunks from each interview and scene, and line them up in a single document. The script for a full feature-length story you’re likely to hear on an outlet like National Public Radio might be only one and a half or two pages long, so that means a reporter might use only six or seven “clips” total in an entire piece. For students working on their first stories, often adult producers sit with them to review raw tape and help identify the best clips, checking sound quality as well as content. Once students have picked their best clips, scenes, and sounds, they arrange them in an order that makes sense logically and narratively, and then simply “write around the clips”—in other words, compose their own narration in such a way that introduces each character and scene, makes transitions, fills in missing information, and draws the story to conclusion. Youth Radio reporters use the digital editing software ProTools to “mix” their pieces, recording their own narration, “dumping” all their audio elements onto a computer, and then arranging the audio to match the script. Those without such software, or without the time to use it, can have students “perform” their stories out loud, either playing or acting out tape from the various characters and scenes comprising their narratives (this exercise actually reflects professional practice, as reporters sometimes do exactly this kind of performance with their editors before mixing their stories in the studio).

• Distribution: Youth Radio stories air on various local and national outlets, as well as through online channels including our own website, podcasting, and iTunes radio. Particularly with national outlets like NPR, with its audiences that number in the tens of millions, getting a Youth Radio story on the air can entail several rounds of editing with the outlet’s show producers. We have achieved this kind of distribution through years of work in the field, networking, and relationship-building. To be honest, it’s not always easy to get stories on the air. And yet, as teachers of all people know, offering students access to “real” audiences can be enormously motivating for students, and public release for student work can also influence pressing social, cultural, and policy-level debates at local, regional, and national levels. Brainstorm with your students ways to distribute their stories, perhaps through the local public radio affiliate station, the school newspaper, or a community forum. Prepare them for the fact that listeners might not always like or agree with what they hear, and discuss guidelines for dealing with audience response, positive or negative. Where appropriate, consider ways to spread the word about student stories to relevant policy-makers, advocates, and providers—for example, sending a young person’s commentary about dating violence to the local adolescent health center. And most importantly, please send your students’ stories to Youth Radio. One of our primary roles as a youth media organization is to curate youth voices from across the country, and our website can be an outlet for your students’ work.

Interview Tips from Youth Radio’s Newsroom

When young people are given the chance to frame and pose interesting questions, they “flip the script” on old-school modes of education, in which students are, typically, the ones asked to answer questions, but not to raise them. Interviews also challenge young people to move beyond their assumptions about the topics they care about, and to analyze responses in ways that further their stories and honor their interviewees. Interviews are, essentially, exercises in intellectual curiosity through conversation. Here are some interview tips from Youth Radio reporters.

Getting started:
1. Always remember to ask for name and age (where appropriate), and get permission to use your interviewees’ voices and names in your story.

2. Start with “easy” questions—ones your subject should feel really comfortable answering, so you can build a rapport. It can be effective to start with general questions, then move to specifics.

3. Let your interviewees know that you’d like to be able to use their answers without hearing your questions, so ask them to answer in full sentences. For example, if you ask, “At what age did you first meet your biological mother?” if they answer, “12,” ask them if they’ll repeat their answer in such a way that includes the question—i.e., “I met my bio mom for the first time when I was 12 years old.”

4. Before you start the interview, make a checklist of the information you absolutely must get from your subject and bring that list with you.

5. Brainstorm the kinds of things that make you feel inspired to disclose aspects of your own life, and try to create those conditions in your interview.

Getting into it:
1. Think about what you want to reveal about yourself—how you can make the interview feel like a real conversation, and not a grilling (but be careful about speaking “over” your subject—that can make it harder to use the tape).

2. This one’s obvious, but easy to forget: avoid “yes/no” questions! Frame your probes in ways that elicit stories and vivid details. Don’t hesitate, at any point, to say, “Can you give me a specific example or memory of what you’re talking about?” or “That’s really interesting...Can you say a little bit more?” or even, “I’m not sure I understand—can you kind of bring me back to that moment...”

3. Try not to “lead the witness”—in other words, asking questions that reveal your own biases, or making your interviewee feel pressured to answer in a certain way.

4. Even if you have a detailed list of questions, make sure you really listen to your interviewees as they speak, and respond to what you hear, and not only what you came prepared to ask.

5. Always a great follow-up question: “And then what happened?” Remember that the best tape comes from characters telling specific stories that bring you into the details of their lives, not articulating generalized positions or simplified points of view.

Finishing up:
1. Review your checklist of crucial information and make sure you covered everything before you say good-bye.

2. At the end of the interview, ask subjects if they have anything to add (that question often yields the most interesting material!), and make sure to get their contact information and ask permission to get in touch again if anything further comes up.

Commentary Guidelines

Commentaries are short, conversational first-person essays. Commentators often share experiences that are personally meaningful, perhaps counter-intuitive or surprising, and resonant with larger social themes. They might take a position or express an opinion on a specific issue. In this sense, commentaries don’t have to be “objective,” but they should take into account opposing points of view (this contested issue of “objectivity” can be a provocative subject of discussion for teachers and students doing commentaries for the first time). The best commentaries aren’t political rants or personal diatribes, nor do they stick to generalized observations. Through commentaries, young people articulate perspectives grounded in compelling evidence, which might come in the form of lived experiences, references to research, or bits of dialogue with people they’ve encountered in their everyday worlds

1. Commentaries should be 1-2 minutes long (that’s about one page single spaced).

2. Write about issues that inspire passion in you. Write from your own experience. You could respond to a school shooting by talking about how you were an outcast and really overlooked by adults in your school, or you could start a commentary about body image by describing a moment when an audience member approached you after a performance and thanked you for showing the world that “us fat people can dance.” For example, see Phatty Girl, by Youth Radio’s Emily Schmookler.

3. Use concrete examples and stories in your writing. If you are talking about getting along with your parents, tell us specific incidents when your communication worked or broke down…or if you are writing about a political issue, like the war in Iraq, try to give examples, like a young soldier in your community who came home with post-traumatic stress disorder. For example, see Living with PTSD, by Youth Radio’s Jesus Bocanegra.

4. Write conversationally. Write like you speak. Read your scripts aloud as you write. Don’t just mouth the words. Say it out loud before you write. On your first try, you could sit with someone who can listen to you tell your story and type it out for you to be sure it’s conversational. For example, see Slang, by Youth Radio’s Sanovia Jackson.

5. Don’t be afraid to use humor. Funny lines and topics capture people’s attention. For example, see Nutritionist Nightmare, by Youth Radio’s Simon Hadley.

6. Think about the rhythm and pacing of the piece. Vary sentence length.

7. Read your commentary out loud to someone else and see if it flows and sounds natural. Underline words you want to emphasize to be sure a listener doesn’t miss anything.

What Makes a Good Story? Tips for Finding Topics

1. Check out the newspaper, but look beyond the front page for stories. Some of your best stories are in the back pages, with just a few lines of copy.

2. Find a new angle. Move the story forward. What is the youth angle? Some stories, like federal budget negotiations or corporate corruption scandals, may seem like they have NO youth element, but they do. Think creatively about finding the youth side of the story.

3. Think about how you can cover a story differently from other outlets. Education stories are a perfect example of stories that directly affect youth, but often don’t include the perspectives of youth. That’s where youth-produced coverage can be unique.

4. Think about your audience. Are you aiming for adults, so your stories often work to explain dimensions of youth culture to older folks? Or are you aiming for other youth? Do you want to address “like-minded” listeners, or convince an audience that might initially be opposed to what you have to say? These questions have a major impact on the topics you choose and how you approach your story.

5. Work creatively with assignments. It’s your job to find the angle that best reflects the youth perspective on any story—even one you are asked to cover!

Practice: Pass out newspapers, and ask students to read a headline and then describe how they would transform the article into “their” story.