Teaching Broadcasting

Five steps to multimedia reporting

This site offers a series of tutorials for journalists who want to learn how to produce stories in the field using audio, video, photos and web design tools. The detailed instruction about shooting and editing video and audio make this site useful for broadcast instructors, too. This site is sponsored by The Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism program, which offers workshops to mid-career journalists to enhance their expertise and multimedia skills

BBC Radio News Style Guide

BBC Radio News has posted a very helpful guide online to writing for radio. It's concise, clearly written and covers things such as getting the tone of story right and using only spoken English. The guide also includes a link to a detailed list of alphabetical rules about such things as the overuse of the word "but" and the misuse of the word "ironically." Some of the advice is specific to British journalists, such as the rule forbidding the use of the word soccer for football. But most of the advice would be valuable to Canadian journalists and journalism students.

Free online lessons from BBC Training

The BBC Training department offers a number of interactive lessons online on a range of broadcast issues from using digital video progams to gathering sound for radio. They can all be found at the link below.

Tips for producing radio reports from the BBC

A site designed for high school journalism teachers with lots of great advice about everything from using a microphone and editing software to writing and interviewing for radio. It includes audio reports and interactive lessons.

Great guide to audio equipment and software

Transom.org is a website whose stated purpose is to make public radio better. It provides a forum for people to submit audio stories that haven't found their way onto public radio, which showcase new voices and new ways of storytelling. It also includes a wonderful section on tools with advice about all kinds of audio gear from recording devices and microphones to software. When students have questions about audio gear, this is a great resource for them.

Television reporters need sound, not just pictures

This YouTube video prepared by Mark Popesel, who teaches Television News Writing at the University of Arizona, compares two versions of the same television report - one with natural sound, the other without it. It's a good example for television instructors to use to demonstrate how natural sound makes stories come alive.

Ethical guidelines for editing audio
by Mary McGuire

Reporters in every media now record audio for use on the web, with audio slideshows, multimedia packages and other forms of online journalism, in addition to those who do it in radio. As they are learning, software makes all kinds of things possible when editing raw audio. So, what's acceptable and what's not when it comes to editing audio for journalistic purposes?

I was asked recently for a set of dos and don'ts. As a former news reporter and producer for CBC Radio News and now a broadcast journalism professor, here are the rules I have learned, developed and pass on to my students.

Advice from a voice coach for reporters doing audio stories

Radio reporters, even experienced ones, always want to improve their on-air presentation. Now they are joined by print reporters who are increasingly expected to do audio reports for the web. In this Q&A Ann Utterback, a well known voice coach who works with journalists and the author of one of the best books on the subject, the Broadcast Voice Handbook offers great practical tips.

CBC Radio's documentary tutorial

Listen to a series of radio documentary excerpts illustrating a variety of techniques for producing compelling radio, from the producers of the CBC's documentary program Outfront. The site includes links to lots of other resources for anyone intersted in producing great radio docs.

CBC Radio guide for capturing and editing audio

Practical advice and links to resources about how to capture, digitize, and edit audio material for journalists who want to work in radio. The site is put together by the producers of CBC Radio's documentary program, Outfront.

Telling great radio stories

Ira Glass has built a reputation for being one of America's great radio storytellers and is now the producer of National Public Radio's This American Life. In this three part series, Glass describes how he learned his craft and shares his ideas about what makes a great story and what doesn't. The series is full of great audio files which illustrate his points. It is a treasure for anyone teaching radio journalism and radio documentary course.

The two key ingredients to a good piece of broadcast journalism

Ira Glass, longtime radio producer for National Public Radio talks on camera about the two most important elements in any good piece of journalism.

Audio vs. Video storytelling

An essay about the differences between audio and video storytelling from a journalist who has done both in Canada and the U.S. the essay includes links to audio and video examples

Learning to use the audio editing software Adobe Audition

A series of videos designed to teach people how to use one of the most popular audio editing software pacakges. Some of the sections are free online. There's a charge for viewing the entire set or purchasing the CD.

Tutorial for audio editing software

This blog posting includes a link to a terrific step-by-step guide to Audacity -- a free program that allows people to edit audio files for presentation online or on the air. The guide is courtesy of Mindy McAdams at the University of Florida.

Broadcast journalism course syllabi

A collection of course outlines for broadcast journalism courses from the Broadcast Educators Association syllabus project.

CBC Radio Podcasts

This page provides links to the increasing number of podcasts available of CBC Radio's most popular news and information programs.

Frontline

A collection of resources for anyone looking for thought-provoking television journalism from PBS.

This American Life

A site for anyone looking for examples of geat radio storytelling from NPR.

Soundprint

Another documentary radio program on NPR, which prides itself on featuring stories that are the aural equivalent of photojournalism -- ones that make creative and inventive use of sound for storytelling.