Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture) [Paperback]

John Biewen (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 2010 | Series: Documentary Arts and Culture

Over the last few decades, the radio documentary has developed into a strikingly vibrant form of creative expression. Millions of listeners hear arresting, intimate storytelling from an ever-widening array of producers on programs including This American Life, StoryCorps, and Radio Lab; online through such sites as Transom, the Public Radio Exchange, Hearing Voices, and Soundprint; and through a growing collection of podcasts.

Reality Radio celebrates today's best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In these nineteen essays, documentary makers tell--and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts--how they make radio the way they do, and why.

Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, even audio artists--and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach--all use sound to tell true stories, artfully.


Contributors:

Jad Abumrad

Jay Allison

damali ayo

John Biewen

Emily Botein

Chris Brookes

Scott Carrier

Katie Davis

Sherre DeLys

Lena Eckert-Erdheim

Ira Glass

Alan Hall

Natalie Kestecher

The Kitchen Sisters

Maria Martin

Karen Michel

Rick Moody

Joe Richman

Dmae Roberts

Stephen Smith

Sandy Tolan

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Radio has suffered corporate deadening just like other “traditional” media, yet it retains an edge thanks to public, community, and college stations and the popularity of radio documentaries. Biewen, audio program director for Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, offers a lively history of creative documentary radio in his introduction to 19 passionate, instructive, and unexpectedly moving essays by innovative audio journalists and artists who “use sound to tell true stories artfully.” Such artists include the Kitchen Sisters, who write about their “deep need to bear witness and try to heal the culture through stories and revelations,” and Ira Glass, who generously reveals just how much patience, effort, and luck are involved in creating This American Life. Jad Abumrad’s description of his work with Robert Krulwich on the wacky Radio Lab series is matched by provocative accounts of radio diaries and bold audio performance art and Katie Davis’ beautiful essay about her collaborations with Washington, D.C., teens in Neighborhood Stories and the practice of “deeper listening.” Invaluable and many-faceted coverage of a thriving, populist, and mind-expanding art form. --Donna Seaman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"An incredibly important contribution to the field of public media, one that will invite introspection, spark creativity, and hopefully teach people that the first step in learning is listening."
-Public Radio Makers Quest 2.0

"Biewen . . . chronicles this rebirth of the documentary . . . profiling a new breed of radio producers who . . . are willing to get involved with their subjects, reveal parts of their own lives, and paint vivid pictures with sound."
-Duke Magazine

"What is striking about this collection is how clearly the reader can 'hear' the diverse voices and stories, despite the print medium. . . . A wonderful and accessible read. . . . Highly recommended."
-Choice

"[Biewen] offers a lively history of creative documentary radio in his introduction to 19 passionate, instructive, and unexpectedly moving essays by innovative audio journalists and artists who use sound to tell true stories artfully. . . . Invaluable and many-faceted coverage of a thriving, populist, and mind-expanding art form."
-Booklist

"Reality Radio is a fabulous book I wish I could have read when I started at NPR in 1974. It would have shaved 10-15 years off the learning curve discovering how to make great radio."
-Bob Edwards

"This book is valuable for those who believe radio's future is in the art of storytelling and can be a particularly good resource for students enrolled in radio narrative or radio/audio documentary classes, and a valued tool for faculty teaching documentary, narrative, audio drama, and radio writing."
-Journal of Radio and Audio Media

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (February 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807871028
• ISBN-13: 978-0807871027
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Radio > General Broadcasting

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great look at the inner workings of audio docs and public radio superstars..., January 5, 2011

By 

Bigeyediaz "Bigeyediaz" (Southern California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture) (Paperback)

I really dug this book. Like any bios, many of those included in this book offered surprises. (Who'd have thought the great Emily Botein began adulthood as a pastry chef?) I appreciated the great words of wisdom from superstar producer Jay Allison, and the insights of the brilliant young producer - and co-host of RadioLab - Jad Abumrad... The book is a great read. I enjoyed learning the backstories of the many public radio greats that I enjoy listening to each week...

5.0 out of 5 stars Radio the way it was meant to be., January 21, 2012

By 

Johnstan - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture) (Paperback)

I have been a listener of public radio and the audio documentary format for many years. I always look forward to stories from NPR and PRX. This is the ideal gift for any fan of This American Life, Radiolab and All Things Considered. With chapters written by the likes of Jad Abumrad and Ira Glass, this gives a real glimpse into not only the inner workings of these shows but the very essence of the ideas leading up to them. This is not just a book for the fan of PBS, it is for anyone interested in storytelling and journalism. With so much of our TV time taken up by cheap reality programming and radio with inflammatory talk shows, this book really restored my faith in the fundamentals of radio reporting and storytelling.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly about "Telling True Stories in Sound", October 13, 2011

By 

Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture) (Paperback)

No matter: however much I may dislike NPR's political propagandizing, I do recognize that they have raised the audio documentary to an art form. Jonathan Kern's "Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production" is the bible of creating this art form.

This book is the collected stories, in essay form, of some of those who create the art. Exclusive of the opening and closing essays, there are 18 essays here from creators of audio documentaries. All of them are excellent.

There are no dull essays in this book. Each reveals, to one degree or another, the mind of the creator: what drew them to the audio medium, given up for dead in the middle of the 20th Century. What stories they are trying to tell. Often, they include their techniques for producing their audio documentaries, how they let the subjects lead, for example, or how they made the sounds or edited the components to achieve the effect they intended.

Some the essays struck me as a bit pretentious, but not overwhelmingly so.

On the whole, this is a marvelous book that paints vivid portraits in written words of those who create vivid portraits, most often, in the spoken word.

Be sure to check out page 205 for a link to a site containing samples of the essayist's work and much more.

Jerry