Customer Reviews

Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a working journalist, I found this book thoroughly refreshing and chock full of some of the best advice on how to put together a great radio, broadcast or web story. It's full of detail and fresh real-life examples using real reporters and stories from NPR. Any NPR junkie would love this book. The author has a fresh and easy writing style which should put journalism textbooks to shame. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how stories come together, or those learning to do it for themselves. I honestly wish I had read this book 10 years ago.

As someone who works in journalism at a NPR affiliate, I have to say that "Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production" -- is probably the most authoritative book on the subject of audio journalism published so far.

Whether you are new to journalism -- or if you've been in the industry for a good while and would like a refresher -- this book has something for you.

While it deals specifically with audio journalism and production as it pertains to NPR (and sometimes its member stations), this guide is nonetheless invaluable to anyone who wants to get involved in news reporting operations at ANY level (including radio, print, TV and new media). Want to know what it's like to be a news host, field reporter, booker, producer, studio director ... or commentator? It's all here.

More importantly, "Sound Reporting" delves into the ever-so-important topics of fairness, ethics (as applied to both reporting and editing), and how to write well for broadcast. It also offers suggestions on how news providers can stay relevant in the age of the Internet and new media (e.g. podcasts, blogs, etc.). Since all forms of news reporting (print, TV, radio, blogs, etc.) are converging on the Internet, this is especially relevant for today.

And if you're just an NPR geek who wants to learn more about how shows like "Morning Edition" and "All Things Consider" get made in a 24-hour cycle and broadcast across the country -- this is the book for you. My only minor issue is that "Sound Reporting" could have been a bit shorter, but it's a relatively minor nitpick because the book is very readable and the author, Jonathan Kern, has a witty and even occasionally humorous writing style. It's well worth reading!

This is simply a great book. It is clear, insightful and helpful. Although it is more than four hundred pages long it is not daunting. You can open it up to any part and learn something valuable.

Until now newsradio, and NPR especially, was kind of a closed world. There are not too many good books out there on the subject. Most of the ones that are out there are very dry manuals. Sound Reporting focuses less on the technical details of production and chooses instead to teach you the deeper ingredients of good radio journalism. It is not too abstract either, describing different production and reporting situations in general terms.

If you are just starting out, you may want to supplement this book with one on nuts and bolts production techniques.

Jonathan Kern does the profession a favor by capturing and explaining the practices of the best broadcast journalists in America today. The book may serve the interests of many, but I see this as a practical manual for those of us still making radio news -- and trying to do it very well. Excellent use of actual examples. Comfy, readable style. Thanks, Jonathan! -- MM

I bought this book for a family member and it was very useful, full of specific suggestions from an obvious expert.

If you ever wanted to know why NPR sounds the way it does, has been so successful, or is so hard to emulate, Kern and NPR staffers reveal the secrets to great broadcast journalism.

A fascinating look into the background, planning and production of NPR audio stories. This book delivers on its promise to help readers understand the craft of audio storytelling. I would have liked to have a little more technical information on selecting microphones, setting levels, controlling background noise etc. but am generally pleased with the book.

Sound Reporting is the best book so far on the subject of radio reporting. It's written by someone with years of top-level experience. It covers the entire process from field to studio; editorial to editing; writing to recording; and hosting and producing. Top tips from top professional in a very easy to read book. If you are serious about radio, then this book is a must!

It is probably sacrilege to say this, but I get my radio news from all-news AM radio stations. Not "talk show" radio, but 24/7 news like KFWB in L.A. and WINS in N.Y.C. This book is a perplexing mixture of general audio production, interview techniques, and most heavily-handed, making whatever you do conform to NPR stylistic rules.

Woefully missing is anything that would apply to either a commercial news radio station or the news department in a commercial music radio station. Although there is technical information which applies to all, the entire book seems to expect you to be a true believer in the NPR way of doing things. I have nothing against NPR, of course I listen to public radio. However, everything stylistic in this book is presented as the only way things are done, including many annoying quirks of NPR style. The author does not appear to be able to differentiate style from substance, and that is the book's biggest problem.

As an analogy I would point to Wikipedia's stylistic quirks. All articles start with a brief introduction, then a detailed table of contents, then sections with just the right number of citations, then links, then notes. Now, there are an infinite number of ways information can be presented on a web page (or on the radio). Wikipedia's method works, but almost all of its components are presented in a way that conforms to their style. The same for NPR. If you are on the radio and cue up a piece by Daniel Schorr, there is no objective reason it has to play like this:

-Daniel Schorr, "I can never visit Philadelphia without being reminded of the story of the penguin."

-Nina Totenberg: "NPR's Daniel Schorr."

-Daniel Schorr "It was a cloudy day in 1956 and we were visiting the Philadelphia Zoo..."

But stylistically that is how all such interactions have to happen, according to this book. Now for someone looking for information on host/guest interaction, all they're going to find in this book is NPR's version of host/guest interaction. Separating information from style will be very difficult for anyone unfamiliar with a radio newsroom.

From the book description and reviews I had expected a book on how to produce great radio stories. What I found was a book on how to do radio NPR's way. The undercurrent is that NPR is the only radio news worth listening to in the entire country. They aren't.

Confession: I stopped listening to NPR on a regular basis years ago. The endless assaults on everything American by this left-wing, largely taxpayer supported medium just got to be too much for me. A pair of stories did it. The first was an extremely well done piece about a cop killer who became a celebrity in prison. There was no mention of the murdered cop's widowed wife and now fatherless children. It was all about the convicted murderer - and his battle to become a regular NPR contributor. The next story was about a woman who mingled with cattle in a stockyard, narrating a diatribe against American meat eaters by assuming the viewpoint of a cow.

That was it. I had listened to NPR for years, sometimes laughing at its old-fashioned Soviet slant, but always admiring how well it produced propaganda - and I still do admire the production values, though I would like to see all taxpayer funding ended immediately.

Jonathan Kern has put together THE book on, as the title so aptly states, "Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide To Audio Journalism And Production". NPR knows how to produce riveting radio. They are as good as the BBC once was. This is really a guide for the staffs of NPR member stations, though anyone who relies even occasionally on the spoken word to make their point will benefit from reading this book.

There are hilarious aspects to the book, such as the relatively short (15 pages) chapter on "fairness" in reporting. Kern quotes the "NPR Journalist's Code Of Ethics and Practices" which holds that the "network's coverage must be fair, unbiased, accurate, complete and honest", which NPR never is (in my opinion). As Bernard Goldberg explained of CBS and other New York media, they all work in a universe of people who think like they do. Thus, they never realize that they are all left-wingers who approach every story from the perspective of a left-winger, like the New York Times writer who wrote a story on women's reproductive rights without quoting anyone who wasn't an advocate of only one side of the argument. When called on this glaring omission, the reporter explained she knew no one who didn't agree with her position. So it is with the reporters of NPR. They don't think they are biased because everyone they know is biased in the same way.

The book goes on to explore in a methodical fashion every element of reporting the NPR way - and Jonathan Kern has done a great job of doing this.

There are chapters on writing for broadcast, NPR radio reporting, field producing, story editing, production techniques for the reporter/host two-way, reading on the air, hosting, newscasting, booking (surprisingly interesting), producing, production ethics (which suffers from the same defect as the chapter on fairness), program producing, program editing, commentaries, studio directing and repurposing for the web.

Clearly I am not a fan of the political views that are universal to almost all NPR staff and their work product. Even so, I admire the quality of their work and Jonathan Kern has done a fantastic job of describing how each aspect of NPR's style of broadcast journalism should be done. Whatever your politics and your stance toward taxpayer dollars funding what is essentially a propaganda outlet for the left-wing, this book is an invaluable guide to the art of producing effective audio propaganda or - when practiced by objective journalists - audio journalism.

Jerry