[MUSIC] Todays journalists have a lot of choices and options as they produce their news reports. Throughout much of this course, we've talked about writing, and how journalists can use writing to share information. But there are other tools that you can also use to either accentuate your writing, or to replace writing because that might be a better way to tell a story. So in those cases, journalists need to dig into their toolbox, and find the tool that's most appropriate for the news report that they're trying to put together. Sometimes, audio is a great tool for journalists to use. You might use audio as a way to supplement a written news report, or you might put together an entire news report with just audio files. Let's talk a little bit about the reasons you might want to use audio as a tool in your reporting. You probably use photos in your reporting already. Audio is kind of like a photo caption, but one that you hear instead of one that you have to read. It's a way to help your viewers and your audience into the story and to witness the things that you are seeing and hearing as you're doing your reporting. You can hear what the place sounds like, you can also hear the voices of real people. You can hear the way they put together their sentences, the words they use, the tone in their voice, the emotion in their voice. The more that you can help your audience connect with the news reports that you're putting together, the more they're going to connect with your reporting, and the more they're going to want to view more of the work that you're doing. Audio can also help you add depth and dimension to the reporting that you're already doing. It helps, again, take people there, so that they can hear what the surroundings are like. It also is a way that you can help your audience view more information about the topic that you're putting together. If they're really interested in your news report, then they can listen to the audio file that you've uploaded along with your written news report. Audio is also easier to put together than video might be. There's a lot of interest, today, in video, but audio has a lot of the same benefits and advantages. For you, it's often easier, technically, to put together an audio news report than a video news report. You might also find that it's easier for you to get an audio news story out to your audience than a video news story. Video files are often quite large, where an audio file can be a little bit smaller. Depending on your Internet infrastructure in your community, you might want to have that smaller file on your website to be able to push out more easily to your audience. Let's talk a little bit about the kinds of things that you might put together in an audio file as part of your reporting. You might already be recording the interviews that you're doing as part of your regular reporting. If you already have those audio recordings, why not upload them along with your written story. You can add depth and dimension to what you're already doing. You might also be recording press conferences or other news events, and if you already have those audio files, it's easy to do a little bit of editing to them an post them along with your written news report. You might also be doing a news report where the sound of something happening is very important. Think about covering a protest or a sporting event, or an environmental story where the sound of an animal or the sound of running water is important to that story. You might want to capture some of those sounds to help take your audience there, so that they can witness the things that you're reporting about. Once you're comfortable doing some basic audio reporting and putting together some basic audio files, you might do something more complex and do your entire news report as an audio story, as an audio news report. Rather than doing a written story, you might find that an entire audio news report is a better way to go. And you might also consider putting together podcast. Podcasts are increasingly popular. People listen into their favorite podcasts and download them, and listen to them wherever they are. If you have a topic that you're interested in, you might consider putting together a regular podcast, where you include stories that you're reporting and also interviews with interesting people talking about the topics that you're reporting on. Let's talk a little bit about the equipment that you might use to put together an audio news report. Chances are you already have at last some of the basic equipment that you can use because you carry a smartphone around. Smartphones are one of the most important tools that today's journalist have. You can record audio and record video with these devices. If you don't have a smartphone, and even if you do, you might also have a separate audio recorder. Either of these devices can work. It's important, regardless of which equipment you have, that you understand how to use it, and how to capture the best possible audio with that device. Let's talk a little bit about microphones. Microphones are one of the most important tools for you to know about as you're gathering information for your news reports. There are several different types of microphones, and different kinds of microphones capture sound in different ways. One of the most popular microphones, the kind of microphone that you find in your smartphone, is an omnidirectional microphone. That means it's picking up the sound from all around the room. If you're in a noisy room, it's going to capture all the sound within that room. Another kind of microphone is a unidirectional microphone. That microphone is picking up the sound from wherever its pointed. Another popular kind of microphone is a cardioid microphone. It picks up the sound in kind of a heart shaped pattern like shown here. So it's picking up a lot of sound from wherever that microphone is pointed, but it's also picking up a little bit of sound from the room. A stick mic like this one is a cardioid microphone. It's the kind of microphone that many journalists use because they're easy to move around as you interview different people. So think about what kind of microphone that you have, and how you might use it. You might use the built-in microphone within your device, which remember, is an omnidirectional microphone. If you have that kind of microphone, just keep in mind that it's going to pick up all the sound in the room, not just the sound from the people who you're interviewing. I'm wearing a lapel microphone to do this video. My microphone is clipped onto my coat. Those kind of mics are great if you're doing a longer interview where somebody's sitting still. A handheld mic like the one that I just showed you is a microphone that lots of journalists use because they're easy to move around, and get that microphone where you need it to pick up the sound that you want. A lot of film production folks use shotgun microphones. Those microphones are unidirectional. Wherever that microphone is pointed, that's where it's going to pick up most of the sound. Now that we've talked a little bit about the equipment that you might use, let's talk a little bit about tips for getting good audio with whatever equipment you have. The most important thing when you set out to do a news report where you're capturing audio is to have a plan. There's nothing worse as a reporter and editor than to come back with four hours worth of audio just to come up with a 30-second sound bite. If you only need 30 seconds of audio to put with your story, think carefully before you go out to do your recording, what you want those 30 seconds of audio to be. So that you come back with maybe three minutes of audio that you're going to edit down to 30 seconds instead of four hours that you have to find 30 seconds out of. Wherever you are when you're out doing your reporting, record 15 seconds of just the sound of that room or that place. Different rooms have different sounds even if we think they might be quiet. That's because there might be air handlers making noise or buzzing from lights, or a background noise of some kind. Or if you're outside, there might be birds chirping. You might find that sound of just the empty space valuable as you sit down to do some editing with your sound clips. Make sure that when you do an interview for audio, that you ask open-ended questions. You want your audio clips to be several sentences long from your sources, not yes or no answers. Capture natural sound. If you're at a place where sound is part of the story, a sporting event, a protest, some place in nature, you might want to capture just that sound to help take people to that location, and help them experience what it was like to be there. If possible, monitor your recording while you're recording your audio. Depending on the device that you're using to record with, you might be able to hook some headphones into that device to listen along as you record your audio. That's going to help you figure out whether your sound levels are good. It's also going to help you know that your recorder's actually working. If you're not able to put a pair of headphones into your recorder while it's running, then it's probably a good idea for you, at least, to play back some of your recording before you leave that scene, or before you walk away from your source, just in case you have to do some additional recording to get what you need. If you can, get an external microphone to use with your recorder. An external microphone is almost always going to work better than the omnidirectional microphone that's built in to your recording device. That's because an external microphone, you can use to get close to the sound that you want to record, where an omnidirectional microphone is just going to pick up all the sound all over the room, no matter what you're doing. There are a lot of external microphones out there on the market that you can buy for a smartphone or for a different kind of audio recorder device. You're just going to have to shop around and find one that fits your budget and works for your equipment. Avoid rooms with echos when you're out recording audio. That means you might want to stay away from bathrooms, or stairwells, or places where there's solid surfaces on the floor, the ceiling and the walls. Those kind of rooms make a lot of echoes and your audio recording is going to pick up those echoes, and it's going to be distracting for your listeners later. Also, be alert for any noise that you might wait. Also, be alert for any noise that you might make as you're doing your recording. That could include tapping on a table or rustling papers, or maybe even writing if you're really loud as you write. All of those sounds are going to be picked up by your microphone, and they're going to wreck your audio recording. So be careful about that to make sure that you're in a quiet location. And if you can, make sure you find a quiet location to do your interview. If you're in a crowd, try to take your source some place a little bit quieter so that you don't pick up all that background noise. The quieter the place where you do your interview, the better quality your sound is going to be at the end of the day. And of course, you have to be quiet too. For those of us who are used to writing our news reports, we often have a lot of interaction when we do interviews. We talk along with our sources as we interview with them. But when you're recording an interview, you, as the interviewer, have to be quiet instead of giving an audio cue of a yes or a uh-huh, or an okay. As your listening along to somebody, you have to learn how to silently nod to give them the cue that you're listening and you understand what they're saying. There's nothing worst than wrecking a really great quote in your audio file by speaking in the middle of whatever your source is saying. So, as the reporter, be quiet, let your source answer the question that you just asked. As you go out and try your own audio stories, good luck! [MUSIC]
