Radio News Production Review

By Megan Robinson

Do my stories interest you?

The stories that I created seems that they are interested because six people said yes which is 100%.

Do you think my stories are concise?

I asked them a question and all of them said yes which is 100% which means my stories are concise.

Are my stories easy to understand?

The question was, ‘Are my stories easy to understand?’ and all of six people replied and say yes which is 100%. So this means that my stories are easy to understand.

Do you think I need to add/remove anything?

I asked them that do I need to add or remove anything. Five people said no which means I don’t need to remove or add it but one person said yes that I need to change it but I don’t know what I need to do which will be on the next question. No have 83.33% and Yes have 16.67% which means most of people said I don’t need to change it at all.

If yes, please tell me.

The question is about that do I need to change it and this is only for who said yes. The person who said yes, they answered this question which it says, ‘ Maybe a little bit shorter next time’ which is a good advice so next time I will make sure I can make it little bit shorter so I don’t bore people with my stories. Other four people have replied because I have made a mistake that I accidently tick this require an answer which not everyone can answer it if they said no.

Should We Recycle in College?This story is promotional news because it is trying to raise awareness about this issue. The questions I asked tutors/students were mainly closed questions however the people who answered changed them to open questions because they expanded on their points. One of the reasons I created this story is because I knew someone who worked in this area, therefore when I asked him questions, I got very detailed answers which I could choose what I wanted to include. The techniques I was supposed to use such as who, what, where, when, why and how were used throughout the story except for when, I didn’t include this because it is an on-going issue. I think my final edited piece is correct, concise and clear because I have included the quotes needed that are related to my story after introducing the topic in my scripted piece. You can tell that these quotes are something I have asked people because the sound quality changes and there is background noise. My story includes arguments from both sides which I think is good because it shows the difference in many people’s opinions. This story is well balanced and I think I was successful getting the point across.

Carrie –Remake better or worse?I think this story is promotional and informative because it is discussing about the different Carrie films which is promoting both of them to viewers but also informing people about the differences. I asked people their opinions about which one is better and these came back mixed. I interviewed people ad included their answers as cut out quotes in my news piece. I think this is a positive way to present my news story because it makes it clear and easier to understand. You can also tell by the sound quality that these are quotes because there is some background noise which makes it sound realistic and like it has been recorded immediately after they have watched the remake film. My story was correct because I researched facts about the films and included the plot. I think I also included who, what, where, when, why and how because this is explained in the story of Carrie and my research about the film’s takings. The target audience is college students however it seemed that not many students have seen the original Carrie which meant that I questioned older target audience more than students, this is something that I could improve on in future when researching my target audience. This story promoted both films however was an opinion story and did not intend to favour one film over the other.

Cost of Berlin Trip…too expensive for students?

I think this story is informative because it is discussing issues related to the target audience for college students. Also it is informative because it includes who, what, where, why and how. However I have missed out when, this does not provide the full information to the listeners which is a weakness. All of my questions are open which is good because it allows me to get different opinions and ideas. I asked tutors to explain activities we will be doing and then asked the students, do they think it is enough for the four days in Berlin. This prompted different responses and allowed my story to have different opinions included about whether it is expensive or not. All tutors thought it was reasonably priced and half of the students thought it was too expensive. I did lots of interviews with different people on this piece and then I had lots to choose from and could include the most relevant cut out quotes. Most of these are good clear sound quality however some could be improved because there is too much background noise.

StrengthsThe strengths I think are that I had a lot of raw interviews which gave me options about what to use for my final edited stories. I carefully selected the interviews I wanted to use to make my stories make sense. Another strength is that my questions were directly related to the news that I was writing about and stayed on topic. I think I was confident to ask the questions that I wanted them to answer for my stories.

WeaknessesThe weaknesses I think are that although I collected a lot of audio, it took lots of time to listen and decide what I wanted to use. Another one is when I was recording, some of the audio has too much background noise which is noticeable in my final stories. Another weakness is that I needed to check that the equipment was recording and working because I did a number of interviews that were really good but did not record clearly which was disappointing as I had wasted my time and resources. This is something I will always make sure I check before doing any other recordings.

ConclusionI did three stories which are about, ‘Should We Recycle in College?’, ‘Carrie – Remake better or worse?’ and ‘Cost of Berlin Trip…too expensive for students?’. I think the story that is the best is ‘Cost of Berlin Trip…too expensive for students?’ because it’s most related to the target audience of college students. There are different opinions from tutors and students. One of the people who answered my survey said that I could make it shorter next time even though they think it’s good but I think they are right because my tutor wanted everyone to do stories that were maximum of one minute and some of them are little bit over. Next time I ask the questions, I will word them slightly differently because some people answered with yes or no and I couldn’t use these in my stories because it didn’t make sense because I wasn’t including the questions. Overall I think I worked hard on completing these news stories but have definitely learnt from it and can use what I have learnt to improve.