February 2012 Archives
Interview by Amy Chou
Delaney Hall is a radio journalist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who works at the Third Coast International Audio Festival of Chicago Public Radio. She has joined us this quarter for the second time to teach Documentary for Radio: Audio Vérité. We asked to her answer ten questions about her life and career and here is what she had to say.
How did you get started in radio?
I grew up listening to KUNM, the local public station in Albuquerque, NM, and I think my interest in radio begins there. It's an eclectic station, largely volunteer powered, and it was a real presence in my house--always there, always on, like some chatterbox neighbor. I still remember a lot of the shows: Hot Lix with Charlie Z, the Singing Wire, Tombstone Rock, the Home of Happy Feet (I could sing you the theme song for that one). I think a lot of people have powerful early experiences with radio--the voices coming through the little box hint at a world much bigger and more complex than the one you inhabit--and so all of those KUNM stories and sounds struck me in some lasting/formative way.
After writing for newspapers throughout college, I decided to jump over to radio and make an audio documentary for my senior thesis project. I ended up documenting an old pilgrimage route in northern Spain, hiking five hundred miles of the trail and recording sounds and interviews along the way. I didn't have much formal training in radio at that point, but the whole experience was a chance to teach myself how to record, edit, and structure a story in sound.
Then I moved to Chicago and got an internship with the Third Coast International Audio Festival, based at Chicago Public Radio, which eventually turned into a full-time gig. Third Coast celebrates and supports innovative audio documentary work from all over the world--we produce a weekly radio show on WBEZ, curate an online audio archive, and organize an annual conference for producers, along with regular listening events for the public. So that experience got me quite hooked.
Why did you choose radio over print journalism?
I still write, actually, but I do think there's something special about sound. For one thing, it can be very intimate and direct. Hearing a human voice reveals so much that's difficult to replicate on the page: pitch, intonation, accent, innuendo--even pauses and silences carry meaning. So I think there's an efficiency and an immediacy to a good piece of tape.
It's also sort of a cliché to say that radio is a visual medium, but I suppose I'll say it anyway. I think sound requires an imaginative engagement--an active collaboration in creating the images a radio story conjures--that's unique.
What is your favorite story that you have covered?
I loved working on a recent story that explored the connections between early hip-hop history and the 1977 New York blackout, which left all five boroughs of the city without power for a full day. According to Grandmaster Caz, one of the very first DJs and a self-appointed chronicler of early hip-hop lore, the blackout helped to propel the relatively new genre out of the Bronx and into the wider world. He thinks that in the rampant looting that followed the blackout--and there was, indeed, a whole lot of looting, all over the city--aspiring young DJs were able to get their hands on turntables and mixers that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford. This "new wealth," these new musical tools, made for a explosion in the culture.
The story was fun to work on because Grandmaster Caz is a big personality and a vivid storyteller. I blended his narration with music from the time, archival reports from the night of the blackout, perspectives from historians, and ambient sound from the Bronx. The threads of the personal and the historical, the mythology and the fact, wove together nicely.
What radio shows do you listen to?
Many of the usual suspects: Radiolab, On the Media, Re:sound, and This American Life are some favorites. I'm also dedicated to a few podcasts, like 99% Invisible, a beautiful little five minute show about design and architecture by Roman Mars, and Love & Radio, by a friend and WBEZ producer named Nick van der Kolk.
Working with Third Coast, I was lucky enough to be exposed to a ton of ear-expanding international documentary work as well, and so I also recommend a few shows/production companies from beyond our borders: 360documentaries from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Falling Tree Productions in the UK, and Earbones Productions up in Canada, to name a few.
What advice would you give students who also want to become radio journalists?
Start making stuff! Today! Download some free editing software, buy an inexpensive recorder, and start interviewing people. Work for the school newspaper to build reporting skills or volunteer for the campus radio station. Check out online resources like www.transom.org and www.thisamericanlife.org/about/make-radio, which are an autodidact's dream. I also recommend internships--many of them are unpaid, which is a problem the public radio system needs to work on, but good ones will teach you a tremendous amount and help you make valuable connections at a station.
While it certainly helps to have some technical skills and reporting experience, I do think there are many roads to radio. I know someone who was a chef before becoming a radio producer, another who studied coral reefs, another who was a community organizer, and another who painted houses. I'd like to think each previous job informed their radio making, somehow.
Who are some of your inspirations?
There are many. Among them: Jens Jarisch, a German producer who creates riveting, challenging, form-breaking audio documentaries. Kelly McEvers, now NPR's Baghdad correspondent and one of the most persistent reporters I know of. Brooke Gladstone, the host of On the Media, who is so light on her feet in an interview and crafts the best questions. Eurydice Aroney, an Australian producer who makes hilarious, frank, and inventive stories about women and family life. Adrian Nicole Leblanc, an immersion journalist who inhabits her stories so thoroughly that she almost disappears inside them. Chris Watson, a nature field recordist who once captured the sound of a snoring cheetah. Scott Carrier. Joe Frank. And Studs Terkel -- because this is Chicago, after all.
What is your favorite aspect of working at the University of Chicago?
I've only taught once before at the University of Chicago, with my colleague Julie Shapiro of the Third Coast Festival, but I loved the students. They were smart, thoughtful, creative, confident, independent, and pretty fearless in tackling some of the assignments we gave them. I learned a lot from them.
I also like the gargoyles and the new library bubble.
What do you hope students will take away from your class?
I hope they take away some practical skills -- how to identify worthwhile stories, how to interview, how to voice narration, and how to record and edit audio. I also hope they gain a deeper respect for the challenges of journalism and documentary work: the need to research thoroughly, think critically, and report accurately. Finally, I hope they take away a sense of the particular power of sound, an appreciation for the flexibility of the radio medium, and a desire to invent, disrupt, and try new things.
How do you go about choosing stories to cover?
That's a really good question and a difficult one, and I think it's probably different for every radio producer/journalist. I don't really work in news, so I don't cover a beat and I'm a little freer to follow my whimsy and shifting interests, which is both good and bad. Mostly good.
I often find stories just at the periphery of what I think I'm looking for--a surprising fact or anecdote will jump out at me and then open into a whole new and unexpected direction. So, for example, I stumbled across the previously mentioned hip-hop story while researching the public reaction to the 1977 New York City blackout. Or, to give another example: I'm now working on a historical piece about a poetry column that ran in the Defender newspaper back in the 1920s and 30s during the Chicago Renaissance. I stumbled across the subject while reading a Gwendolyn Brooks biography that briefly mentioned her first poems were published in the column. I got curious, looked into it, and it turned out no one had really written about it before.
I do wish there were some sort of magic formula for what makes a valuable and engaging story. Maybe we'll try to derive one in class this winter.
What are your hobbies outside of radio journalism?
I love bicycling, exploring Chicago, spending time in the Southwestern desert (where I'm from), knitting and other crafting, hanging out with my dog, reading books, listening to music, and cooking.
Amy C. Chou is a fourth-year English major writing a nonfiction thesis about her experience with a rare form of cancer as a 19-year-old. She is from Pasadena, CA and plans to move back to Los Angeles after graduation.
Delaney Hall is a radio journalist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who works at the Third Coast International Audio Festival of Chicago Public Radio. She has joined us this quarter for the second time to teach Documentary for Radio: Audio Vérité. We asked to her answer ten questions about her life and career and here is what she had to say.
How did you get started in radio?
I grew up listening to KUNM, the local public station in Albuquerque, NM, and I think my interest in radio begins there. It's an eclectic station, largely volunteer powered, and it was a real presence in my house--always there, always on, like some chatterbox neighbor. I still remember a lot of the shows: Hot Lix with Charlie Z, the Singing Wire, Tombstone Rock, the Home of Happy Feet (I could sing you the theme song for that one). I think a lot of people have powerful early experiences with radio--the voices coming through the little box hint at a world much bigger and more complex than the one you inhabit--and so all of those KUNM stories and sounds struck me in some lasting/formative way.
After writing for newspapers throughout college, I decided to jump over to radio and make an audio documentary for my senior thesis project. I ended up documenting an old pilgrimage route in northern Spain, hiking five hundred miles of the trail and recording sounds and interviews along the way. I didn't have much formal training in radio at that point, but the whole experience was a chance to teach myself how to record, edit, and structure a story in sound.
Then I moved to Chicago and got an internship with the Third Coast International Audio Festival, based at Chicago Public Radio, which eventually turned into a full-time gig. Third Coast celebrates and supports innovative audio documentary work from all over the world--we produce a weekly radio show on WBEZ, curate an online audio archive, and organize an annual conference for producers, along with regular listening events for the public. So that experience got me quite hooked.
Why did you choose radio over print journalism?
I still write, actually, but I do think there's something special about sound. For one thing, it can be very intimate and direct. Hearing a human voice reveals so much that's difficult to replicate on the page: pitch, intonation, accent, innuendo--even pauses and silences carry meaning. So I think there's an efficiency and an immediacy to a good piece of tape.
It's also sort of a cliché to say that radio is a visual medium, but I suppose I'll say it anyway. I think sound requires an imaginative engagement--an active collaboration in creating the images a radio story conjures--that's unique.
What is your favorite story that you have covered?
I loved working on a recent story that explored the connections between early hip-hop history and the 1977 New York blackout, which left all five boroughs of the city without power for a full day. According to Grandmaster Caz, one of the very first DJs and a self-appointed chronicler of early hip-hop lore, the blackout helped to propel the relatively new genre out of the Bronx and into the wider world. He thinks that in the rampant looting that followed the blackout--and there was, indeed, a whole lot of looting, all over the city--aspiring young DJs were able to get their hands on turntables and mixers that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford. This "new wealth," these new musical tools, made for a explosion in the culture.
The story was fun to work on because Grandmaster Caz is a big personality and a vivid storyteller. I blended his narration with music from the time, archival reports from the night of the blackout, perspectives from historians, and ambient sound from the Bronx. The threads of the personal and the historical, the mythology and the fact, wove together nicely.
What radio shows do you listen to?
Many of the usual suspects: Radiolab, On the Media, Re:sound, and This American Life are some favorites. I'm also dedicated to a few podcasts, like 99% Invisible, a beautiful little five minute show about design and architecture by Roman Mars, and Love & Radio, by a friend and WBEZ producer named Nick van der Kolk.
Working with Third Coast, I was lucky enough to be exposed to a ton of ear-expanding international documentary work as well, and so I also recommend a few shows/production companies from beyond our borders: 360documentaries from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Falling Tree Productions in the UK, and Earbones Productions up in Canada, to name a few.
What advice would you give students who also want to become radio journalists?
Start making stuff! Today! Download some free editing software, buy an inexpensive recorder, and start interviewing people. Work for the school newspaper to build reporting skills or volunteer for the campus radio station. Check out online resources like www.transom.org and www.thisamericanlife.org/about/make-radio, which are an autodidact's dream. I also recommend internships--many of them are unpaid, which is a problem the public radio system needs to work on, but good ones will teach you a tremendous amount and help you make valuable connections at a station.
While it certainly helps to have some technical skills and reporting experience, I do think there are many roads to radio. I know someone who was a chef before becoming a radio producer, another who studied coral reefs, another who was a community organizer, and another who painted houses. I'd like to think each previous job informed their radio making, somehow.
Who are some of your inspirations?
There are many. Among them: Jens Jarisch, a German producer who creates riveting, challenging, form-breaking audio documentaries. Kelly McEvers, now NPR's Baghdad correspondent and one of the most persistent reporters I know of. Brooke Gladstone, the host of On the Media, who is so light on her feet in an interview and crafts the best questions. Eurydice Aroney, an Australian producer who makes hilarious, frank, and inventive stories about women and family life. Adrian Nicole Leblanc, an immersion journalist who inhabits her stories so thoroughly that she almost disappears inside them. Chris Watson, a nature field recordist who once captured the sound of a snoring cheetah. Scott Carrier. Joe Frank. And Studs Terkel -- because this is Chicago, after all.
What is your favorite aspect of working at the University of Chicago?
I've only taught once before at the University of Chicago, with my colleague Julie Shapiro of the Third Coast Festival, but I loved the students. They were smart, thoughtful, creative, confident, independent, and pretty fearless in tackling some of the assignments we gave them. I learned a lot from them.
I also like the gargoyles and the new library bubble.
What do you hope students will take away from your class?
I hope they take away some practical skills -- how to identify worthwhile stories, how to interview, how to voice narration, and how to record and edit audio. I also hope they gain a deeper respect for the challenges of journalism and documentary work: the need to research thoroughly, think critically, and report accurately. Finally, I hope they take away a sense of the particular power of sound, an appreciation for the flexibility of the radio medium, and a desire to invent, disrupt, and try new things.
How do you go about choosing stories to cover?
That's a really good question and a difficult one, and I think it's probably different for every radio producer/journalist. I don't really work in news, so I don't cover a beat and I'm a little freer to follow my whimsy and shifting interests, which is both good and bad. Mostly good.
I often find stories just at the periphery of what I think I'm looking for--a surprising fact or anecdote will jump out at me and then open into a whole new and unexpected direction. So, for example, I stumbled across the previously mentioned hip-hop story while researching the public reaction to the 1977 New York City blackout. Or, to give another example: I'm now working on a historical piece about a poetry column that ran in the Defender newspaper back in the 1920s and 30s during the Chicago Renaissance. I stumbled across the subject while reading a Gwendolyn Brooks biography that briefly mentioned her first poems were published in the column. I got curious, looked into it, and it turned out no one had really written about it before.
I do wish there were some sort of magic formula for what makes a valuable and engaging story. Maybe we'll try to derive one in class this winter.
What are your hobbies outside of radio journalism?
I love bicycling, exploring Chicago, spending time in the Southwestern desert (where I'm from), knitting and other crafting, hanging out with my dog, reading books, listening to music, and cooking.
Amy C. Chou is a fourth-year English major writing a nonfiction thesis about her experience with a rare form of cancer as a 19-year-old. She is from Pasadena, CA and plans to move back to Los Angeles after graduation.
