TRAINING FOR VIDI VAKA (26-27

august 2019)

NARRATIVE PODCASTING
By Ana Maria Ciobanu

TRAINING REPORT

Introduction

I was invited by Ljubica Dimishkovska Grozdanovska, the national coordinator of the project

in Macedonia to conduct a two-day training on Narrative Podcasting and Audio Storytelling for

Journalists at Vidi Vaka. The training was held in Skopje in the Vidi Vaka newsroom between
26-27 august 2019, split into two half-day sessions for each, starting at 9:30 and ending at 14:30,
with two 15 minute coffee breaks.

The idea behind the training was to introduce the participants in the field of audio reporting and
storytelling, through practical listening sessions and exercises, aiming to help the journalists to
develop their own podcast ideas and come up with a promotion plan.
Agenda

Introductions. Who are we, why do we do this work, what do we want to achieve

The power of audio.

• Why should you start a podcast?

• Advantages and the unique experience of listening to a story
• Types of podcast and choosing the form and audio aesthetic best suitable for your
purpose (solo, interview, conversational, narrative)

Reporting for audio

• Planning your reporting

• Technical tips for field recording and studio recording
• Atmosphere recording
• Practical exercises for atmosphere recording

Pitching and refining podcast ideas

• What stories do you want to tell?

• Why audio?

Project management. Always plan more time and more resources than you expect J

• Building an identity for your podcast (finding a name, theme song, unique
transitions,intros and outros, host(s), length, thank you notes, releasing calendar-
weekly,daily, all at once, teaser?)
• Who’s on your team? (narrator, reporter(s), editor, sound engineer, social media,
community builder…)
• Budget
• (A realistic) Calendar
• Building a community around your podcast
• Promoting your work

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Interviewing for audio

• Conversational interviews
• Reconstructing story interviews
• The intimacy of the studio

Writing & Editing

• Scriptwriting& Structures

Day 1

After getting to know each other’s work and finding out why Vidi Vaka would be interested in
podcasting, given the fact that they are such a successful media outlet producing video and there
is no audience interested in audio journalism at the moment, we concluded that even though
podcasting is so successful in the US, Eastern Europe faces different challenges because our
audience isn’t accustomed to audio journalism and they have no audio media consumptions
habits involving installing additional apps on their phones. The group was divided between
journalists who enjoyed listening to international podcasts and journalists who didn’t have the
patience or the time for this form of journalism.

We discussed advantages and disadvantages, we listened to examples of several types of

podcasts and I shared my experience of working on a narrative podcast from idea to reporting,
producing and promoting my work, and of working on a interview podcast for parents with
advertising and partners and the perks of monetizing this form of journalism (plus the costs for
an independent media organization in terms of resources, both human and technical).

We ended the day with a challenge: Record a few seconds of a sound that means something to
you and share it with the group the next day.

Day 2

We started our morning with a listening exercise involving the homework form the previous day.

It was an intimate half an hour in which all the participants and the trainer shared sounds that had
meaning to them.

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I shared the sound of my keyboards and reporter’s notepad, working on a deadline in my hotel
room. Others introduced us to the silence of their homes after the kids were put to bed and they
were watching a movie while cracking sunflower seeds. We listened to the sound of Skopje
traffic on a bike, a phone conversation with one reporter’s toddler nephew and to an installation
in New York telling the story of the silence prisoners had to endure in a prison.

It was a good session to start the day and set the mood for the effects audio journalism can have,
It brought us closer and reduced cultural and age differences, it was a way to get to know each
other through raw sounds and this is a unique advantage of non-fiction storytelling podcasts.

Planning the production of 3 demo podcast shows, from idea to a calendar and a promotion
plan.

The group was divided into two teams and had to come up with at least one podcast pitch
answering a series of questions.

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We discussed the pro’s and con’s of each show, the team’s attachment to each of the main
themes, the feasibility and the likability of success for a Macedonian audience. Each team
pitched three name options of the podcasts and the group voted for the best suitable option.

This was the most exciting part of the workshop because the journalist divided in two teams, and
worked on ideas with great creativity and had fun journaling ideas and pitching them to their
colleagues. They were proud of what they produced and you could tell that it an ideal world with
no budget barriers, they would have loved to start working on all the three ideas immediately.

1. The Sit-down, a podcast profiling underground artists, mixing audio interviews and live
performances plus visual arts from fans and the larger audience
The team identified its target audience as a young progressive audience interested in new
forms of art
The pro’s of the show were that everybody on the Vidi Vaka team would be excited to
interview young progressive artists and promote their music to a larger audience. They
thought this podcast would be a great tool to get to know the younger audience, learn its
language and interestes and reduce the barrier between 25+ audience Vidi Vaka usually
targes with its main content and address and „raise” a larger future audience.
The con’s involved the budget. The sit-down would be hard to sell to advertisers, impossible
to monetize by crowdsourcing because of the relative low financial power of its young
audience and it would be expensive to produce, because it would require a large production
team and a recording studio suitable for live performances.
Both teams agreed this podcast would be a statement from their Media outlet, fun to produce,
and likely to succeed after a broader calendar, but it would be an asset in the longterm.
2. Real Parents
A podcast debunking myths about child rearing in both a humorous and factual way, with the
aim to educate young parents and address their concerns.
The format proposed is commentary plus interview with an expert, in weekly 10 minute
episodes.
The team was aiming to have two hosts, ideally well known in Macedonia, perhaps two
actors, male and female to send the message that both genders are as involved in child rearing
today.

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 The pro’s of the podcast stated by the majority of the team were that this would be easy to
monetize and attract advertising because young parents are very keen to inform themselves
today.
3. In my time
This team started their presentation with a demo recording of a phone interview with a
grandmother telling her story and starting with the well-known formula „In my time…”.
They proposed 10-minute episodes, with a senior citizen host and different art-work done by
seniors for each theme.
The main goal of the podcast would be to give voice to the senior citizens of Macedonia,
ignored by the media and ignored by their families who never listen to their stories.
In a humorous manner, but with a serious goal, the hosts will put together nephews and
grandmothers and have them discussing the present and past society, economics, history, the
sexual revolution, raising children 50 years ago versus today practices.
”Grandmothers are the keepers of memory”, said Goran, one of the pitchers and the rest of
the team agreed and started sharing their own stories about their elders and adding ideas
regarding how important this show might be. The discussion continued hours after the
workshop was finished, a compelling argument for their powerful ideas. The best stories
always give birth to other stories and this podcast proposal had all the ingredients to succeed
in building a bridge between generations and sharing untold stories that could bring people
together.
An important asset would also be that senior citizens have a tradition of listening to radio
dramas in Serbian language and offering them an audio podcast would address them in a
manner they are likely to consume.

The second part of the workshop focused on interviewing for audio. I demonstrated a 10 minute
recorded interview with a volunteer from the group. After, we shared ideas on what questions
worked and why, what I missed, what could have worked better. Goran told us a story about his
visual art and how it reflects his love/hate relation-ship with Skopje and why he thinks it is
important to remember what you love about this city when everybody focuses on the downsides.

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Learning Resources used:

We listened to short clips from several types of podcasts and discussed about their structure,
aesthetics and effects on the listener.

Main types of podcasts:

https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-60-the-celtic-holocaust/ solo commentary podcast

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/738328959/sarah-jessica-parker-on-sex-divorce-marriage-and-
metoo interview

https://player.fm/series/hello-internet-62109/hi-126-team-woo-woo conversational

Pioneers and innovators in audio narrative journalism:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/317/unconditional-love/act-one-6

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=647113096

https://serialpodcast.org/season-one

https://stownpodcast.org/

Niche podcasts and experiments:

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/motherhood-sessions/awh76x/when-being-a-mom-isnt-enough

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhawn/96-the-secret-life-of-alex-goldman

Cartoons and audio:

https://storycorps.org/stories/ramon-chunky-sanchez/

https://storycorps.org/animation/facundo-the-great/

Free music

https://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Rock/

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Recommendations:

The strongest feeling I had after the two days of work, was that Vidi Vaka was interested in
offering something new to their audience and they were also very interested in understanding and
engaging younger audiences.
The team also understood the branding power of pioneering a new media and being the first to
master it in the Macedonian media.
The two-day workshop was useful in terms of getting to know the nuts and bolts of audio
producing and in getting content producers excited in mastering a new form of media. I feel it
was also a powerful time for the team to be together, share ideas, get to know each other better
and discuss journalism as a job and a mission in a social, political and economical context.

Together with the participants I identified a need for a more practical approach regarding their
pitched ideas. It would be useful to pilot at least two of the shows and test the audience’s
reaction, the challenges met along the way and perhaps the need for more technical training for a
smaller team of reporters, editors and sound engineers who would like to embrace this challenge.
We discussed an experience exchange between DoR and Vidi Vaka, inviting a smaller group to
our audio studio to work on a demo and to share their experience with video producing.

Report created by Ana Maria Ciobanu, reporter at DoR

For further enquiries please contact me at [email protected],

+40724198184

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