Back in the early part of the last decade, when I was studying at Dalhousie and King’s, I spent a big chunk of my time at the small but mighty CKDU, our (then) 50-watt campus/community radio station.
My time there was, in a word, formational. I knew I wanted to make radio, but the thing was, I had absolutely no idea how. Radio was this thing that I loved — something I knew I wanted to be a part of — but its inner workings were still very much a mystery to me.
At CKDU, I met a ton of really smart, talented people who helped me learn. They showed me how to cut tape, and use a mixing board, and speak into a microphone without popping my Ps. They turned me onto new music, and new radio shows, and new people. They let me host the weekly countdown show (which came with the perk of having my name published in The Coast every week!). They let me experiment on the radio, making my own silly little This American Life rip-off show.
Though I’m no longer actively involved in campus/community radio, I still believe strongly in its mission. CKDU’s was (and still is):
to act as an alternative to public (CBC) and commercial radio stations. We offer programming that can not be found elsewhere on the airwaves in Halifax.
Why mention this? This week, Ryerson University (my alma mater and yes, current employer) held a referendum on creating a new campus radio station, to replace the now-defunct CKLN. The students overwhelmingly voted yes.
Congratulations to everyone who wanted this thing. Can’t wait to tune in.
There’s this thing that Keith, my mentor, used to say, where he says, “A story, if it’s working, is always an answer to the question, ‘How should I live my life?’”
Over the past little while, I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about a new type of media job: a hybrid position that some people are calling “programmer-journalist.” Witness, for example:
Up until now, as a journalist you worked with information, researching facts and figures which then you passed on to the reader. However, in a digital world there are more platforms you can use to convey that information – think of maps or mobile applications, augmented reality. And to be able to do that you will have know how to code.
Now, I’m no programmer. Not a real one, anyway. Sure, I know enough HTML and CSS to tweak WordPress themes. I know a tiny little bit of PHP. Through school, I worked summers at a software company. And once upon a time, in the summer of 1998, I wrote a reasonably popular piece of (now-useless) Windows shareware in Visual Basic.
But really, I’m no programmer. Though I intend to become one.
Companies like the CBC (my employer) need people who can build this kind of stuff. They need storytellers with programming chops, and programmers with storytelling chops.
I want to be one of those people.
So then, starting today, I’m embarking on a course of self-directed study. It’s my intention to become a sort of programmer-journalist, and I plan to blog about what I find here in this space. First step: learn Python.
I’d love to hear any thoughts or suggestions about where I should take this. Comments are most welcome.
My new years resolution is to make an infographic on every This American Life ever made. The idea is to expand and add context to the stories and information contained in the shows. Basically, anything I am curious about while listening to the pieces.
That’s a tall order, given that there are almost 15 years’ worth of episodes. Can’t wait to see more of these.
If you had gone to Germany in the mid-1470s and said, let’s see what this printing press is doing, right, you would miss novels, you would miss newspapers, you would miss the rise of scientific publication, you would miss Martin Luther’s “95 Theses,” you would miss the Venetian publishing industry. So many of the changes brought by the kind of abundance created by the printing press were in the second 50 years of its existence, if not the second century of its existence, that I think that over-extrapolating from current trends would leave us in the same position as if we tried to do the printing press in 1473.
Here’s a wonderful sort of factoid which may be helpful: The Western version of the printing press is invented in 1454. It takes 50 years for page numbers to emerge. It took humans that long to figure out that it might be useful to put numbers onto the pages.
Or, as management-types like to say, “It’s early days.”
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A few weeks ago, I spent some time in Winnipeg with team DNTO. While I was there, we watched the world premiere of three short animations based on some of Sook-Yin Lee’s stories. This one, directed by Jim Goodall, is my favourite of the three, and I’m not just saying that because they used my voice (very briefly):
You can check out all three animations on DNTO’s YouTube page. The CBC “Entertainment” “Portal” has copies too, but lacks permalinks, so I won’t bother linking there.
There are solid business reasons for making transcripts free. Sales have been dropping over the years. As people search for, discover and share content, offering free transcripts will boost the traffic to NPR.org, traffic that can be monetized with sponsorship. Finally, search engines like text. Many of our stories could not be found by the search engines because they did not have enough text. Now it will be easier for the search engines — and ultimately the users — to find and enjoy NPR’s stories.
On the Media from WYNC puts transcripts of all of its interviews online, and they’re extremely helpful. It’s something we’ve tried on Spark, and would like to do more of. And, as Julien Smith says, “the web is built around text, not sound.”
Update: My pal Rhiannon makes another excellent point:
i like when radio puts up transcripts. it’s really useful for me if i’m listening to something, say on a morning show (especially pre-coffee), and i’m like “wow! this would be great info for my/ someone else’s research!!” listening to the radio is great, but to be able to pass the info along to others (or save it for myself) who can use it at a later time is really useful from an academic’s perspective. i wish cbc did more of this all around.
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