The talent, Audacity

Getting the talent

One week before my assessment 2 radio interview is due for completion, and I decide to change my story. Well, not so much as a change of mind; more a case of a better story with a stronger news angle coming along.

A few weeks earlier I had tried unsuccessfully to contact a man from the ACT Scouts who was opening a new Arts facility for young people in the Tuggeranong Valley. I had heard about it through a church group. Days before my other interview was due to take place, the man from Scouts contacted me to say he was happy to talk to me about the facility.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that Canberra has a young population, and it also has the highest rate of youth crime in Australia, so a new community arts facility for young people run by the ACT Scouts seemed like a good path to a newsworthy story.

The Interview

The interview was quite stressful and uncomfortable for me, even though I kept saying to myself just do the best you can; we’ll, the best I can do with zero experience in broadcast journalism! I learnt that it is hard to maintain your composure and dignity when you are obsessively checking your equipment for malfunction; when you are trying intently to listen to the answers so you can ask an intelligent and probing question in your umm and ahh free “radio voice”; when you are trying to emphasise key words, but end up sounding like a kid whose voice has just broken.

That same night, I watched Tracey Grimshaw conduct a difficult and confronting interview on A Current Affair and discovered a new appreciation for live interview broadcasting.

Editing

As far as uni assessments go, I am quite enjoying the process of editing my radio interview. Although, I started to cull pauses and umms and ahhs without realising they provide important context in various parts of the interview. My talent may have been pausing for a reason, I thought to myself. I imagine it can become a bit like botox – once you start primping and culling and cropping, you can’t stop until it is completely unrecognisable from the original product. So I started again…

NB: Very happy that I can use Audacity from the comfort of my own laptop.