It doesn’t matter how groundbreaking or gorgeous your story is; if it doesn’t start well, listeners won’t stick around. So when you’re trying to craft a story, how do you decide what the beginning sounds like? What’s the most compelling starting point? What’s the best tape to use?
Alison MacAdam is NPR's Senior Editorial Specialist and helps train the team on creating top-notch audio stories. In this special DCSWA session, MacAdam will share her valuable insight on how to plan and structure an audio story with a focus on the beginning of audio stories.
Each story is different, of course, so Alison will walk through different approaches, and we’ll do some critical listening together. Please come prepared to contribute to the conversation – and if you have examples of audio stories you’re trying to tell, please bring them!
When: Monday, January 23, 2017 from 6:30-8:30pm
Where: NPR (1111 North Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20002)
Cost: $7 for DCSWA members. $10 for non-DCSWA members
More about Alison MacAdam:
Alison MacAdam is Senior Editorial Specialist for NPR’s Training Team. She coaches journalists throughout the public radio system on audio storytelling. She leads listening sessions, runs workshops, works one-on-one with staff, and creates storytelling guidance for NPR’s Training website. Alison arrived at NPR in 2003 to work as a producer at All Things Considered. As the program’s Senior Editor from 2008 to 2014, she helped to shape stories and guide daily coverage decisions. She was part of a team that won Best Documentary at the Third Coast International Audio Festival for the series “Teenage Diaries Revisited.” Alison got her start as a producer at WBUR in Boston. She received a degree in American Studies at Wesleyan University, and was a 2014 Nieman Fellow at Harvard. @ajmacadam @NPRTraining
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