npr – The Hilltop Monitor

StoryCorps records stories from Kansas City to archive in the Library of Congress

Catherine Dema — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 13:00:22 +0000

The StoryCorps Mobile Tour recording booth.

The StoryCorps mobile tour booth was parked outside of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art recording stories from people in Kansas City from Aug. 2 to Sep. 2.

StoryCorps is an independently funded, non-profit organization that started as a booth in Grand Central Station in New York City. The goal of the project is to invite the public to have intentional conversations in interview format.

During a recording session, two people enter the booth and one interviews the other. The concept is simple, yet the organization claims the environment fosters in-depth, meaningful conversations. A StoryCorps employee facilitates the conversation, but the individuals coming into the booth direct the conversation.

Part of StoryCorps mission is to archive conversations they record in the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is affiliated with NPR, so shortened and edited versions of the conversations have been broadcast on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and on the NPR website. Additionally, the StoryCorps Mobile Tour partners with local NPR affiliate station in the locations at which they record.

Danielle Andersen, associate director of the StoryCorps Mobile Tour, talked to the Monitor about how StoryCorps chooses cities and community partners. Andersen manages outreach into the community and holds the initial meetings with community partners.

“[We consider] where haven’t we been in a long time? Where is our archive kind of lacking in terms of representation across the United States? Where might be a particularly interesting place to go this year or at this particular time in history?” Andersen said. “With KC, we hadn’t been there in a while and it’s just kind of a vibrant, continually growing city.”

While in KC, StoryCorps partnered with KCUR 89.3. The two organizations produced a listening event Aug. 21 at 7:30 pm. The event featured event facilitators discussing the process of producing the stories, sharing animated stories and sharing edited stories recorded in KC.

The StoryCorps Mobile Tour specifically reached out to different organizations in KC, including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, in order to record stories from populations representative of the city itself. Organizations contacted were generally non-profits which benefit minority populations in KC that may not have heard of or been able to participate in StoryCorps otherwise.

Andersen discussed the mission of StoryCorps while explaining how they choose community partners.

“Our goal, our internal, Mobile Tour, StoryCorps goal, [contains] a really strong commitment to diversity. … For [the mobile tour], what that means is that for every stop we go to, we want our recordings to reflect the diversity of that area,” said Andersen.

In describing this commitment to diversity, Andersen emphasized the importance of having community partners to engage different communities within the city.

“We need to work with organizations and community leaders that are invested in those communities and that are doing work there already that can help kind of create a bridge between the services that we’re hoping to provide and the community that they serve. [We] do a lot of research into organizations in different neighborhoods and different communities that are doing interesting things or that have strong connections or that are doing work that somehow aligns with what we’re doing,” Andersen said. “That way it can kind of a give-and-take where we can support the work they’re doing as well through these recordings.

The organization reaches out to community partners in order to engage diverse parts of the community to more fully represent the cities. In KC specifically, community organizations helped bring people from both sides of the state line, both sides of Troost Ave. and from the significant number of diverse backgrounds our city fosters – as described by the facilitators of the listening event.

“We explain what it is we’re doing and what we want to do there and how we might partner together. Then we kind of give them free reign, like ‘communicate this to your community, see who’s interested, sign people up for recording and things of that nature,’ ” Andersen said in describing how the organizations foster this diversity.

Speaking to the benefit of having community partners, Andersen touched on the difficulty of expressing the nature of StoryCorps.

“It’s not an easy thing to explain what StoryCorps is. It makes sense once you do it, but it’s kind of hard to explain to somebody ‘you’re going to go into a recording studio, bring a family member or a friend, you’re going to have 40 minutes to talk about whatever you want,’ ” said Andersen.

People often deflect when offered this experience because they don’t think they have stories to offer or they try to recommend people who they think to be better for it.

“Sometimes it takes that person being like ‘no, no, no, trust me. Not only does everybody have a story, but what you have to tell is important and we want you to come in with whomever you choose to tell that story,’ ” said Andersen.

A more extensive archive of StoryCorps interviews can be accessed here. The organization is also working on adding all of the archived interviews from the Library of Congress to their website.

Photo courtesy of StoryCorps.

Podcast “S-Town” delves into empathy and mystery

Jesse Lundervold — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 13:00:59 +0000

There have been many attempts to bring rural, small-town life to the wider American audience. “Parks and Recreation” brought viewers comedic updates from Pawnee, Ind. while the HBO series “True Detective” approached rural Louisiana from its seedy underside. The new podcast “S-Town,” which stands for “Shit Town,” is a realistic and empathetic documentary of an Alabama town’s residents and its subsequent intrigue.

“S-Town” is the latest podcast to come from National Public Radio (NPR). Reporter Brian Reed worked on the popular podcasts “Serial” and “This American Life” and is the narrator for “S-Town.” He became involved in this story through a series of emails sent in 2014 by John B. McLemore, a resident of the Shit Town in question. The emails described a murder that had apparently been covered up by either a prominent family or the police in S-Town. The title of the podcast is a reference to what McLemore calls his hometown, which the listener finds out is the small town of Woodstock, Ala. Eventually Reed travels from New York City to S-Town in 2015 to investigate McLemore’s reports of the covered-up murder. The podcast then unravels past this initial point of contact between Reed and S-Town when one of its residents dies unexpectedly.

I was captivated by both “Serial” and “This American Life,” which led me to have high expectations for “S-Town.” Reading the description of the podcast made it appear to be similar to “Serial” in content, specifically because it focused on the aspect of crime. However, once past the first three episodes, the podcast takes a turn into the documentation of McLemore’s life and the aspects of Shit Town he despised. I truly enjoyed hearing the recordings of the conversations between Reed and McLemore. They shone a light on the intricacies of small town life and the ever-apparent apathy of S-Town residents. Reed is able to view and share McLemore’s stories through a journalistic lens while also being incredibly empathetic. He is unbiased as he learns more and more about S-Town and strives to learn all he can about McLemore and the other people he encounters.

The narrative of the story twists in and out of many smaller plot lines in the first few episodes before becoming succinct in the aftermath of a death. I thoroughly enjoyed the richness of the storytelling that is characteristic of NPR podcasts. Reed is tremendous in his ability to recreate the web of relationships in S-Town. McLemore constantly fills the narrative with turbulence that is even more emphasized by Reed’s calm, poignant narration. The combination of the southern gothic aura of S-Town and the sleek editing of NPR make this podcast a masterful commentary on living. The juxtaposition is so striking I honestly thought “S-Town” was a fictional story.

If “S-Town” is your first foray into the podcast world, I recommend this as a wonderful introduction. The story of John B. McLemore, and ultimately of Woodstock, is as dramatic as it is captivating. The small town life described in this podcast can captivate city dwellers and cause small town folk to contemplate their own way of living.

Cover photo courtesy of The Guardian.

NPR news app broadens the provider’s spectrum, stays true to its radio roots

Luke Lockhart — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 16:00:46 +0000

Think of National Public Radio (NPR) and maybe one of two things pop into your head: you’re either a listener and think of people like Robert Siegel, or you think about a famous SNL skit parodying it.

Either way, one thing is constant: radio.

So what would an iPad app for a radio service look like. Would it be like a music streaming and podcast app?

The answer is yes and no: the NPR News app stays true to what NPR is— the “R,” radio — but it provides more than just a play button to please fans and outsiders.

Let’s start off with the screen you’re first presented with: three rows labeled “news,” “arts & life” and “music.” The rows are filled with stories that, when you click on them, pull up a news article, which you can read or hear. About half of the articles come with a button to play the story as it was originally broadcasted. There’s also a link to the same article on NPR’s website and a strip of suggested reading at the bottom.

These articles can be filtered to display specific topics like health if selected from the “Topics” menu near the top. From the same menu, you can also download them to read offline. But this social media-inspired presentation of news and audio only scratches the surface of what the app contains.

At the bottom of the menu is where classic NPR lies: there’s a button to hear the hourly news play, a “programs” button to listen to the wide variety of news and entertainment shows that NPR provides (including my personal favorites, “Car Talk” and “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”) and a “stations” button to find and tune into one of over 900 NPR stations around the country, including local affiliates KCUR, KANU and KRNW.

You can tune into a station like you would any other radio or make a playlist of shows and news articles. You can also continue to listen after exiting the app or locking your iPad. In other words, the NPR News app can turn your iPad into a radio with just a tap.

So, the concept is there, but how well is it executed?

As far as speed goes, I have yet to experience a single loading screen using the app. It feels seamless, with animations that make it look and feel like you’re sifting through pages on a desk. The same goes for my favorite feature, the live radio broadcasts: they’re crystal clear and I’ve yet to experience buffering, except when the Wi-Fi acts up, but that has nothing to do with the app. The ability to listen a huge selection of shows, podcasts and news reports on demand and without loading screens is a fantastic feature for anyone that feels like listening, instead of watching, for a while.

Of course, there are some downsides. Yes, just like any other app, there are ads, but not your typical ones. When you tune into a radio station, for example, you’ll likely hear a smooth voice telling you “NPR is brought to you by” at the start, but that’s it. No commercial breaks, no car lot owners screaming at you and no minute-long ramblings about some furniture sale.

The app may also be daunting for people trying to first experience NPR. It’s easy to dive in, and there’s even an ability to search for NPR stations by zip code or city. But there are no descriptions for shows and stations, something that station websites handle quite well, anyway. There’s also a noticeable absence of popular American Public Media shows like “A Prairie Home Companion” and “Pipedreams” due to copyright, but they can still be heard from the NPR stations that broadcast them.

And finally, like any other piece of technology, it isn’t free of the occasional bug or glitch. The other night, I found myself having to reconnect to a radio broadcast every few minutes. This was a unique incident, however, and in a year’s use I’ve yet to experience any other software issues.

If you’re a news hound, give the app a look. If you’re an NPR fan, give it a listen. And if you’re curious about the unique programming and culture surrounding the cultural phenomenon that’s lasted over forty years, the NPR News app can be a great place to start. Most importantly, just like the radio service that it’s based on, the app is free.