Herald Media Partners

It's time we abandon our fatigued approach to talk radio in the Caribbean, with its open-phones: ever-swirling vortices of ignorance, prejudice and cynicism, with banality at the core. Move away from lazy open-phone shows, avoid "today we'll talk about..." or "our topic for today is..." BANNED. Don't even mention the word 'topic' or 'subject' on air.... From now on the issue/event/personality is actually a question and is posed in the form of a question. It's what any reporter starts with; you could do worse. Listen also to the talk radio shows I've highlighted. Web sites: Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2 and LBC 97.3 FM/London . The concept: POSE QUESTIONS as headlines for a segment as opposed to " next, we talk about diabetes ." RATHER: " What would you do if you doctor says you have diabetes?" OR " Are you controlling your diabetes ?" OR "Why is Diabetes killing so many Antiguans?" QUE...

It would be nothing short of astounding for a professional journalist to assume that entering a political campaign would be acceptable, ethical conduct, even in industries where some media organisations declare and promote bias. The principle of impartiality and neutrality – the most basic requirement of a professional journalist would be breached. The principle of neutrality is a commonsense ethical principle that need not be codified; it is part of the toolkit that a professional journalist brings to the job. Just as you need not have a published code of ethics to fire a plagiarizing or lying writer, you need not spell out the long-established ethical principle that journalists avoid conflicts of interest. Reporting on the news of the day involves reporting on the government and those who seek public office. Politics requires persuasive communication on the part of a candidate; how is the voter to choose wisely if he or she cannot be sure that the journalist seeking office or promoti...

If you can afford it, there's Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro), which brought non-linear digital audio editing to the masses of lowly radio producers and reporters in 1996. Radio hasn't been the same since... But it costs a bundle, now that it's part of the Adobe Creative Suite bundle... For my students, I've posted this introductory video tutorial to basic recording and editing with the next best thing - Audacity. It's FREE software, almost every bit as powerful as a full-featured Adobe Audition version 1.5, and it's available for download at www.audacity.sourceforge.net/ Here's how to go about downloading Audacity version 1.2.6: Now here's a short video tutorial on editing audio with Audacity: For continued learning on Audacity download these handy guides to Audio Editing by Mindy McAdams, in Adobe Acrobat files (.pdf): Super-Fast Guide to Audio Editing Editing Audio with Audacity (Part 2) But wait! There's more! Transom.org, par...