Telling Stories with Sound

Not long ago, a journalist’s toolkit consisted of a notebook, a pen, and a camera. But thanks to the growth of multimedia — or “rich media” — in online news sources, journalists can now capture and share much more than written words and pictures.

The flexibility of rich media lets journalists approach stories in new and unique ways. Rich media incorporates a variety of formats, from full video productions to text with accompanying audio interviews. And one of the simplest and most effective ways to add excitement and depth to a story is through sound.

“Audio can really make you feel like you’re there,” says Nhat Meyer, a photojournalist who creates audio slideshows (a mixture of still photos with ambient sound and audio interviews) for the award-winning Mercury News in San Jose, California. “It can be as simple as natural or ambient sound, or it can be informative, through interviews. It definitely provides a multidimensional view of an event.”

A great example is Meyer’s audio slideshow depicting the record-breaking 715th home run by the San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds. “You can hear the crack of the bat!” exclaims Meyer.

“Audio allows photojournalists to give subjects a voice, instead of only taking their picture,” says Brian Storm, President of MediaStorm, a top multimedia production studio in New York. “As we document society, it’s worth considering that all of us have had our picture taken, but how many of us have had our voices documented?”

“Sound has really enhanced what we do,” agrees Sean Connelley, a photojournalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He and his partner Katy Newton produce multimedia features for the Oakland Tribune’s Inside Bay Area website. “Audio is another medium to tell the story. It adds texture and depth, and sets the mood.”

Adding audio to a series of still images instantly creates narrative structure and a more immersive experience. “We try to approach audio slideshows almost like mini-movies,” Connelley explains. “The photos and audio work together, like photos with a written story. The photos shouldn’t just repeat what the story’s saying — it should add something else that the viewer or the reader wouldn’t get otherwise.”

New Media, New Opportunities

Working with sound has become an essential skill for many writers and photographers. “More and more journalists are asked to wear multiple hats, so you definitely need to learn audio,” says Katy Newton. “Ultimately I think it’s going in a direction where you need to know how to do everything, and do it on your own.”

Connelley agrees: “If you’re going to get into the business of photojournalism, you need to know how to confidently record and manipulate sound.”

Expanding in multimedia offers not just creative opportunities, but career possibilities as well. “Many newspaper jobs have been created that did not exist a year or two ago, and they’re purely rich media,” Meyer observes. “As more and more newspapers move online, positions have been added for those with knowledge of rich media production, even as other traditional media types are laid off.”

Audio also opens up more options for final delivery formats, from interactive web features to broadcast productions to DVDs. As an example, consider the MediaStorm production Kingsley’s Crossing, photojournalist Olivier Jobard’s account of a young Cameroonian’s journey from his hometown to a new life in France. “Olivier worked with us to produce the final product, which is created for broadcast distribution,” says Storm. “Then we encoded it for web playback and podcast delivery via iTunes, and it will soon be available for purchase via DVD and high-quality pay-per-view download.”

Ideally, Storm says, journalists should become equipped to capture a variety of media to allow for broader distribution and licensing opportunities. “Print reporters and photojournalists need to learn to report with a primary focus on rich media with multiple platform distribution, not just a text story with a single image. This changes the way we photograph, the way we ask questions, and the gear we use. If we do the original reporting for the cinematic web product, we can easily deconstruct those elements to create a strong print story. It’s very difficult to be successful going the other direction.”

Diving Into Audio

For many journalists, the question isn’t whether to add sound to photos or text, but where to begin. “Audio is a new field for both of us,” says Newton. “My background is in documentary film, and Sean’s is in photojournalism. But when multimedia started to explode on newspaper websites, we began to get interested in it. We found that the best approach was just to try different techniques. At first you might not know what the heck any of this is, like the differences between various microphones. It can seem intimidating! But if you just start recording stuff, you’ll learn pretty quickly what the problems are.”

Connelley and Newton recently collaborated on Not Just a Number, an Oakland Tribune rich-media feature on the city’s high homicide rate. “Every year the paper publishes a map that shows where these homicides happened,” Newton explains. “So this year we made an interactive map with photos and audio. We recorded short interviews with some of the families that were affected. We’ve seen that homicide map every year, but it totally changed for us when we had the families there with it. I hope the public has the same reaction.”

Meyer began creating audio slideshows more than a year ago with simple ambient sound, then began adding interviews as well. “When I was on the road covering Barry Bonds’ 714th and 715th home runs,” he says. “I produced 24 audio slideshows in a month, all on deadline. That really helped me streamline my process. In the last year I’ve produced more than 100 audio slideshows. They’re a great way to display images that would typically never be seen.”