Wikinews talk:Audio Wikinews/archive 2010

Relaunching the audio briefs

It seems that the audio portion of Wikinews has been an on again/off again project and is limited by the ability for people to contribute on a consistent basis. Possibly, users get excited initially but then after some time it starts to become a "job" and the time involved in putting together a daily news brief gets overwhelming and so users quit the project.

I suppose this is perfectly understandable since there is little reward for doing these since not only is this all done as a non-paid, volunteer effort, but also the audience is very limited so even recognition for the work is rare.

However, I'd like to propose re-launching this project despite the problems that have been encountered in the past.

First of all, this project needs leadership. We need a user who is capable and willing to work with users who may or may not contribute. We also need someone who is willing to promote the daily news briefs in order to gain a larger audience. Should an audience start to grow, contributors may feel more encouraged to record.

My suggestion is that I'd like to take over this project and implement the following:

1. The templates and user guides for submitting audio is a mess. This needs to be cleaned up to provide users a simple yet comprehensive guide to help them contribute. Having a clear set of "instructions" is key here.

2. For the time being, full audio recordings of each individual stories should be put on hold. Focus should lay with the daily news brief since it is less time consuming and has the potential to reach a larger audience. Should an iTunes podcast of the news briefs gain a following, then we can reassess when and how to add full audio links to each story.

3. A team of broadcasters needs to be put together. This team should consist of at least 5 users. Each user should have the ability to produce an entire show by themselves but ultimately each user should only be required to contribute no more than 2 briefs a day. This team should be headed by by a "producer" who will put the show together and publish it to Wikinews and to an rss feed for iTunes (and possibly online radio such as Reddit Radio).

The way I propose this to work would be setting up a group email account on gmail. As stories are published on the main page we would all see that story in our inbox. Whomever replies to the story would then be responsible for writing their copy and recording their portion of the audio. Once the audio is recorded, it would then be emailed to the producer. Should nobody reply, then the producer will be responsible for that story.

Communication is essential and will help build up a team of people who are excited and willing to work together on this project but will also allow for flexibility in peoples schedules and time constraints. We can also use this method to communicate ideas to each other to make the show better.

4. We need to think bigger, in my opinion. Flat, dry readings of the news are not inherently interesting nor are recordings with clearly audible mistakes and errors. We need to think of each broadcast as a mini show that not only includes the days news read by more than 1 person (multiple readers help break up the monotony of just one voice) but we should also include other items of interest such as a "This day in history" segment and a few more factual and bias free segments. Once a team is formed, these ideas can be brainstormed.

5. The show needs to be promoted. The show should have a facebook page, a twitter account, its own blog (which can be the rss feed for iTunes and does not have to be anything expansive). Sites that stream audio (such as Reddit Radio) could be contacted to see if they are interested in carrying the show.

All-in-all. this could be a substantial effort but with a team of 5-6 people, it would not be all that difficult. Myself, I've been doing test recording by writing, recording, producing and publishing a 10 minute, 6 story episode and can do so in about an hour to an hour and a half. With help, I could get this down to 15-20 min a day since all that would be required is write copy for 1 story, record it then produce the show in Audigy by pasting in other users .ogg recordings.

If each user was only having to spend a few minutes each day, that would make the project seem much less daunting, spread the responsibility across multiple people so that no one person will feel as if they have to do everything and will make creating the show more enjoyable (which in turn will help attract a larger audience).

Of course, I am not in a position currently to take over this project since I assume James Pain is still the key member over this project. However, I have attempted to contact him but to no avail so it may be that he has quit the project. If this is true, then I would like to assume responsibility of the daily Wikinews Audio Briefs program.

In conclusion, I see no reason why we can't put together a successful and fun audio project. There is certainly a need and desire for non biased news and by putting together a professional sounding broadcast that lasts 10-15 min each day would be greatly appreciated by many listeners on the internet. Since Wikinews is attached to Wikipedia, we already have a respected pedigree that very few news broadcasters can claim - only NPR and the BBC (which should be our models anyway) can lay claim to a similar pedigree as a trusted news source.

Let me know what you think. I'm very much interested in making this portion of Wikinews successful but one person alone cannot accomplish that (as history here has shown). Turtlestack (talk) 19:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

On point 5, Wikinews does have a Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, etc. I like the idea of streaming via the various available Web services. I think we could organize a group of Wikinewsie to work on daily scripts, cutting down on a bit of content from the articles to make it a tad shorter like an actual news cast. --Mikemoral♪♫ 19:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I've thought about this occasionally. Although I believe our focus should be mainly on writing articles, as that is what we are in greatest need of right now, it would be nice to have audio reinstated, to promote us more on audio streams. You have some good ideas for how we can revive this project. Although I can't contribute with actual audio recordings, I could volunteer to help with writing some news briefs. It would probably indeed be better not to speak out the entire article, as you say, but just the most important bits of it. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Wikinews should chiefly be all about the writing and submitting of news articles, everything else is secondary and as we move forward with an audio cast, everything we do should be to promote Wikinews as a whole and not just the audio portion of it. I'm not surprised Wikinews has a Twitter and Facebook page, so that's good and we should utilize pre-existing services to their fullest extent, however, as for an audio team, we should set up a separate email account for quick and easy communications just to create and produce the audio. My reasoning for that is I once worked for a company that had work orders come in via email and those of us on the team that day would use that account to reply to orders and such and so if we were on the road or what-have-you and we checked the Blackberry, we could see if something had been replied to already in order to not double work something. Of course, all other discussion should take place here on this wiki. As for what is included in each broadcast, what I've been doing is taking the text of the full article and trimming out everything until I have just a good overview of the story. I also rework that copy for flow when reading. Often it depends on the quality of who wrote the article since some are better than others (eg, some need more editing for word flow that others). All in all, I shoot for no more than 1:30 for each story and have found that 6 stories seems to be a good length (though that can always vary depending on the day - basically, a show should probably not exceed 15min, however). Finally, all this sort of hinges currently on James Pain and if he is still "around". Like I said, I tried contacting him but haven't heard anything so I am assuming (for now) that he's not involved anymore but if he is, I will gladly defer to him. The only other thing is that I've never edited a wiki before - all I've ever done is read articles here and on wikipedia so I have a lot to learn about editing and setting up the correct pages and getting templates cleaned up. It's not anything I can't spend an afternoon doing, but it took me awhile to ever figure out how to add comments on this page lol. Turtlestack (talk) 20:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Humble Beginnings

In my opinion, editing a wiki is about as intuitive as performing theoretical quantum mechanics from inside a black hole. However, I did manage to get a sample of a news brief uploaded to commons and edited the link on this page to point to today's brief. I still need to figure out how to get my summary uploaded and get that page made, but I'm hungry and don't want to mess with it right now. (I may have to ask some of you for help in this regard)

Anyway, a few thoughts.

First of all, today is the 6th day in a row I've done a news brief but the first one I've published here. Basically I've been trying to get the time it takes to make one of these down to something reasonable (e.g. < 1 hour).

Next, I'm using a different piece of music. I didn't like the music that was being used previously and wanted to go with something that while sounding "news-y" I also wanted something "classy" and a tad mellower. I detest the idea of the bombastic news drums and horns and anything that sounds like a cable news broadcast here in the US. I'm quite adamant about making the news brief sound classy because this is an unbiased news source and anything we do should represent ourselves with a touch of gravitas and intellectual respect. In other words, I've thought about this quite a bit and that is what influenced my decision in this regard.

Second, the outro. The outro is long. I understand this may not sit well with everyone and I'm not 100% sold on it either, however I wrote it as such to get maximum information to the listener and I followed the NPR "pledge drive" format. True, it may be a touch shameless, but donations are important to keep the wikis up and running and if we are going to reach a wide audience, we better take advantage of the opportunity to "shame" listeners into giving the foundation a few bucks.

Third. The overall recording is long. Basically I do not see the news brief as being a too short broadcast that gives a few more sentences over and above just reading a headline but we can't read a full story either. I'm still trying to find the happy medium but that actually depends on how well I understand the news story and how much extra information I feel the listener will need to help them "feel informed". This is a journalistic decision, in my opinion and goes with the territory of writing news copy but it is something that will get better and more precise with practice.

Fourth. I added a this day in history. It's a little bit of fun information at the end and it kinda helps end the broadcast on an "up" note, what with all the doom and gloom and car bombs that makes up 99% of each brief :)

In closing, this is my starting point for the audio news brief. Hopefully this will give everyone an idea of what I have in mind and hopefully we can add to this to make it good. I want this to be a fun but important project that we take seriously so hopefully this will give you some insight into my thinking about this project.

Let me know your ideas, gripes and all the rest (after I eat dinner, however). :)

Turtlestack (talk) 23:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Good work. One minor point, If you changed the intro/outro, what did you use? Is it copyrighted (by somebody else)? Bawolff ☺☻ 02:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Other minor comments, the brief page probably should not have {{Publish}} on it and generally we use the naming convention of News briefs:Monthname day, year not News briefs:Monthname, day year. (This is just so it doesn't get confused with being a normal article, and so pages like category:April 19, 2010 can automatically find it.). Also, using --------- as a separator tends to work better than using ======. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The music is free use so there is no copyright issues there. I guess the way I word that part of the outro, however, may lead to confusion now that you mention it so I'll change that so it's clearer. As for the page edit I have, that's a major work in progress since I have no idea how to edit a wiki and need to spend a little more time than I thought I would need to learn how to do so. I will get it all fixed up here in the coming days since that will teach me what I need to know then I can start getting to work on the template pages and all the other stuff that needs doing :)

Trust me, once you get the hang of it, wikiediting is a lot easier then it looks. You should probably mention the outro/intro used on the image desciption page (the page on commons). If you need any speific help with the editing, don't hesitate to ask. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

A New Day

Got today's news brief recorded and uploaded to commons, but I have now run out of time to play with the wiki to do editing and start getting the pages and scripts and all that good stuff under control. I will have more time tomorrow and Thursday (my day off) so please forgive me for not being quicker with getting things squared away on this side of things. I had to decide which was more important - getting a news brief recorded and produced or learning how to edit the wiki and I chose recording since that's in my comfort zone :)

But I do have a plan (no, not like the Cylons, but a more realistic plan, none-the-less).

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I will :

1. Learn how to upload the new into and outro music files.
2. Edit my userpage. I'll start here since that way I can play around with learning the formatting without worrying about breaking anything.
3. Upload the news brief scripts so that the current links actually point somewhere.

By the end of day Thursday, I will :

1. Begin work on the template pages and (attempt to) get them in order.
2. Update the archives and add the news briefs starting for April 14th thru April 18th (I've been doing these for a week now and I need to get them added as well even though I only started publishing briefs here yesterday).

That's the plan for the very near future.

After I have all that in order I can do the recordings and uploads with minimal effort and spend the rest of the time working on getting a team together to assist with the recordings. I'm not sure how long that will take so I'll assume I will need to be patient and since I can produce an entire 10min brief in > 1h hour now, the time constraints on me will not be too strenuous.

Once a team is in place and we get a few weeks under our belts of working together and producing shows, then we can move onto promoting the briefs.

OK, well, I have a litter box to clean :) and then it's dinner time and maybe later I'll actually get to finish reading The Pillars Of The Earth tonight.

Turtlestack (talk) 21:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"Once a team is in place" ? What "team" ? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to have 5-6 folks working on this project. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, and most important, so that no one person feels overwhelmed with having to do everything themselves. This has been why these audio news briefs have never taken off. Sure, 1 person can do them for awhile, but the novelty will eventually wear off and it will become to feel more like a "job" that someone feels "has to be done" and not something they want to do. Having a team in place can spread the workload and even be scheduled out. Second, having a few people contributing to each brief breaks up the monotony of just one person speaking. Unless we got Morgan Freeman or Sigourney Weaver doing these, 1 voice can get a bit "boring" sounding. Also, multiple speakers helps break up the segments and creates a nicer flow to each recording. As of right now, what I'm doing is just adding a tiny bit of "dead air" between each story to denote a shift, but that's not a very professional sounding product so if there were at least two people speaking then the shift from one story to another would be more organic, natural and professional sounding. At best, I'd love to have an even number of men and women speakers. For example, if I'm doing 1 story, having a female with a British or Irish accent would be a nice complement of voices. Of course that's not a prerequisite and I'm just sort of playing casting director in my imagination to make a small point, but that natural flow of conversations helps make the brief sound interesting. Listeners want to hear personalities - it's not so much the content they are interested in - it's the presentation they want first. There's a nice Eddie Izzard comedy routine about JFK speaking in Berlin that makes this point quite well. Turtlestack (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

This really sounds exciting if we could set it up along the lines you describe, and a good way to promote the project (although we'll need to focus on expanding coverage too, to keep readers coming back for more). Unfortunately, our userbase is fairly small, so we might have difficulty gathering up that many people who would be willing to put all that time into the project. Realistically, I'm thinking we probably won't have more than two or three users willing to regularly do readings, and they'll probably all be male - I'm not aware of any female contributors currently active on Wikinews.

I do agree though, that having at least two voices would certainly sound better - but how do we coordinate the recordings? The two speakers obviously can't be using the same microphones like a regular radio station studio will, so we'll have to come up with a workaround for that.

Although I likely can't volunteer to actually do recordings, I'd certainly be willing to assist with writing up the briefs themselves, or doing any other on-wiki tasks needed. (PS, if you need any help learning how wikis work, please don't hesitate to ask me at my talk page or alternatively at the help page. It can seem daunting at first, but actually is fairly uncomplicated.) Cheers, Tempodivalse [talk] 02:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about audio, but I'd imagine people record separately, and then its spliced together later. Turtlestack: well teams have obvious benefits, and there was a team of people doing them when they were most successful, you do have to remember there are a limited number of people interested in contributing (at the moment), and a team isn't going to appear out of thin air. It may take a little while of people seeing audio being produced before people start to join, etc. I heartily encourage your enthusiasm, but it is important to bear in mind that people do what they find interesting/fun/etc, and people who find audio fun/interesting/exciting aren't going to appear overnight (but will appear eventually). Bawolff ☺☻ 02:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Ahola Turtlestack! As a former contributer to AudioWikinews (and thus, know much of the backbone regarding the scripts), I fully agree with much of what you said here. Trying to do everything myself was fun at first, but when it started taking 3 hours to get a script together, that was more or less horrible, and an hour and a half recording and editing an 8 minute podcast, it quickly became a "job" that "had to be done", that it's probably one of the main reasons I'm not as active of a contributor as I once was. (There are other reasons, but I digress). I've said this many times before, but I'm more than happy to (and in fact, would love to) start AudioWikinews again, if I could get some help with the scripts. Tagteaming or scheduling days to do AW is also great (we had this going for a while, albeit we did twice daily, morning UTC and evening UTC. With less articles then than now, it was tough!). If you're serious about this, please leave me a message on my talk, or ping me in the IRC. I've got some new ideas that depart from the former AWs, that I think might also be pretty good. terinjokes | Talk 03:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi! I'm willing to lend my voice on the off occasion. I normally edit audio myself and have a decent capability with Audacity. If you'd like to here my voice see Category:Mikemoral audio files. --Mikemoral♪♫ 03:38, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Quickly Updating

Before I forget, I need help editing this archive page : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews/Releases/News_Briefs/Archive I can't get it to format correctly so that 2009 becomes a drop down and 2010 is shown as the current year.

Ok, here's what Ive done so far today :

1. Updated my userpage (sorta) - at least I know how to update it anyway :)
2. Updated the scripts so that they are formatted correctly and point to the correct page
3. Added news briefs and scripts pages going back to April 15 when I began this project (I didn't do the 14th because there was no music in it and was my very first test. Maybe someday I'll add it for curiosity sake).
4. Updated the into / outro music files on the template page
5. Updated this page to show the current archive

Next, I'll address some comments from above

1. @Tempodivalse : Bawolff is correct about editing together multiple speakers. Basically each person records their won segments and they are edited together in Audacity. My thinking is that each day could have a producer who is responsible for creating the show in Audacity (as well as contributing their own segment(s). On that days schedule, there will also be a list of available users who will record their own segments from the script and then they will email/upload their segment to the producer who will edit it all together and publish the recording and do all the housekeeping (upload the script, create the script page and update the archives).

Also, you mentioned that there is a limited user base to pull from and I agree. For the time being there will be very few people doing this but I see some interest from some folks who want to contribute and I will be contacting them soon to get things started. However, for the time being, I'll continue to do these myself until all the details are ironed out.

1. @terinjokes : I'll get in touch with you later today or tomorrow about what you mentioned above. I'm excited to have any new ideas and since you were so heavily involved in this project in the past, then your knowledge will be invaluable.

1. @Mikemoral : I'll get in touch with you later today or tomorrow as well. I'm really excited to see you want to contribute even though this project just got re-started in the past few days. This makes me super happy that there is already interest in this! Thank you.

1. @Bawolff : I agree with your assessment of people willingness to do these recordings. This will only work if there are people who not only want to do these, but the project is put together in such a way as to allow people to have fun with it and not feel overwhelmed with "work". Because of this, for now, I've sort of "taken over" the project to streamline the process so that no one person will have to do all the work. Hopefully, as time goes on, the system will be in place that will allow people to contribute as little or as much as they want while maintaining a high degree of quality at all times.

I'll be in touch with everyone who has expressed interest in this project so far either today or tomorrow.

So far, however, it seems that people are excited to see this project coming back to life and I'm thrilled to be a part of this. I should add that even though I've sort of taken the reigns here, I'm only doing so to rebuild the project and get things moving in the right direction. The best part of any project is working with other people and as a wiki, everything is collaborative so I feel I need to say that I have no desire to just "take over" permanently, I'm only getting the ball rolling and once that happens, then we can all sit down and figure out a permanent structure. I just figured I needed to say that so nobody thinks I'm being to aggressive or that I have any allusions of a power struggle - I'm here to have fun and do something I love doing and meet other folks who also share the same passions.

OK, well I'm off to record today's brief - luckily it's a slow news day - and if I have time I'll post another update and contact people who want to contribute.

Turtlestack (talk) 22:29, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, this sounds good. It would be nice to generate some more interest in this. Please don't hesitate to ping me at my talk page if you need help writing up the briefs themselves. Anyways, I think I'll go write some news articles, expand our coverage and make your job harder. (jk) Tempodivalse [talk] 23:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

This sounds awesome! I too am working on another article; hopefully you'll have more than enough stuff to talk about. Benny the mascot (talk) 00:14, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

This hills are alive with the sound of CC music

I was using music in the news briefs which did not have a commercial use license. I had no idea we were technically considered a commercial source so I thought a 1.0 license was good to go. I spent a few hours last night looking for something which could replace the music and had the correct license but couldn't find anything suitable so I just reverted back to the old music. I re-updated the template page with the old intro / outro music clips as well. I also re-edited all the news briefs I had previously uploaded here to contain the new (old) music intro. I did not use the outro music since I couldn't find a way to make it sound good in context with the recordings. I'm still looking for something to work, but it may be a few days until then so for now, I'll keep using the intro music only. Turtlestack (talk) 15:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Updating the archives

I've tried updating the archives to reflect the new audio briefs, but I'm running into a few issues. First of all, I managed to create the 2010 archives at Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Releases/News Briefs/Archive/2010 and all that is in order, but the main archive page at Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Releases/News Briefs/Archive will not allow me to add 2010. When I go to edit it, I just wind up messing up the page and 2010 gets stuck to the top of 2009. Also, on this page, I can't add the 2010 archive to the page since there is a no edit section that I can't get to. I imagine this is something only a mod can fix, which I assume is still under James Pain? For the time being, I've reverted back to the old revision so now there is only the 2009 archive on this page but if someone could please give me a hand to get this updated correctly, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks. Turtlestack (talk) 16:27, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Nope anyone can fix it (Its just overly complicated). Should work now. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

You are a life saver! Thank you so much for cleaning up my mess!! Turtlestack (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Readers Needed

I was hoping to get in contact with a few folks who expressed interest in contributing but after re-editing the previous audio briefs, creating today's show, doing some wiki editing and getting a ton of necessary audio brief information up on my user page I've ran out of time for today. I'm sorry about that, but I will try to get with each of you tomorrow.

Turtlestack (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course ...

Of course, the second I post today's news brief, a bunch of stories drop from the newsroom and go live :) If I have time, I'll record them and amend them to today's brief.

Oh yeah, in an effort to promote other stuff on wikinews, I've added a plug for the latest wikinews interview. Right now it's at the end of the segment (right before the sign off), but if anyone feels it should be moved closer to the top, then let me know and I'll find a more elegant way to add this sort of content in the future. I think it's important that we highlight wikinews related news and content so I'm going to keep a sharp eye out for it and make sure it gets in the brief since original content by our writers is very time consuming and should be promoted as much as possible.

Turtlestack (talk) 22:28, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I got today's brief all updated. 4 stories dropped just moments after I originally published! Oh well, such is news broadcasting - the world does not sit idly by as I cook dinner :) Turtlestack (talk) 23:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Crikey! 4 more stories just dropped?!?! I need to move to the UK cause -6GMT isn't cutting it lol Turtlestack (talk) 01:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I added the story about Greece and the death or Peter Porter (I kept wanting to say Peter Parker lol) and the brief page and new audio file is up. The other 2 stories that dropped have Saturday's date on them, so they will be in tomorrows show. Turtlestack (talk) 02:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm probably most of your problem as I've written five stories today . Being west of UTC is probably better actually since most of our activity happens around midnight UTC, which is still evening in the Americas. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Lol... get used to it. ;) Benny the mascot (talk) 01:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

It's all good. I'm glad to see so much more content, that means more people are contributing and it helps wikinews grow. So all you writers, bring it on!! You write it, I'll read it till my voice breaks :) Turtlestack (talk) 01:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Page needs updating

Let's see if we can get the most recent recordings up on the WN:AW page. The templates in use seem to be quite complicated; perhaps we can try to simplify everything as well? Benny the mascot (talk) 17:06, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

The most recent recording is up right now, of course it's from yesterday since I'm still working on today's show (I'm way behind schedule today). We used to have an archive of the most recent shows up there but it seems to have gone missing. Also, I"m still working on the templates, but the past few days have been unexpectedly busy for me so I haven't had as much time as I like to tackle them. However, I have a pretty good idea how to clean up the templates, I just need to sit down and get it done :) Turtlestack (talk) 22:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Another busy news day

Wow, all you reporters have been keeping me busy. Thank you!! I've never done 10 stories start to finish so it was a bit of a marathon run tonight, but it was all good and fun, even if nearly every story had some nearly impossible to pronounce, foreign name I had to stumble over 20 times before getting it right lol.

Again, I am trying to get in touch with everyone who has contacted me, but I'm going to need everyone to also be patient with me as well. I'm doing this because it is fun and I don't want it to be a job, so I'm going to need everyone to bear with me. I've been very good about keeping everyone up-to-date on what I'm doing and I've been commenting here everyday so that you can all watch the progress, but this project isn't going to go from 0 to 100MpH in just a few days. I'm still trying to figure out what needs fixing, changing and then how to get everybody integrated into the project. If for some reason I don't get back to you right away, don't worry - I will address every concern and speak with everyone.

Ok, well I'm signing off for today, I'll be around tomorrow and hopefully I will have time to get some housekeeping here done. MikeMoral also set up a great collaboration page Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Workspace for the project, so thank you very much for that!

Turtlestack (talk) 02:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Almost Done!!

The AW is almost done being revived. If you have not seen the new collaboration page, Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Workspace please do so. Thank you again to Mike for setting that up!

As for today's show - my voice just did not want to cooperate at all today so I tried making up for it by adding in some "humor" here and there. I'm trying to find the balance of adding personality to the show without crossing the line of a neutral point of view - but some of the stories (especially the pope story) just beg for "a little extra", even if it is just tone of voice.

This brings up another point that I've been thinking about. See, when stories are published here on the site, they are published when they are done - there is no editorial decision made as to which is the "lead" story. However, in the AW, there are decisions that have to be made with which stories should come first (the lead) and what order the rest should follow. Now if I just read them in order they got published, that would be most "fair" but it might not make for an interesting show since that could potentially bury the lead. Usually I lead with breaking news or the story with the most dead bodies (I know that sounds morbid, but that's just the way it is since fuzzy kitten stories are kinda rare around here :) and then place the longest, most time intensive stories around the middle (stories which require a lot of explanation and background) and finish up with something funny or unusual (if possible - otherwise, it's more dead bodies lol).

I'd like everyone's thoughts on this process, however, since it is important that we are bias free and I hate to seem like we are a "typical" news organization that always leads with the most depressing, violent and sensational stories but I still want to produce a good show. Basically, I'm looking for a consensus on what everyone feels is a good balance here.

Ok, sorry again about my voice today, but we did have lots and lots of great stories so it's been quite fun.

I'm still trying to get things cleaned up but the end is in sight and soon I can spend more time talking to everyone and getting to know everyone better and following up with everyone.

Turtlestack (talk) 02:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Still Settling In

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the AW project. Lately I've been just trying to get into a rhythm making and doing the daily show. I kind of have it down to a science in terms of production but there are others things I'm still trying to get better at. First of all, I am trying to get the audio sounding better. I mean, it sounds alright now, but I can still hear some background buzz in my mic from my power supply and it drives me crazy.

Another thing I've been trying to work on is presentation. At this point, I've totally given up on finding some new intro and outro music. The CC requirements make it hard to find anything worth using, since anything good will have an NC in it. Oh well, maybe I'll come back to this at some point in the future, but after literally 10 hours over 4 days digging through every possible site for music, I've just given up.

Another aspect of presentation is how I read the briefs. Certain things such as pacing and accenting are things I'm very aware of and it's my goal to not just "tell the news" but tell a story that is the news. That's why I read in the style I do because I hate the sound of most radio hosts who read fast and terse. I know my way of doing it is unconventional, but I think it's a nice change of pace from what most people are used to. Still, though, I struggle with some diction issues - I mean, every story has got some proper noun that just kills me :) - and I'm still practicing on doing a good read for every story. I feel like I'm getting better, but I also know it's going to take a lot more practice to really feel comfortable doing these.

Finally, in case you are wondering where I've been - well, I've been right here :) Honestly, I've just been trying to settle into the role and have been trying to cruise along and get used to the production. For this project to be successful, it's going to take a long time. a Very Long Time, so I'm not trying to rush things. I'm just taking my time now that most of the major infrastructure is in place (I still have a few things to clean up, but nothing major) and get some good practice doing these. I love this project and I look forward to doing it everyday, but I know it's going to be a long while until the show is really good and can be ready for a large audience.

So, if you have any questions, just let me know and please feel free to write a brief or do some recording or get involved in any other way. Turtlestack (talk) 02:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Something a little new

When I started this project, I basically kept the same format that's been in use since the very beginning because a) that's how it had always been and I didn't want to "rock the boat" too much, being the new guy, and b) I needed to get used to doing these before I started playing around with the format. Really, all I added from the very beginning was "On This Day In History", which is all from wikipedia and has lately grown in length.

Today, however, I wanted to try something a little new. I added a show "promo" at the beginning and changed some of the intro wording. I also attempted to lead one story into another. My thinking here is a) make the show sound more polished and professional and, b) place a stronger emphasis on telling the news as a story and not just a dry, recanting of the days news.

I really feel it's important to "tell the story of the news" and not just "tell the news". My heroes are people like Daniel Shore and Carl Sagan - people who could present the facts but weave them as a story that engaged the listener. Those are the people I try to keep in mind when I do each show, and though I'll never come close to being as good as them, it's something to reach for. Obviously, the POV must remain neutral to remain unbiased, and I am most interested in making sure the writers of each story here are the true Kings of content - I only edit here and there for flow and pacing, but I am ambitious to make AW something special and try to make it stand out so that wikinews as a whole benefits.

If we're going to sell this idea to gain an audience, the show needs to sound professional and more like something you would hear on the radio or a decent podcast. Now, to be fair, the show (and by extension, me) is still a long way from that goal, but I feel it's getting closer. Of course, no idea is set in stone as this is a completely collaborative effort, and I'm more interested in implementing your ideas instead of trying to impose my will over the show's production and style. I think I have some good ideas, but no one person can get it right all the time and I'm sure I fail more than I succeed, so I'm always more than willing to hear from everyone and try the best new ideas.

Anyway, today is the first show with a slightly new polish - it's nothing even remotely ground-breaking nor all that different from what the show has been previously, but it's a start ... I hope :)

Like I've said before - this is a long term project and will take a long time to ever really take off, but it's so much fun to do everyday and I love doing it, that I hope it gets other people excited too. Turtlestack (talk) 03:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Show for May 9 : Mothers Day

I can't guarantee a show for today. If I get one out then it's a bonus, but I'm not going to go out of my way to get show done either. If, however, someone gets briefs written then I can at least amend the day's stories into the May 10 show, or do just do both shows on Monday (though, I'd rather not). Turtlestack (talk) 02:04, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

As you can see, I never did do a show for May 9 :) But we are back on schedule as of the 10th. Turtlestack (talk) 04:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Oops, forgot one ...

I forgot to do the Football: Chelsea beat Wigan to win fourth Premier League title story. Not sure how I missed it, I even had it on the workspace ... I must really be tired. Sorry about that. Turtlestack (talk) 04:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

May 11 Show

With there being so few stories going live today, it's kinda pointless to do a show today, so I'll just roll the 2 stories from today into tomorrow's show. I hate not doing a show, but the last time there were only 2 stories and I did a show, it just seemed kinda silly to have done :) Turtlestack (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, my dinner wasn't going to be done soon enough, so I did a quicky show anyway. If anyone knows how to bake a potato really fast, I'm all ears :) Turtlestack (talk) 23:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The May 12 show

Egads. This show just did not want to come together, and then when I did finally get it, the audio got a little off near the end and some of my fade ins just did not come out as well as I had previewed in Audacity. I think the fevered, deaf ghost of Bedřich Smetana haunts this episode :) Turtlestack (talk) 06:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Monster show for May 14, 2010

This was a big show in terms of length and especially the production on the "This Day In History" segments. I really should not have spent so much time on this, but it was so much fun to do even if the news articles were full of nearly un-pronounceable names :) Turtlestack (talk) 04:04, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Now on iTunes!

Huzzah! We are now on iTunes. Please subscribe to the Audio Wikinews podcast. Until the show appear in iTunes search, just subscribe from http://turtlestack.podbean.com/

How this works is that I am using PodBean (thank you Mike!) to upload the shows. Since there is limited HD space on PodBean for a free account, I can only fit about 5-7 podcasts on there at any 1 time, so as new shows are uploaded, old ones are taken down - but the archive of shows is still here on wikinews.

This has been a goal of mine for AW since I first started taking part in it and I hope, with enough subscriptions and good reviews on iTunes, that these podcasts will help grow wikinews as a whole. My intention has always been to promote wikinews as a news organization and the AW are a way to help promote and foster the growth of the site.

Wikinews gets kind of the short end of the stick in the wiki-verse since the common gripe about the site is that wikipedia is more "useful" as an outlet for the latest information on any given subject. However, I have always disagreed with that sentiment because I believe wikinews is the last, best hope for the future of journalism in a digital and free access information world. Wikinews is all about citizen journalism and with the demise of the news print industry, the homogenization of cable news and the relative obscurity of public broadcasting , citizen journalism is, in my opinion, the future of news.

I know I probably sound idealistic, but we have a unique opportunity to shape how news is written and disseminated. We can lead by example in providing the best news and the best structure for journalists to contribute in a fair and unbiased environment. While there may be other citizen journalism outlets, only we are a part of the wiki foundation and that gives us clout nobody else can claim.

In closing, I'm sure you can tell I'm pretty excited; not only about getting AW on iTunes, but also in wikinews as an organization. My grandfather was a bureau chief in the AP, he worked in the White House with Roosevelt and was a war correspondent during WWII, so journalism runs in my family (he met my grandmother who also worked for the AP). I've always had a deep respect for journalists and I understand the importance of broadcasting as a method to bring the news to people. Hopefully, we can take all our experience and opportunities ahead of us to continue to grow wikinews.

On more thing - the AW would not be possible at all if it were not for all the writers and journalists. Without good writing, there would be no site and no show so I want to say thank you to everyone who makes wikinews the best community on the internet and I am proud to be a part of the action here. Turtlestack (talk) 02:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

May 19th Show - A Little Different

I tried something new with this show. I used music / ambiance / sound effects on all the stories as an experiment. I'm still playing around with giving the show a polished production sound and thought I'd give this a try. Turtlestack (talk) 05:50, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

iTunes Update

I had no idea Apple needed to "approve" of a podcast before they put it in the store, but after 2 days it's been approved and you can subscribe through iTunes here. You can also search iTunes for Audio Wikinews. Turtlestack (talk) 20:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

By the way, if you have time, please write a review, also make sure you subscribe and also tell everyone you know through twitter, facebook, digg, reddit, etc :) Turtlestack (talk) 20:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

May 21 : Issues with iTunes and PodBean

Looks like PodBean's free service is so limited that I'm nearly out of bandwidth for the month (that's right - the month) after just a few days being up. Also, the site is having issues and I can't even upload the new show :(

I'll have to look into this tomorrow when I have more time.

Sorry, all. I wasn't expecting this to be an issue. Also, stupid Apple for not allowing .ogg files because then we wouldn't nee3d a host, we could just use the rss feed we already have for the Vorbis files. Stupid Steve Jobs :)

Turtlestack (talk) 03:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

So I've been messing with PodBean since I got home and to no avail - none of the episodes I had uploaded are working (and they were working just fine) and I can't upload anything. There is no help feature in PodBean or decent documentation and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get a reply to email from them ... so, I, in short, iTunes is off the table again. I'm not wasting my time with a fly-by-night hosting service that can handle a few episodes of a podcast without capping bandwidth or even play the files right. For me, it's not worth it to get all frustrated about over something like a free hosting service - fact is, they don't work and I don't want to deal with them. I'm sure if was giving them money, it might be better, but I sure won't ever give them money after the impression I've got. Turtlestack (talk) 16:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

No May 22, & 23 show

After spending all morning on housekeeping stuff for the AW (please see the Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/News Briefs/Workspace page for new information), I have to be away. I will be back for Monday's show. If anyone wants to write briefs, please do so and I will add some of them into the show on Monday. Turtlestack (talk) 19:43, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

May 24 Show

Hola. Sorry there were no shows over the weekend, but I'm back to work today and I have a new microphone - a real microphone too, nothing fancy, but because I made some extra $$$ this weekend, I was able to afford it :) Turtlestack (talk) 22:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

iTunes (yet again), the new microphone and the AW project

The issue with iTunes was that PodBean has a reputation for going down a lot and that's what happened over the weekend. It's up and running again (for now), but it looks like their servers can't handle the load of all the podcasts they host - which is plenty of reason enough to never use them as a pay service. From what I've read, Libsyn seems to be a good podcast host since they have unlimited bandwidth and decent storage for about $10US /month. There are some other pod specific hosts too, as well as the major hosts (GoDaddy, Lunar Pages, Blue Host, etc...) that do more than just podcast hosting as well, but they are pricier and offer way more than would ever be needed. But, that all costs money and I doubt the foundation will grant us $120 - $150 /year for a little 'ol podcast.

Anyway, as for the show itself, I'm having trouble normalizing the volume across each segment for the show. Ever since I got this new microphone, whenever I make an edit, Audacity adds a weird pop that I can never fully edit out of the waveform unless I normalize the file (something I never had to do before) but now I'm getting weird volume levels between stories and even edits. Very frustrating, but please bear with me as I try to clean things up.

Finally, for those of you who have visited the Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/News Briefs/Workspace page lately, you'll see I added a ton more information (including a style guide). I'm still in the process of drafting up some more information (as well as a plan to organize that page better) so it's a work in progress, but it contains a many of the key elements that are necessary to create each show. Since I've been producing the AW for a little while now, I've had the fortunate experience to see all the ups and downs of production and I want to make sure I share everything I've learned with the community.

A lot of the workspace page info concerns how to do the show (at least as far as how I've been doing it). Of course, the show is a bit different than it used to be (read : longer) and it really isn't a News Brief anymore - it's pretty much a full reading of all the day's news (edited for flow and comprehension) with a few produced bells and whistles tossed in for good measure.

The biggest change I made, however, has nothing to do with production, but rather I felt I needed to set a few reasonable barriers concerning AW participation. This is a tough thing to do because as a wiki, we are open and want everyone to participate, but just like the written articles that have a minimum standard that needs to be met (inverted pyramid, NPOV, cited sources, etc), so too does the AW require a minimum standard of quality concerning reading and production.

What concerns me most is when someone decides they wish to participate in AW, is who will make the final decisions. It would not be fair for me (or any 1 person on a wiki) to make "final decisions" because that is not what wiki is all about, however, I'm the only one producing the show right now. So, when the time comes, I'm going to have to contact some of you to be involved in the decision making process of bringing in new readers (and producers).

Hmmm, I now forget what else I was going to post here tonight ............ so, if I think of it, I'll add another comment later :) Turtlestack (talk) 02:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all your hard work. It's nice to see frequent updates on AW... :) Benny the mascot (talk) 03:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! Turtlestack (talk) 04:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Nice work, it's much appreciated and it's going well. I always feel guilty for not helping out with briefs, I either forget or don't have time ... :[ Tempodivalse [talk] 16:24, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. No worries about the briefs either, in fact, the articles have been so well written lately that I've been able to just read them straight through with very little editing. Turtlestack (talk) 18:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

It looks like our daily article output is starting to grow as well... probably because it's summertime!!! :) Benny the mascot (talk) 16:42, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that too, everyone is out of school so now they are here writing articles. :) Turtlestack (talk) 18:04, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

AW Archives

I finally figured out how to edit and clean up the Audio Wikinews Brief archives. I got 2010 split up by month and fixed 2009 as well. 2009 was using a different code template so I changed 2009 to be more in line with previous year's archives. All seems to be working well now. This is what happens when you can't sleep lol Turtlestack (talk) 04:16, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

lol. --Diego Grez ^{return fire} 04:18, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Glad you figured out those templates, some of them are rather ugly to say the least. As a side note, you might want to consider keeping the current month out of a collapsible navbox, so that people can find the most recent recording from Wikinews:Audio Wikinews/Releases without clicking on stuff, but its up to you. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:18, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I edited the page so that it displays the most recent month without having to open up a drop down list - previous months are still collapsible. Thanks for the idea, I like this better. Turtlestack (talk) 15:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI May 29 & 30

I won't be around this weekend due to the holiday. I'll be back on the microphone on Monday. Have a great weekend! Turtlestack (talk) 05:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Enjoy the holidays! Your plate's definitely going to be full when you get back! :) Benny the mascot (talk) 05:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

LOL Actually, that's fine with me. With all the stories being published, putting a good, quality show together has actually been easier, so bring it on!, I say :) Turtlestack (talk) 06:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

50th Show!

Today is a special show for me since it is the 50th AW I've done for Wikinews. I kept forgetting that I actually did a show for April 14th, but since I never added the brief to the site (though I did upload the file to commons) and just assumed that tomorrow was my 50th, but it's actually today. So, I kinda went all out for this episode and the This Day In History is from the year I was born and a special story for me personally. I hope you all like the show and it's also really funny to listen to the News briefs:April 14, 2010 show compared to the News briefs:June 9, 2010 show - big difference :)

Anyway, this episode is for everyone at Wikinews who have been so welcoming to me and have helped me so much and basically been all around awesome to get to know. This is my thank you to everyone here and I look forward to the next 50 episodes! Turtlestack (talk) 04:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Major Updates

I've been using my non recording weekends to do the housekeeping the site requires and I got quite a bit done over the past 2 days. Please take a look at the News Brief page to see what I've been up to. There is still plenty more to do, but I've made decent progress on the style guide and I made a how to Audacity (basic) Production guide (with screen grabs). I'm trying to set the guidelines for minimum quality standards to be made for the show as well as trying to pass on everything I know and have learned to help everyone out. It's a ton of work, but I feel a lot better about the state of the AW:NB project as it seems to be finally coming together. Not only have I been able to up the quality of my own recordings, but with the show on iTunes (200+ subscribers, baby!) and the News Briefs section of wikinews nearly completed, I think someday I may be able to just record shows and not have to worry about all this extra stuff lol Turtlestack (talk) 00:56, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Yay for subscribers! :) —Mikemoral♪♫ 01:03, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Like giving birth

Some shows come together nicely - others are born kicking and screaming into the world. Today, I've given birth to a ten-ton gorilla. Hopefully tomorrow will be an easier labor :) Turtlestack (talk) 05:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

What is it with Monday shows anyway?

I mean, why are Monday shows always such a pain to put together? Between editing, trying to get Australian Rules Football team pronunciations right and the music cues lined up and half-way relevant, nothing ever goes easy on a Monday. Oh well, such is the glamorous life of an obscure podcast producer lol

Anyway, I'll actually get to read a story I contributed to Wikinews for the Tuesday show so that will be fun, even if it is just a NASCAR story (don't hate me because I love NASCAR). Turtlestack (talk) 05:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, Mondays always suck. —Mikemoral♪♫ 05:57, 27 July 2010 (UTC)