Recently we recorded an interview with me about Jimmie Jam Radio. Even though we’ve been around for a while now, there are still people who aren’t aware of the station, and there are other aspects of the station that people might want to know more about.
That’s what we call “News.”
Reporting on news is called Journalism. If you haven’t been exposed to this style of writing and presenting before, here’s your chance.
Your job is to present a factual representation of Jimmie Jam Radio. You need to tell people all of the relevant details that they will need to know to truly understand.
Some important points:
- Journalism is based on FACTS, not opinions. If you love Jimmie Jam Radio or hate Jimmie Jam Radio, it’s irrelevant to the story. Any feelings that you might have are irrelevant and have no place in the story.
- As such, you need to avoid using value judgment words like “great” “amazing” “terrible” “interesting,” etc. Your job is to present facts and let the listener form an opinion.
- If you want someone to say that the station is great, then that is where our interview comes in. Anything that you want to say that could sound like an opinion needs to come from the person being interviewed. I think that I had some clear opinions. You might agree or disagree, but your job is to let me present my opinion, and for you to present the facts.
- You will need to go back through the interview audio and select clips where I express an opinion or say something factual in a way that you can’t, or says it better than you could. You need to find ONLY the most important things that I say. YOU TELL THE REST OF THE STORY.
- Journalism always starts out with something called a ‘lead,’ (often spelled ‘lede.’) (rhymes with ‘bead’ or ‘seed.’) This is the essence of the story in ONE sentence. Your first job is to summarize your story and come up with that lead. I’ll help you with that part by offering a suggestion. You can change it or write your own as you see fit:
- example: “Since the fall of 2014, St. James Collegiate has run its own in-house, streaming radio station which broadcasts student programming and music 24 hours a day through their website at jimmiejamradio.rocks.”
- Your job from there is to pick out the relevant details and present them to the listener to tell the rest of the story. Your job is to use my comments to back up that (consider it proof or evidence that you are telling the truth) and to make your story more lively and interesting. I’m a pretty passionate guy. You as the writer and reporter can’t be passionate, so let me do it for you.
- Your factual details should be in some rough order of importance. Your next sentence should explain the next-most-important fact/detail. Consider something about how much money they want or why they need it, but the choice is yours to prioritize however you see fit.
Again, this is not you telling a story. This is you laying out facts for people. You don’t have an opinion on the subject, but you need to offer up the relevant facts so that listeners can form their own opinions.
WRITE THIS FIRST. Do NOT try to ‘wing’ this by making it up as you go along. List a bunch of facts and try to prioritize those, and list them in order. Then make a story out of that, using my words to back it up.
I would recommend showing me your script BEFORE recording this.
The audio clip can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2TiSenJN5wnTTd1eTctdWFmeU0
Check out jimmiejamradio.rocks and see if there’s any other information you can add in. In this case, there’s not a whole lot of research to be done, but make sure you look around, just in case.
Take your time!
Let me know if you have any questions! If you’re unsure, you NEED to ASK!