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New Guest:
Sean Cole
Sean Cole
The bouncy, irrepressible radio reporter Sean Cole tells us why he thinks it's fun to write a Manifesto, and he tells us a story about himself and his friends, and he tells us about funny and interesting things that happened to him... all by way of telling us about telling stories in the first-person. "All In Favor...Say I!" suggests that the self-referential approach can sometimes be the most honest thing to do. And Sean explains this in such an honest way that you tend to believe him. He comes bearing audio evidence and persuasive anecdotes. Plus, he'll take your questions.
New Podcast:
After The Forgetting
After The Forgetting
This is a delicate story about love and dementia. It weaves memory and moments through the intertwined lives of Greg Sharrow, his mother Marj, and his husband Bob. And, if you’re wrestling with a tricky emotional story, producer Erica Heilman has written usefully on Transom about the process of making this meditation. As she says, she wanted to “offer people a picture of how one family is managing dementia in a really graceful, loving way. I wanted to achieve this without ever using words like ‘loving’ or ‘graceful’."
New Review:
Curtis Fox
Curtis Fox
Curtis Fox produces podcasts for The New Yorker, The Poetry Foundation, Parents Magazine and others. He got his start in public radio and it still resonates in what he does. In this issue of The Transom Review, Curtis lays out his podcast philosophy, plays samples, and answers all sorts of practical questions too. Come download the PDF of Curtis’s dispatch from this edge of the multi-dimensional new world of audio distribution.

Other Recent Updates by Category...

Shows
A Trio of Podcasts A Trio of Podcasts

To complement Curtis Fox's current Manifesto on Podcasts, we're featuring a few interesting examples of the genre submitted to Transom over the past year or so.

  1. "Frickin Circus" by Frick is part audio blog, part travel show, part behind-the-scenes look at The Circus.

  2. "Dial-A-Stranger" by Zachary Kent and Mercedes Martinez takes questions from random strangers (like you), and poses them to other strangers (like you) on the telephone.

  3. "Love & Radio" Produced by Nick van der Kolk is somewhere between NPR and a shockumentary special. It's a surreal journey into a confusing world of ex-lovers, ex-cult members, and fruit. Lots of fruit.

Special Features
The SELF CINEMA Project The SELF CINEMA Project

Transom, in association with Flik International Movie Festival, is seeking multi-media self-portraits to be featured at the festival and on the site. We'll offer honoraria to those we put on Transom. All stories must be non-fiction, under five minutes, and include both audio and visual components. The visual can literally reflect the story, or complement it – your choice. Along with your soundtrack, you can use photo slideshows, cut up old films and videos, animation, footage of locations or related imagery, or even a series of hand drawings. Whatever works for the story.


The Review
Studs Terkel 1912-2008 Studs Terkel 1912-2008

Transom is again featuring Studs Terkel's Manifesto from 2001, his conversation with Sydney Lewis on radio, improvisation, fireside chats, ineptitude, jazz, Vox Humana, and dozens of other notions his mind leapt to.

Studs remains an inspiration to us--always listening, sending out stories.

When asked what his ideal broadcast day would be, he said, "I'd want the human voice. Expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real." Something Real.

Jesse Hardman
Producing in a war zone, editing in a foreign language, circumventing censorship, collaborating with Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Catholic staff, making radio far away from here. Jesse Hardman and his team from Sri Lanka have been on Transom for the last month or so. They've left wonderful comments about their work, full of an intensity about the importance of radio journalism. Come be re-invigorated about what we do and its possibilities, however difficult to realize, around the world. Our downloadable issue of The Transom Review is ready.

Elizabeth Arnold
Now you can download Elizabeth's frank and useful Manifesto "On Interviewing," along with her dialog with Transom users. Elizabeth talks about interview situations from Alaska to Sri Lanka to Mongolia to Capital Hill. "I don't think being dispassionate necessarily translates into fairness or even objectivity. Often it translates into a boring story where you can actually feel the distance between the reporter and the subject and even more troubling to me, the reporter or host can often sound downright condescending. I hate that!"

...more guests »

Tools
Pro Tools Shortcuts Pro Tools Shortcuts

If you work in audio production, you end up having some kind of relationship to Digidesign's ubiquitous software, ProTools. Generally, the relationship is dysfunctional. We at Transom are no exception and we asked our TOOLS Editor to come up with a set of ProTools tips specifically for the public radio producer.

So, now we bring you the result of years of conversation and complaint about this powerful, troublesome software in a single guide, Jeff Towne's "ProTools Shortcuts," which comes with its own handy print-out to keep by your bedside. You know you need it.

HHb FlashMic DRM85
Continuing in Transom's tradition of reviewing the new digital field gear for radio reporting, our Tools Editor Jeff Towne has just finished testing the HHb FlashMics, in both cardioid and omni versions. He posits, "What if you could have a good interview mic, and not worry about cables, or phantom power, or whether the mic is compatible with your recorder? What if you could hold it and operate it with one hand? Well, you can." This is a unique field recorder, albeit expensive and with a few other downsides--but, depending on your requirements, certainly a tool you should check out.

Olympus LS-10
TOOLS Editor Jeff Towne has been living and working with another of the new little digital recorders and just added his review to our roster. Like all Jeff's reviews, it approaches the machine from the radio producer's perspective, complete with lots of photos, sound tests, and a comparision chart. The Olympus LS-10, depending on your needs, is pretty close to the mark... and it's cute, especially when it's wearing its little earmuff windscreens.

...more tools »


Transom Excerpts
Tour the Transom

Listen to a 20 minute audio tour of Transom.org.
How It Works

Join this experiment in audio-and-the-internet. We're looking for new and different voices, for good ideas. Record your stories. Send them to us. Listen to other people's work and talk about it.

...more on how it works »


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