Transom Shows: Ghana - The Internet Question

Chris Lydon in Accra, Ghana
Photo: Eric Osiakwan

Parachute Radio in Ghana:
The Internet Question
Produced by Mary Mcgrath

Listen in Real Audio or MP3

Intro From Jay Allison

Along with the Chris Lydon's "Parachute Radio" trilogy which just concluded with "My Singapore Sling," Transom and the Open Studio Project have been working recently with the WGBH Culture Desk and WNYC's "On The Media" to get some of this Lydon/McGrath "Wide World" radio on national air. Happily, it's working out. This piece on Ghana and the Internet is the first, with more to come, we hope.

From Chris Lydon:

This radio piece, which we edited for NPR's "On the Media," is a distillation of the first "Wide World" talk show we did in Ghana around the Internet question. (Is it another Northern trick being played on Africans--a bubble being recycled? Or is it perhaps the perfect match for the native African expressive and communicative genius?)

This was a three-hour conversation in Africa that became an 8-minute piece for public radio. How often do you get to edit a talk show to its core? We added some real-life sound of the customers at the hippest Internet cafe in Accra, and I slipped in a comment of my own at the end. So a fragment of our local-global radio comes homes to roost at NPR, and I trust it won't be the last

In particular two other long conversations on the radio in Ghana took turns I found remarkable: one on computerized drum machines in the land of the drum, and another on the African taboo around discussions of the "living wound" of slavery. When we did a version of "Desert Island Discs" around Ghana's treasury of "high life" music, the program became a furious protest by callers and musicians in the studio against the greasy flood of international, mostly synthesized pop that may be drowning music at its source. I think Americans would be fascinated also to hear a short form of a discussion still novel in Africa about the slave trade, which persisted within Ghana well into the 20th Century.

We brought back minidisc recordings of all the Ghana broadcasts, which I have transcribed. Mary McGrath is, as ever, a perfectly merciless editor. She has also become adept at ProTools and at assembling a new radio construction on her lap top. At WGBH, Jane Pipik did a masterful job pulling clear voices out of the fog of our one-mike studio in Accra. When I first heard the minidisc sound, and when we first played it for Jay Allison and then for Dean Capello at WNYC, I was afraid it was unusable. But Jane has skill and equipment that I'll bet could find Richard Nixon's voice in the 18-and-a-half-minute gap on the White House tapes.

Live talk is breezy and comfortable, sloppy home-cooking compared to the contrived heavy labor of editing ideas, e-q-ing voices, balancing ambience and the endless trimming that make a short segment like this. So we're training in a new radio discipline and trusting that some of the uncontrived vitality of the original comes alive in American ears.

From Mary McGrath:

This was my first effort editing a radio story; I still feel like a transom tot, but we did actually make a radio piece that will be on the radio this weekend! For me the process started with learning how to use a mini-disc player then researching and buying a laptop and USB interface (I settled on the MBox) and finally learning Pro Tools. The learning curve was a steep one for me but I was encouraged by lots of people who told me that producer skills are harder to acquire than techie ones. Transom was invaluable and so was Ben Walker who taught me everything I know.

Writing and crafting the piece was the easy part. Chris and I outlined the piece from his transcript of the radio program in Ghana and material Ben Walker gathered from the BusyInternet Cafe in Accra. Chris wrote it very quickly and didn't find the non-talk show aspect of it challenging. He and I both worked in television and the general process of making a story this way is very similar in radio and TV.

I transfered the cuts we used from my mini-disc player to my laptop and then spent a lot of time editing them down. As an obsessive producer I wanted to make each edit perfect. It's very satisfying to make a tricky one work. I find it's like putting. You either sink it or you miss and when you drain a long one it feels great.

The hardest part for me was wearing two hats: editor and producer. I'm used to walking into the studio, listening to cuts and knowing immediately what I want to hear. This was like.... cutting a piece for Mary McGrath and then desperately hoping she'd like it.

Jane Pipick at WGBH radio tracked Chris and did the final mix and improved the sound of the piece immensely. I'd like to learn this stage of the process next: fades, eqing and normalizing audio and mixing but this seems even more daunting.

It's been incredibly fun and I can't wait to do the next one!

More Parachute Radio

Singapore Sling: Online | PDF
Chris Lydon went to Singapore to host a nightly call in show at the state-controlled NewsRadio 938. Read his essay about the complex contradictions of a place once referred to as "a theme-park version of Chinese authoritarianism."

Ghana
The Talk of Accra: Online | PDF
Chris Lydon travelled to Accra, Ghana where he hosted a daily call-in talk show on a local radio station. Read about his experiences and listen to some excerpts from the show.

Jamaica
Parachute Radio: Online | PDF
Christopher Lydon's report on his stint as a radio talk show host... in Jamaica. Read and Listen...

Credits

In no particular order: Jay Allison, Helen Barrington, Jill Kaufman, Jane Pipik, Ben Walker helped me a lot, Jake Shapiro helped some as always, Berkman Center.