Some months ago, I griped about how all public radio reports about Uganda seem to dwell upon AIDS, violence, or oppression. Now comes an exception--Tara Anderson's commendable feature about a pioneering filmmaker in Uganda.

Unfortunately, this piece relies too much on words. True, Anderson includes clips of actors and singers; but they seem token and fail to convey much atmosphere.

Especially for stories about far-away places, editors and reporters should throw away words, sentences, even paragraphs of precious text, or a whole voice cut, in order to allow time for sound. Consider: it is only through ambience, loud and clear (or soft but enduring), that a feature can breathe. More often than not, it is silence, or the pause for sound, that gives radio its power--rather than the wedging in of one more fact. This is true even in news reports.

End of sermon. I listen forward to Tara Anderson's next feature about Uganda.