Universal Design is a nice soft feature piece about the increasing trend to use automated voices integrated into product design in Japan. In the piece, we hear automated voices at the train station, in vending machines, crosswalks, parking garages, ski lifts, and household appliances. It's a nice blend of natural sound and interviews, held together with narration from producer Ross Chambless. The piece covers a lot of ground, maybe too much for a single feature, and as a result it sometimes starts to lose focus. Overall, it is a nice, sound rich feature that would be compatible with a magazine program like All Things Considered.

I love the content of this piece, and of the "Ethically Speaking" series in general, but I don't like the way it translates into radio. The dialogue over an ethical question between producers Dean Ritz and Deni Elliot is a bit too contrived and "cute" for my taste, even though it does get the point across. In listening to the piece, I can't help but think of it as a module in an ethics training CD, rather than a self-contained radio piece. After the banter, listeners are told to send their comments to a web site, which doesn't do much for the effectiveness of the piece by itself. The credits alone take 15 seconds in a two minute piece, and I get the feeling I'm listening to something that was done more for the benefit of the grantor than the listener. As I said, I think the content is excellent, but in reviewing the piece for radio broadcast it comes up short for me.

Commentator Paul McDonald has a nice and easy way about his writing and delivery that works well for radio. His topics are interesting, and he doesn't take himself too seriously. If you like his tongue-in-cheek humorous style, as I do, this piece will not disappoint.

I love the content of this piece, and of the "Ethically Speaking" series in general, but I don't like the way it translates into radio. The dialogue over an ethical question between producers Dean Ritz and Deni Elliot is a bit too contrived and "cute" for my taste, even though it does get the point across. In listening to the piece, I can't help but think of it as a module in an ethics training CD, rather than a self-contained radio piece. After the banter, listeners are told to send their comments to a web site, which doesn't do much for the effectiveness of the piece by itself. The credits alone take 15 seconds in a two minute piece, and I get the feeling I'm listening to something that was done more for the benefit of the grantor than the listener. As I said, I think the content is excellent, but in reviewing the piece for radio broadcast it comes up short for me.

Spectrum Radio always does a good job making scientific ideas understandable to the lay person, and this piece is no exception. Utopia stands for "Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency", an optical fiber open internet based municipal network linking 14 cities in Utah and providing television, telephone and high speed broadband. The use of sound is minimal; but in fairness, it's pretty difficult to get much sound when the topic is movement of data. The interview cuts are adequate, and the narration flows nicely, but the beauty of this piece lies in the crisp writing style which is a trademark of Spectrum Radio, a monthly tech-news magazine program.

Wow! This sound rich montage was produced by Tiffany Patterson as part of a class for Brooklyn College's radio station, and it is very well done. It's a nice piece of "word jazz", combining elements of music, poetry, sound, narration and a wonderful bit with a New York rapper about radio. Midway through the piece, the producer says, "radio is always there, providing a sound track for your life, helping you store memories", and that's as apt a description for good radio, and for this piece, as I can find. Although it was produced for a class, this is a beautifully produced sound essay, and with a bit of editing and remixing I think it will sound every bit as good as the "pros", and it is certainly broadcast quality as is. You owe it to yourself to listen to this delightful and wonderfully refreshing piece of radio, and I look forward to hearing more from Brooklyn College Radio.

There is an awful lot of information densely packed into this nine minute piece; perhaps too much. I listened to it three times, and picked up something new each time. The production is good and the material well presented, but I sometimes found myself reaching for the rewind button to better understand what was being said. The topic itself is fascinating, and as is said in the piece, "it is extraordinary how poorly educated Americans are about geography". If nothing else, this piece taught me how little I know about mapmaking. Producer Jackson Braider does a good job of fitting a lot of information into the piece, and introduces the idea of ethnocentrism in mapmaking; looking at the world through one's own cultural frame. Although I enjoyed listening to the feature, this is one of the few times I would suggest that a nine minute piece be expanded into a half-hour or hour long documentary.

The storytelling is superb, marred only by the poor quality of the recording. Producer Jackson Braider skillfully mixes music with the voice of Irish storyteller Bob O'Connell, recorded in 1962. The strength of the story almost carries it off, but the recording sounds as if it had been filtered through a telephone, and the piece is far too long to sustain listener engagement with that sound quality, in my opinion. It is a good archival piece, but questionable for radio.

I'll start by saying that this is a very powerful piece. After a 30 second introduction by producer Adeline Goss, the rest of the piece consists of narration by the young man who survived Katrina. It's a heart wrenching and gripping story, and the voice of the young man is captivating. But the piece lacks some production elements that would have made it even more powerful. Some editing and narration, or at least some questions from the interviewer would help his story flow better. Although the story pulls us in, it drags a bit near the end, and then the interview just ends, making the listener feel like the piece isn't quite finished. The raw material for this piece is incredible, and some judicious editing would bring out its full potential.

Another in a series from NPR's Next Generation Radio, this piece perfectly captures the guilty pleasure that some young people take in listening to public radio. It was a bit bothersome for me that the piece equates NPR and All Things Considered with public radio and ignores the rest, but then I guess NPR is our biggest brand. Maybe it's just the public radio general manager in me coming out... Anyway, it's very well written, slickly produced and nicely narrated by producer Beth Novey. The sound bites from teenagers are priceless; I loved the line that listening to NPR is like drinking coffee - you don't like it when you're little either. This is an engaging piece that would fit well into a news magazine program like, say, All Things Considered.

This piece is part of a "Song and Memory" series that appears on APM's Weekend America, about recalling strong childhood memories, often through music and song. This one is about a childhood memory of being punished by a 12-year old cousin for misbehaving in school, to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time". It is a first-person narrative superbly mixed with music and sound, and it does conjure up real images for the listener. Because the narrator is not a professional announcer it requires close listening, but the lack of professionalism in the narration lends itself to the authenticity of the memory and the story, and it works well. I really like the premise of the series, which takes "slice of life" memories and portrays them well. This is a nice piece of radio, and I highly recommend it.

Catie Talarski has produced an engaging piece about a group of homeless teens in Maine writing and performing theatre pieces based on their experiences. "Escaping Velocity" refers to "putting ourselves out and opening ourselves up", and the skits are related to life on the street. The piece is nicely written and edited, and includes actualities from the performances and interviews with the group. I would have liked more performance clips in the piece...we don't hear any of the performance until more than half way through the piece. But it is nicelly set up, and a "talkback" section at the end takes questions from the audience. There is a language advisory, and although not gratuitous, a couple of words would have to be bleeped for broadcast, given the current climate at the FCC. Overall, I thought the piece flowed well and the excellent narration by the producer provided the transitions to keep it moving along nicely.

This first person essay is a nice reminiscence about an evening with Art Buchwald when the narrator was a student 30 years ago. It is well written and well read. I'm not sure it has a particular point to make other than to provide an enjoyable remembrance of some time spent with a legend, and it does it well.

This engaging piece is part of a series from Multiverse Radio, "a place where science and technology intersects with ingenuity, originality, society and the arts". I've listened to several of their pieces, and producer Jim Schultz and his team have tapped into an intriguing blend of science and society which is very well-written and listenable. These two minute pieces would fit well into an ATC magazine format.

This is a superbly produced feature on disappearing languages by producer Lonny Shavelson. Interviews with the last native speaker of the Elem Pomo native Californian language are very well done, and the quality of all the recordings and ambient sound is excellent. The piece is tightly edited and well mixed, and Shavelson's narration is just right for this feature. The production values are very similar to those of the NPR news magazines, the story is compelling, and the subject matter couldn't be more suited to radio. This is as good as any news magazine feature I have heard, and I would highly recommend it for broadcast.