"The Takeaway" - An opportunity for great news coverage for a new audience

Posted by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on June 10, 2008 at 11:30am

The most enlightening segment of Monday morning’s (June 9) “The Takeaway”

http://www.thetakeaway.org/

– the hip new public radio morning show - was Brooke Gladstone’s eye witness analysis of the media restrictions in China.

These days, professional reporters in foreign fields are at a premium, as illustrated anew by this government-augmented natural disaster and the one in Myanmar.

But economics and consumer-driven news, not political tyranny, are the main reasons why the world hasn’t shrunk as the network news organizations would have us believe, despite huge technological advances over the past two decades. Their nightly smoke, mirrors and glitzy graphics conceal an increasing dependence on pooled or shared pictures or sound, and agency narratives.

When I was a traveling producer for the BBC in the early 1990’s, I frequently had the pick of the best freelance camera crews, since my organization was alone in refusing to slash its foreign representation. The American networks were scaling back on reporters, crews, and local support staff, never to return with a permanent presence to places where history was being made.

I’m hoping “The Takeaway”, a venerable partnership of the nation’s leading public station, WNYC Radio, and Public Radio International, in collaboration with The BBC World Service, New York Times Radio and WGBH Boston, can buck the trend as NPR – its principal rival – has done.

Full disclosure – I used to work as Managing Editor for News at WNYC, and we oftentimes discussed the need for a different kind of radio morning show.

“The Takeaway” is meant to be faster-paced, more direct, and less esoteric than NPR’s long-running Morning Edition, and features the talented and credentialed John Hockenberry and Adora Udoji as well-matched hosts.

It also embraces citizen journalism, and has all the 2.0 badges of honor – blogs, interactivity with listeners and telephone airings of their recorded thoughts on the day’s events.

But the segment on the Chinese media was the only example of first-hand, professional eye-witness reporting in the one hour show. There were script-only news “summaries” aplenty, a phone conversation with an economics pundit and a union representative, and a chat with a sports reporter about horse-doping. In the second half of the hour, the program bravely makes accessible many of the obvious and popular subjects public radio has traditionally either thumbed its nose at, or over-intellectualized and covered badly - movies, weather, and sports.

But clearly the “pilot” phase had placed most emphasis on the usual buzz-topics which bedevil the demographically paranoid contemporary gurus of public radio: reaching younger and more ethnically diverse listeners, “chemistry” or banter between hosts, “water-cooler” topic selection, and “intellectually compelling” studio conversation. These days, the need for a news-gathering structure of high quality reporters in the right places at the right times, rarely receives such attention.

Focus-grouped listeners too often turn to their own individual realities when asked what they want to hear, thus excluding what might be surprising, galvanizing, collectively important, or innovative.

And as a veteran producer and host of overnight TV and radio news programs, I know how hard it is to produce a morning show of news merit, especially on a Monday when the news cycle is still recovering from its weekend hangover. You have to work all night and then perform in the early morning when you’re physically and mentally at your worst.

Big newsgathering organizations like the BBC have reporters in the field who are required to file for multiple TV and Radio programs, in addition to the web, so requests from abroad for the following morning’s programs might often be the ones which fall by the wayside. And presumably the New York Times reporters’ first responsibilities are to the New York Times and its website.

The Takeaway needs a deeper on-air editorial commitment from its partners, if that is possible. It also needs to reach out to public radio and international newsgathering organizations, to take it to where the news is happening.

With a change in priorities to emphasize substantive original journalism over style and presentation, “The Takeaway” is an opportunity to buck the trend by putting location broadcast reporting, good writing, and fascinating new information at the top of the agenda. And to help restore American broadcasting’s historic reputation for great international reporting.

It is early days and I’ll keep on listening. But Brooke aside, there’s not much takeaway just yet.

Mark McDonald
Program Director WAMU

Tags: http://www.thetakeaway.org/

Comment by Hank Ickes on June 10, 2008 at 3:11pm: Dear Mark --

Is this show on WAMU-2? Is it available for review on the web? I'd certainly like to have more available to listen-to - I'd just never heard of this one.

Thanks,

Hank Ickes
Arlington, VA

Comment by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on June 10, 2008 at 5:14pm: Thanks Hank -

We're still evaluating it for air. You can hear it via the link above.

Best,

Mark

Comment by Steve on June 10, 2008 at 6:17pm: Mark,

I love Morning Edition. It has interesting and relevant magazine-style reporting that seems for the most part original. Listening to it helps me feel prepared for the day.

Having listened to a few of the pilots and first episodes of The Takeaway, I didn't come away sated like I do after listening to Morning Edition. It seems to me this chit-chat show focuses too much on "analysis," which these days is more and more a mere euphemism for simply rehashing reporting that other news organizations produced. The Bryant Park Project from NPR and a good chunk of cable news shows suffer from the same problem. Hopefully, The Takeaway will incorporate more magazine-style reporting from BBC reporters and mix those in with the chit-chat.

Now, how do I feel a news magazine show can fit into the schedule with more conversational programs? It is one thing to listen to an actual news magazine like Morning Edition and then listen to a talk show like The Diane Rehm Show that will discuss an issue that the news magazine explained and explored. However, I won't feel as informed listening to a talk show after a chit-chat show like The Takeaway seemed to me the few times I listened to it.

Did you notice how I use both "talk show" and "chit-chat show" as distinct terms? To me, public radio talk shows dive deep into one or a few subjects each airing while chit-chat shows breeze through several topics by talking about them while missing the depth of a magazine-style (that has more focus) piece.

Also, specifically for The Takeaway, it seemed to me that there is one question of the hour that they ask listeners to chime in on. Further, they also ask the guests to express their opinions, even if they were on the show for a completely unrelated topic. Asking a guest to respond to such a question seemed forced and weird and does little to tie the entire hour together around one unifying theme.

Getting back to listener participation, I didn't see how the listeners really fit into The Takeaway. This participation seems more like a token gimmick to show that, "Hey! We're 2.0!" The listeners need a more focused and defined role in the show. How can they advance the editorial direction of the show?

One last thing. I reckon that the chit-chat format is cheaper to producer than the news magazine format...

Cheers!
Steve

Comment by John Antonelli on June 10, 2008 at 7:50pm: If you are thinking of this as a replacement for ME, me thinks not. I am not even sure this wil cut it as a replacement for the call in programs I hate. My thing is I care what Nancy Pelosie thinks about health care, I care less about what Suzette from Purcellville thinks about it

Comment by John Antonelli on June 10, 2008 at 8:20pm: If you are looking for new programs, may I suggest programming on the lines of the World or Day to Day.

Comment by Steve on June 10, 2008 at 10:57pm: Hi Mark,

I thought of more to write after I posted my last comment.

First, I'm not against what I refer to as chit-chat shows (I don't mean to use that term in a pejorative way as it may seem), but, like John Antonelli, they cannot replace a news magazine show like Morning Edition or All Things Considered. However, you could place a chit-chat show in a long block of talk shows to vary the pace of the schedule. Perhaps this will complete my answer to my question about where such a show belongs.

Further, I personally feel that there are too many hours of talk shows on WAMU's main channel between Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I would enjoy getting some news reports during the day to counter the conversation heavy segments that dominate talk shows.

This will make people mad, but since I like the variety of programs offered during this time period, I suggest shifting an hour of The Diane Rehm Show and The Kojo Nnamdi Show to the evening. As great as Diane and Kojo are, you can have too much of a good thing. In their place, news magazines like The World or Day to Day (as John Antonelli suggests) could break up the talk show marathon. Another news magazine show from a foreign distributor like The World Today -- according to the BBC's website it doesn't air during this time period -- would also work. Could you look at pubcasters in Australia, New Zealand, mainland Europe (ie Deutsche Welle), or in other parts of the world?

Finally, for the purposes of what falls into the "chit-chat show" category, in my opinion this includes Diane's Friday News Roundup and Kojo's Politics Hour.

Regards,
Steve

Comment by Larry Robinson on June 11, 2008 at 7:27pm: Though I haven't yet listened to The Takeaway, from the descriptions above it sounds like a move in the wrong direction. Questing after the 18-34 demographic is quixotic for NPR, which doesn't (completely) rely on advertising revenue. If you serve up the best news coverage in the country (which NPR at its best does), you'll catch those kids as they grow up and realize their need for something more substantive and balanced than talk radio rants and TV infotainment. I agree with Steve's suggestion of a news program in the middle of the day -- for policy wonks and news junkies, it's a long stretch from ME to ATC. The BBC's domestic World at One program would be a good model.

And speaking of the Beeb, the reason I gave as much as I did when I rejoined WAMU (after WETA went classic) was to get the HD radio -- so I could get the BBC programming. The path to success in the future for NPR is even more cooperation with the BBC, and to find a good English-language partner in the Asia-Pacific region to fill the gap that Mark talked about in his opening posting. Radio Australia is rather parochial, and most of the other national radio stations in Asia are Stalinist. But you might consider partnering with one of the new private broadcasters in South Asia and the Gulf -- Star, Indus, Geo, ARY or even al-Jazeera. They have excellent journalists, cover a part of the world that's hugely important to us, and could use the partnership to boost their prestige.

Comment by Steve on June 11, 2008 at 10:09pm: Hi Larry,

Thanks for your comment. I would love to here about some of your favorite radio programs out of the Pacific/Asia region. The BBC is wonderful, but I would love to hear programs from a non-American and non-British owned news outfit.

Comment by John Antonelli on June 11, 2008 at 10:09pm: Let me add that the reason I listen to NPR is for good news. What I mean is that I do not want news as entertainment and it is really easy to see which is which. If like on CBS, Brittany Spears is the lead story, that is news as entertainment. I would hate for NPR to lower themselves to this foolishness to get the youth demographic. Take the high road and go for the thinking demographic and leave the Brittany lovers to Stephen Colbert.

Comment by Steve on June 11, 2008 at 11:12pm: Hi Mark,

Before I forget. Let me express preference for a news magazine show to break up a long block of talk shows over a chit-chat show.

Also, I think three hours of chit-chat is too much, and according to me, that exists every Friday on WAMU's main channel with two hours of Diane's News Roundup and Kojo's Politics Hour.

Finally, I'm very aware that both The Diane Rehm Show and The Kojo Nnamdi Show are syndicated nationally, but that doesn't mean that both of hours of these two shows have to air live on WAMU's main channel. One hour of each can air in the evenings. Or doesn't modern technology allow that?