3/17/08 Episode 4: The News From The WWW - Volunteers Needed

Austin Grammer · **Voice Talent** Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 39

Episode 3 is now available for download! Go to http://www.TheNewsFromTheWWW.org to listen! Yes- I bought us a domain name for the website for the show! I'll use that URL in the credits of the show from now on instead of my own. If you have contacts with anyone in the Radio Information Service field, please feel free to pass along the link to our program so they can consider airing it on their station. I went with the .org extension since this is an all volunteer effort.

Updates:

1. In order to help even the levels between the multiple readers, John Weeks suggested that we settle on a standard for setting our levels and sampling rates. Can everyone try to submit their recordings at -6db with a sampling rate of 96 kbps 44100. I am experimenting with a bulk normalization program and I think that helped with this week's show ( https://neon1.net/prog/normalizer.html ). Anyone who wants to offer advice on this front please do - I'm open to suggestions!

2. We need a few more volunteers to commit to this program on a regular basis so that if some of the other regulars can't contribute, we will still have enough material to fill a hour. I am always happy to pick up the slack, but I don't want listeners to end up listening to me for a half hour when the goal of this show is to have many voices.

New Volunteers are welcome and encouraged to join! Check out these past threads for background on this project and/or check out the website above:
http://voiceoversavvy.com/ftopic4981.html
http://voiceoversavvy.com/ftopic4876.html
http://voiceoversavvy.com/ftopic5114.html
http://voiceoversavvy.com/ftopic5186.html

Instructions:

Select a news article that you would like to read. Create a post in this thread with the title of the article and a link to the article to claim or get "dibs" on that story so no one else will take it, then record the story in Mono 96 or 128k MP3, and then edit your first post and add the recorded article as an attachment and add the runtime in your post so we can track the length of the program (we need one hour worth of material). Please submit your recorded article by Sunday at Noon 3/23/08.

You can pick your own article / news story. Please keep in mind that the target audience is mostly older people with vision issues who already get a lot of the mainstream news from the RIS service through other volunteers reading local and regional newspapers in addition to listening to TV. So I would avoid political and breaking news as those are already covered and change from day to day. Pick articles that will have a week or more of shelf life. Also avoid celebrity gossip, stories of a sexual nature, murder, abuse, etc. Articles that you would feel comfortable reading to someone you just met etc. Articles that are interesting, funny, clever, etc. I have a list at the bottom of this post of some recommended articles for you to get an idea of what I am talking about. Please choose / read articles that are longer than 3 min when read (not including intros). A lot of short articles can be difficult to concentrate on / listen to. Often, you may come across an interesting story or news topic on one website but it is the abbreviated article. If you search the subject of the article on Google News Search, you might be able to find a longer / more in depth article on the subject from another news source. If you can't, please pick another longer article, or, find two similar short articles and read them both and introduce them as such "here are two articles about a popular subject on the web...." "And now another article with a similar but different story". Just use your best judgment. If everyone contributed an article with a average length of 5 minutes, we would only need 12 VO actors contributing on a weekly basis to fill the hour time slot. I'm happy to pick up the slack but would rather hear from more people. You may need to lower the bit rate of your MP3 file in order to keep the file size low enough to upload to the savvy board (less than 5MB)

Here is the script I would like each person to read before reading their article in order to have consistency from one article to the next:

"Hi, this is [MY NAME] from [CITY, STATE] and [YOUR DOT COM WEBSITE (if applicable)] with an article about __________(very short but intriguing summary about the article you chose). PAUSE From [SOURCE], [TITLE OF ARTICLE]. [READ ARTICLE] PAUSE, "For The News From The World Wide Web, I'm [YOUR NAME].

Example:

"Hi, this is Homer Simpson from Springfield, Illinois and homersimpson.com with an article about how one small town is dealing with a skateboarding hooligans. PAUSE From the Springfield Gazette dot com, City Council Outlaws Skateboarding In Downtown: Youth Unhappy" {STORY} "For the News From The World Wide Web, I'm Homer Simpson
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Here are some good places to look for news articles:

The Drudge Report
http://www.drudgereport.com/

Yahoo News Most Popular Stories
http://news.yahoo.com/i/964

Newhouse News Service
http://www.newhouse.com/

AP Wire Top Stories from the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/aponline/index.html
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Here are some articles I have come across in the last few of days that I would recommend if you are unsure what to read:

Glass baby bottles make a comeback
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080313/ap_on_re_us/parenting_glass_bottles

Wal-Mart Tweaks Store for Arab-Americans
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080315/wal_mart_mideast_makeover.html?.v=2

Iraq war disappears as TV story
http://www.miamiherald.com/776/story/458872.html

Cameron Thomas · **Voice Talent** Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Posts: 479

I'll try to get back to some weather stuff with this one

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

I'll supplement with another one if it ends up being too short.

Cheers,
Cameron

Heather Cooper · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 472

From the Newhouse News Service.
Waterbeds Keep Cows Udderly Content

Sign me up for this one!

http://www.newhouse.com/waterbeds-keep-cows-udderly-content-2.html

Jacob Keebler · **Voice Talent** Joined: 18 Feb 2007 Posts: 329

Dibs...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3578770.ece

Diane Havens · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 1281

I'll do this one on toxic mud in Montana. (Love that environmental stuff!)

Toxic mud is being removed in Montana
Run time 6:24

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/mud_train;_ylt=Am4_Emppv356nzbXep_rwOQDW7oF

Scott Pollak · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008, 19:13 (GMT) Post subject:

Mine will be a story on men turning their garages into 'man caves' for comfy hibernation:

http://www.newhouse.com/men-turn-garages-into-man-caves-for-comfy-hibernation-4.html

Claire Dodin · **Voice Talent** Joined: 16 Aug 2005 Posts: 400

This is about the British media forced to apologize to the McCanns over the coverage of their missing daughter.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304310.stm

5min54

John Zadikian · **Voice Talent** Joined: 31 Dec 2007 Posts: 42

This one is about the risks of using "old" blood during medical procedures.

Run time: 4:48

Cameron Thomas · **Voice Talent** Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Posts: 479

Had some time to get it done early this week.

"The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat"
NPR
Runtime: 4:08

Cheers,
Cameron

Colin Campbell · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008, 01:46 (GMT) Post subject:

Waterbeds for Cows. From the Newhouse News Service....

http://www.newhouse.com/waterbeds-keep-cows-udderly-content-2.html

Running time: 3:42.

EDIT:

Heather Cooper wrote:

From the Newhouse News Service.
Waterbeds Keep Cows Udderly Content

Sign me up for this one!

http://www.newhouse.com/waterbeds-keep-cows-udderly-content-2.html

I'm so sorry Heather... I didn't notice you had dibbs on this story. Mine removed. I'll find something else.

John Weeks · **Voice Talent** Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 186

I'll take the story about "The Worst Foods in America" from the New York Times.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/the-worst-foods-in-america/?em&ex=1206072000&en=6e5f64d754b8c117&ei=5087%0A

Heather Cooper · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 472

Colin, No worries....seriously. I can find something else. You cow story sounded great, go ahead and repost the piece. Very Happy

Colin Campbell · Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008, 04:29 (GMT) Post subject:

Replacing the already spoken for story about the cow-waterbeds... here's "Daredevil Pilot."

From RD.com...

http://www.rd.com/stories/action-adventure/plane-crazy-daredevil-pilot/article.html

Running time: 7:14.

Roger Baker · **Voice Talent** Joined: 04 Jun 2006 Posts: 46

Hi
I think I'll do this one. It should add a little humor.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,338908,00.html

EDIT: Here is mine.
Scambaiters Turn Tables On Nigerian E-mail Scam Artists.

Run Time: 3:50

Thanks
Roger

BTW I think someone posted a link to one of these stories on a forum here a while back. Does anyone remember where it was?

Scott Paxton · **Voice Talent** Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 187

Howdy,

I will do a story about a Denny's restaurant becoming a historical landmark.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Saving-Dennys.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Time-03:51

Thanks