How to Turn your Investigation or Data Findings into Narrative Audio

Alexia Fernández Campbell, Bloomberg

Curtis Gilbert, APM Reports

Kate Howard, Reveal

Emily Zentner, The California Newsroom

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We know what doesn’t work, because we’ve all heard it!

• Don’t read a bunch of numbers on air and expect people to be able to digest them

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• Don’t just take your print story and scriptify it

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• Don’t dump a bunch of complex metrics and assume people know what they mean

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Big questions we’ll tackle today

• When do data-driven stories make good audio?��
• What are the big differences between audio writing and print writing, and some strategies to put those differences into practice?��
• How do you make data digestible and use it to hype up your story?��
• Why should findings graphs and nut graphs be different in audio? How do you put that into practice?

Crafting Narratives: Print vs. Audio

• Writing data-driven narrative
• Short, short sentences
• Reporter as character, but let listeners hear story from central characters’ point of view
• Use numbers sparingly. Weave data findings into script versus listing them.

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Crafting Narratives: Print vs. Audio

• Writing data-driven narrative
• Short, short sentences
• Reporter as character, but let listeners hear story from central characters’ point of view
• Use numbers sparingly. Weave data findings into script versus listing them.

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• Bringing data to life: 40 Acres and a Lie
• Finding historic documents and deploying AI to find more became part of the narrative.
• Use documents to say something about PEOPLE. If not alive, read something they wrote, describe photo, ask someone share memories.
• AUDIOCLIP HERE: timestamp 3:28 to 3:54

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Crafting Narratives: Print vs. Audio

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• Take listeners somewhere

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1. Data may not mention people, but it probably mentions places.

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• Go to those locations, make them a scene in your story

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• 40 Acres land titles: plantation names took us to the location so we could tell the story of what happened to that land.

Start with a powerful individual story

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• Part of the power of data in storytelling is being able to connect a person’s story to a larger societal issue�
• Start with that human story and then show they’re not alone

Deadly restraint: Despite decades of warnings, police continue holding people facedown.

Break down complicated concepts in a two-way

• The casual, conversational nature of a two-way can be great for breaking down complicated ideas�
• Try explaining it to the host just as a coworker, recording it, and then using that as the basis for a script�
• Lean into the humor of how weird and confusing it is (when appropriate)

TahoeLand: That Blue Hue 15:53-17:30

Data as a narrative

2022 podcast on Utah’s oversight

of its troubled teen industry.

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Numbers in print…

The cost was steep: Bean’s maximum monthly payment rose more than tenfold, to $889,000 from $74,000, even though the maximum number of clients it would serve rose by far less, to 480 from 150. The bill would ultimately be covered by the federal government.

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With the opening of the Sullivan shelter in 2020, Bean’s revenues more than doubled, to more than $7 million. In 2021, they rose to more than $14 million, driven largely by its city contract, before falling to $9.5 million in 2022.

Lead with the idea. Illustrate with evidence. Make it build.

… that checklist looks almost exactly like the checklist for every other teen treatment program in Utah.

We know, because we looked at all of them – five years worth. Hundreds of checklists, more than fifty-thousand check marks. And we found almost all of the marks were in the box labeled “compliant” — The average score was 98 percent. It was like a giant stack of straight-A report cards.

Those checklists are the government’s main tool for making sure kids in these programs are protected … So… either the programs are all perfect or the tool is broken.

1 → 5 → 100s → 50,000 → 98%

Trusting (but still helping) the audience

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• Let the audience meet and care about the affected people before you overwhelm them with your findings�
• Make it real with the voices - a montage can help illustrate scope without overly complicating your narrative thread (27:45 -28:50)�

Trusting (but still helping) the audience

Sign post - “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” line�

Listen cold, listen distracted

• Are you listening the way a real person will?
• Can you wash the dishes and still follow the plot?

Give people a little credit!

They care about how you got it (to a point) (23:38-25:20)

Questions?

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Alexia Fernández Campbell, Bloomberg: afernandezcampbell@bloombergindustry.com

Curtis Gilbert, APM Reports: cgilbert@apmreports.org,

Kate Howard, Reveal: khoward@revealnews.org

Emily Zentner, The California Newsroom: ezentner@kqed.org

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