At about 26:35 minutes there's a report called "Freedom Fries," where he reads a lot of complaints received by NPR about reporters with vocal fry.
She wrote how, "Sitting in host chair for first time I channeled white voice from Midwest and lost my own.
Just like everyone else, sometimes reporters need a moment to collect their thoughts. "People forget that there's a person on the other end of the email," Duffin said. "That's why you listen — it's to hear people talk," Fortiér said. "That's why you listen — it's to hear people talk," Fortiér said. Investigating these complaints opens a window into a long-running debate in the public radio community: what — or more precisely, who — should NPR sound like? Sometimes reporters do incorporate feedback about their delivery.
The radio producers accused of vocal fry are not even that bad, no way I would ever consider them "frequent fryers". Barbara Walters lasted two years in the mid-1970s as an ABC Evening News co-anchor. hide caption. "It's so quintessential to his delivery."
Sounding clear and natural on air takes time and practice.
Diane Sawyer co-anchored the CBS Morning News, from 1981 to 1984 and Katie Couric spent five years, starting in 2006, as the sole CBS Evening News anchor. Duffin, of Planet Money, said that when she's recording she tries to sound like "a more listenable, polished version" of herself.
Join the 50,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email. And their voices reflect indelible features of their backgrounds — where they're from and the voices they grew up with. Yet literally all of my female colleagues get constant criticism for how they speak or sound. I had to fight my own brain! If reporters find that their voices are "tired," reducing vocal fry might be one way to help.
She can help reporters reduce vocal fry in their speech if they want to. What’s the best way to follow how the news is changing? I had to fight my own brain! Some of the women now working as the network’s anchors got their start as foreign correspondents.
Though Sanders, of It's Been a Minute, has heard from listeners that he and his panelists use "like" too much, he thinks it's indicative of a good conversation.
The intent, Mitchell wrote, was explicitly democratic, to be “representative of the nation.
"I think of Ira Glass as the king of vocal fry," she said. "You're on the air, not having a conversation with a buddy in a bar. "You have an opportunity as a listener to expand your worldview by hearing all different types of voices," Sanders said. One listener from Massachusetts wrote: "We are writing to express our concern about the prevalence of the vocal fry affectation adopted by too many of your broadcast correspondents. They're actually choosing their path and doing the steering.". nasal, quizzical, and unashamedly female, Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. | last = Loviglio
William Siemering, the network’s first program director and the author of “Purposes,” wanted the voice of the network to communicate curiosity rather than authority.
| title = What do authority and curiosity sound like on the radio? We've been heard by NPR! Over his 10 years at NPR, he said he has grown emotionally to trust that his voice is enough.
People complained that young, female reporters rasped their voices in an unprofessional way. Is there not an audio producer charged with asking the reporters to speak with more maturity and confidence? Beginning in January 2017, the mean usage of ‘they hate’ on the network doubled.”. 4) #pubradiovoice Sitting in host chair for first time I channeled white voice from Midwest and lost my own. Their signature approach to signing off with their name and locale is a sonic pleasure for many NPR fans. She found that people over 40 heard the utterance without any creak as more authoritative, while people under 40 found both clips authoritative. "They can feel more comfortable, confident and relaxed, because they feel like they have command of this instrument and their performance," said Hansen. Those filler words of such concern to some listeners are especially likely to slip in on live radio, when there is no opportunity to edit out mistakes or other problems.
Duffin said voice critiques don't bother her personally but that she worries they limit who feels welcome on the air.
Loviglio, J. We receive a regular stream of complaints about how reporters and hosts talk on air. It sends the message that only some people can be trusted to report the news. Eckert, the linguist, found that the biggest users of vocal fry are actually men. The election could be contested and last for weeks after Nov. 3. Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer, and Cokie Roberts brought hard-nosed journalism and an inside-the-Beltway sensibility to the fledgling network in the 1970s. Speaking to Terry Gross on Fresh Air, linguist Penny Eckert described a preliminary study she conducted that asked participants to listen to two clips — one with creak and one without. In the Fresh Air episode about criticism of young women's voices she said,"People are busy policing young women's language, and nobody is policing older or younger men's language.". Sam Sanders, host of It's Been a Minute, said that learning to write in his own voice was difficult. Sometimes reporters do incorporate feedback about their delivery. ", He added, "There's a difference between sounding clear — and having great journalism behind that sound — and creating a sound that is pleasing to every listener in the audience. Scott Detrow, a politics reporter, is a white man. she didn't sound certain saying her own name, helps reporters hone their voices for air.
That holds true for the sources NPR interviews on the air, just as it does for the voices of correspondents and hosts.
He told me: That is a sign that I've opened them up, they feel comfortable and they're talking in the way that they just regularly talk.
It is always annoying, but sometimes makes the report(s) unlistenable.
Over his 10 years at NPR, he said he has grown emotionally to trust that his voice is enough. | ref = {{harvid|Loviglio|2019}} One from Texas wrote: "Not all Americans sound like White American politicians and I wish that could be reflected on your airwaves.". Of course, that is a feeling that non-white, non-male, non-midwesterners have felt for most of the history of broadcasting. Simstrom ascribes those criticisms to gender: "I have long had a theory that part of what people take issue with about our show is women speaking authoritatively about science.".
NPR has been expanding that palette from its founding." Jessica Hansen, one of the voices of NPR's funding credits and its in-house vocal coach, helps reporters hone their voices for air.
She likened speaking into a microphone to a "performance that should be as authentic as possible.". Yet literally all of my female colleagues get constant criticism for how they speak or sound.
If reporters find that their voices are "tired," reducing vocal fry might be one way to help. Reporters strive to sound clear and concise on air. (2019, Dec. 12). And when reporters and hosts deviate from that supposed standard, our office hears about it. One sound that some listeners are still adjusting to is often-called "vocal fry," a tendency to use a lower vocal register that can make words sound "creaky" as the vocal cords flap together. "We ought to be able to hear all of that in the voices that the audience is hearing, whether that voice is the voice of somebody in a community somewhere in the middle of the country or that voice is the voice of a host or reporter for NPR. She doesn't mind sounding human. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Whatever you think of, you're not alone: Many listeners have an idea of what an NPR voice should sound like. | url = https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/12/what-do-authority-and-curiosity-sound-like-on-the-radio-npr-has-been-expanding-that-palette-from-its-founding/ Web. I think it was around this time that the issue of vocal fry came to the foreground on NPR.
Occasional commentators Baxter Black, a cowboy poet from Texas; Vertamae Grosvenor, a culinary anthropologist born in the Gullah community of North Carolina; and Kim Williams, a naturalist, checked in during the late 1970s and early 1980s, with field reports from their corners of the country. NPR’s growth led to the opening of foreign bureaus, even as print publications hemorrhaged these expensive positions.
To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. She has received a few emails about her voice from listeners, including one that said she didn't sound certain saying her own name, which she briefly addressed in a Planet Money segment. But as the quotes above show, some listeners do notice — and they let the reporters know, too. This American Life even did a segment on the negative messages their women reporters receive about vocal fry. Curating distinctive voices “rich with the rhythms and accents of their regions” was another explicit way in which All Things Considered initially sought to sonically mark its difference from what had come before, according to Stamberg. He told me: That is a sign that I've opened them up, they feel comfortable and they're talking in the way that they just regularly talk. Indeed, there's an ongoing conversation within public radio about the extent to which the industry asks some journalists to change their voices to conform to the (mostly white) voices that came before them. As a historian of radio, I’ve written about the medium’s unique blend of intimate voices and public address. ", He added, "There's a difference between sounding clear — and having great journalism behind that sound — and creating a sound that is pleasing to every listener in the audience. She found that people over 40 heard the utterance without any creak as more authoritative, while people under 40 found both clips authoritative. As the 50th anniversary of public radio draws near, I’m interested in NPR’s contradictory legacy of both sonic innovation and monotony. NPR has been expanding that palette from its founding
After she appeared live on Morning Edition for the first time, she received a detailed email from a listener, urging her to stop using filler words. "What would happen if you approached different-sounding voices with curiosity and said 'Let me see how this works, see how this feels, and try to understand where they're coming from'? From nasal New York accents to vocal fry, NPR’s anchors and reporters have long inflamed debates about whose voices should represent the nation — or just be heard by it. Keith Woods, NPR's vice president of newsroom training and diversity, told me that a variety of voices is one way to achieve greater journalistic truth. When he was starting out, he found editors "strip[ping] away [his] character" by removing vernacular and colloquialisms that felt unique to him. A new group of broadcast competitors and its likely new set of bosses see it differently. (Mark Memmott, the standards and practices editor, has addressed some of those issues in the past.). The critique, which comes mostly from men and older folks, suggested that despite what other critics claimed, NPR’s sound was not static but evolving.
One thing journalists I spoke to said: They're real people and they'd like to sound real too.
"If you sound like America, then it's America that's talking. Or you might hear the hushed monotone parodied in Saturday Night Live's iconic "Schweddy Balls" sketch. She said she wants to give reporters more control of their voices to increase their storytelling options. ", Another listener from Minnesota wrote that "millennial correspondents" who speak with vocal fry "seems to counter NPR's high standards. I would rather have my guests say the word "like" a lot or me say the word "like" a lot and have a richer, deeper, better conversation that goes more places than have everyone be buttoned up and stifled as guests and you never hear the word "like.". One from Texas wrote: "Not all Americans sound like White American politicians and I wish that could be reflected on your airwaves.".