Our work depends on artifice, but how much is too much?
From Sound Reporting by Jonathan Kern:
Unlike newspapers, which use ellipses to show that quotes have been compressed, or TV interviews, which sometimes include visible video dissolves, radio interviews [and audio interviews on the Web] don’t reveal their edits in any obvious way. … So be very careful that you don’t change the meaning of what someone said when you trim an answer or question. As Sara Sarasohn puts it, the producer has to be faithful to the intentions of both the host and the guest. …
If you’re cutting an interview, it’s understood that you may need to drop questions and answers, or shorten answers, or tighten up questions. But you may be tempted to go too far — collapsing two answers into one, rearranging the order of questions, and so on. When you make such extensive changes, the result may not reflect what actually happened in studio. …
No one in public radio argues that it’s ethical to deceive the listener. What people are constantly trying to define is when deception occurs. After all, the production process necessarily involves a certain amount of manipulation of audio, whether it’s simply picking the actualities out of a raw interview or fading the sound of a farmer’s combine under a reporter’s voice track.
Our art depends on a certain amount of artifice. So how much is too much? Does every ambience bed suggest that the reporter is really on site, and not in the studio? Should a host always make clear to the audience when an interview has been recorded? If a live interview is rebroadcast on a ‘rollover’ of a program, should it be preceded by an announcement that it was previously recorded. Should the entire show start with such an announcement? …
Whether you are a producer, reporter, editor or host, it’s worthwhile at least to discuss these issues, and to try to come to some agreement with your colleagues about which production techniques might be off-limits.
October 26, 2011
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