Podcasts about viki merrick

Studs Terkel is considered by many to be a patron saint of documentary radio journalism. It's been 15 years since his death. On this archive episode of Sound School from 2012, Rob talks to Syd Lewis who worked with Studs for 25 years. The show also includes a lengthy excerpt from "Working With Studs," a Transom Radio Special produced by Syd, Jay Allison, and Viki Merrick.  

Typically, what happens between an editor and a producer is private. In this archive episode of the Sound School Podcast from 2014, editor Viki Merrick and producer Will Coley offer listeners a gift taking us behind the scenes for the production of Will's first-person documentary "Southern Flight 242: Bringing My Father Home." As Viki put it, she had to coach Will through "the emotional ditch" to fully tell the story.

This week, we take a look at the origins of The Moth Radio Hour. This episode is hosted by Jay Allison and Viki Merrick. Host: Jay Allison and Viki Merrick Storytellers: Michaela Murphy and Buddy Vanderhoop

Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr. had a complicated relationship with his mother. But after she passed, he traveled across the world to try and make things better. This story comes from Transom.org and was produced by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr. and Jay Allison Additional production by Pat Mesiti-Miller Special thanks to Kadijatu Suma, Haja Suma, Fatima Rahman, Alimamy Conteh, Sheri Rickson, Lynn Levy and Gimlet Media. Thomas King, Brima Thomas, and Jartu Tejan-Thomas. Thanks also to Milo, Mason and Melissa Allison, Viki Merrick, Samantha Broun, Sydney Lewis, Rob Rosenthal, and WCAI and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole Massachusetts. Season 11 - Episode 7 The beat doesn’t happen without YOU. Support Snap storytelling... stories you won't hear anywhere else.

An author writes a spoof “kids” book about going to sleep, a family’s obsessive love of a baseball team, a teenage girl discovers her crush is in a gang, and a presidential speech writer has a secret. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison and Viki Merrick of Atlantic Public Media. Hosted by: Sarah Austin Jenness Storytellers: Adam Mansbach, Marie Hershkowitz, Deborah Allen Carr, and Jon Lovett

Arlo Guthrie’s song " Alice’s Restaurant" shone a light on Alice Brock and she became an icon for many during the 60’s. Alice returned to Provincetown and her friend Viki Merrick, also her former employee, spoke with her about one of her unusual projects.

This hour, the story of how an event affected one woman, her family and the criminal justice system. A Life Sentence: Victims, Offenders, Justice and My Mother by Samantha Broun and Jay Allison for Atlantic Public Media and Transom.org In 1994, Sam Broun's mother, Jeremy Brown, was the victim of a violent crime. She was 55 years old and living alone. A stranger came into her backyard, attacked her from behind and five hours later, he left her lying on her bed — hands and feet bound with tape. Alive. She survived. This is a story of how the system failed and how that crime launched and destroyed political careers. It's also a story about family — both the victims and the assailants — and how thousands of prisoners' hopes for a second chance were lost. This piece was made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts with special thanks to Thanks to Rob Rosenthal, Melissa Allison, Sydney Lewis, Viki Merrick, public radio station WCAI and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Producer Will Coley and editor Viki Merrick offer HowSound listeners a gift by talking about their editorial process, a working relationship that is usually not shared publicly.

“Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent’s Dilemma” on PRX About Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent’s Dilemma This project was born in the place where so many good ideas come to life — Woods Hole. I was visiting Jay and the Transom Story Workshop to talk about making radio. Like good reporters, Jay and Melissa Allison, Viki Merrick, Samantha Broun, Sydney Lewis, and Rob Rosenthal asked me a lot of tough questions. As I answered, I realized the tables had been turned on me, that by confronting me with the curiosity I usually apply to the people I interview, they were getting me to say and realize things I didn’t even know were true. I had deep concerns about my job, but I never would have examined them this fully had it not been for the welcoming, open, supportive, loving hearts in Woods Hole — and, later, for conversations I had with my dear friend, the great radio producer, Sean Cole. At one point I remember writing an email to Jay that said something like, “If I really go through with this project, I will end up quitting my job.” We’ll see about that. What I do know is that making this story has totally altered the way I look at what I and most of my friends do for a living. It has made me more aware and ultimately more safe in the field. It was hard, it was personal, but I think it was worth it. What I learned One of the biggest lessons for me was that it’s all about perspective. It’s one thing to talk about this stuff casually with friends (and with yourself), but it’s another thing to really dig deep and try to prosecute the ideas, especially when it’s your own life that’s on the stand. Doing this kind of work is hard, and it takes time. When Jay and I started this back in 2011, he suggested I record diaries as I went along. No expectations — just record what comes to mind as it’s happening. It sounds easy, but for me it was hard. Just that simple act of stepping back, removing myself from the moment, was a struggle. Some of the diaries were unusable, mainly because I wasn’t able to step back far enough, or because they were just too sad. Here’s diary I recorded at like 3:00 a.m., in Yemen, the week that Anthony Shadid (the award-winning journalist for the The New York Times) died. I had just heard that another member of the tribe, Marie Colvin (the award-winning journalist for the British paper The Sunday Times), died. Listening back to this clip, it’s clear I didn’t have much perspective. I talk about how I’m NOT a war correspondent like Marie and others, and yet only a few months later, I was basically embedded with Syrian rebels. Months after that I was at the front line. Also, I talk about how Marie’s stories had some bearing on the international community’s policy in Syria, clearly because that’s what I wanted to believe. It’s only now that I can painfully admit her stories had little impact. The killing in Homs, the place where she was reporting when she died, continued after her death. More than one year later, it continues today. Still, keeping a diary was really, really cool. So cool that I still do it, as a matter of course. One great help is that I can do it on my iPhone. I just tap Hindenburg and start talking. That way if I’m in public, I don’t look like a crazy cat lady — I look like I’m talking on the phone. At the risk of repeating myself, I have to say that I think the key here was knowing that someone would be *listening* to these diaries, that someone actually cared to know what I had to say.

“Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent’s Dilemma” on PRX About Diary of a Bad Year: A War Correspondent’s Dilemma This project was born in the place where so many good ideas come to life — Woods Hole. I was visiting Jay and the Transom Story Workshop to talk about making radio. Like good reporters, Jay and Melissa Allison, Viki Merrick, Samantha Broun, Sydney Lewis, and Rob Rosenthal asked me a lot of tough questions. As I answered, I realized the tables had been turned on me, that by confronting me with the curiosity I usually apply to the people I interview, they were getting me to say and realize things I didn’t even know were true. I had deep concerns about my job, but I never would have examined them this fully had it not been for the welcoming, open, supportive, loving hearts in Woods Hole — and, later, for conversations I had with my dear friend, the great radio producer, Sean Cole. At one point I remember writing an email to Jay that said something like, “If I really go through with this project, I will end up quitting my job.” We’ll see about that. What I do know is that making this story has totally altered the way I look at what I and most of my friends do for a living. It has made me more aware and ultimately more safe in the field. It was hard, it was personal, but I think it was worth it. What I learned One of the biggest lessons for me was that it’s all about perspective. It’s one thing to talk about this stuff casually with friends (and with yourself), but it’s another thing to really dig deep and try to prosecute the ideas, especially when it’s your own life that’s on the stand. Doing this kind of work is hard, and it takes time. When Jay and I started this back in 2011, he suggested I record diaries as I went along. No expectations — just record what comes to mind as it’s happening. It sounds easy, but for me it was hard. Just that simple act of stepping back, removing myself from the moment, was a struggle. Some of the diaries were unusable, mainly because I wasn’t able to step back far enough, or because they were just too sad. Here’s diary I recorded at like 3:00 a.m., in Yemen, the week that Anthony Shadid (the award-winning journalist for the The New York Times) died. I had just heard that another member of the tribe, Marie Colvin (the award-winning journalist for the British paper The Sunday Times), died. Listening back to this clip, it’s clear I didn’t have much perspective. I talk about how I’m NOT a war correspondent like Marie and others, and yet only a few months later, I was basically embedded with Syrian rebels. Months after that I was at the front line. Also, I talk about how Marie’s stories had some bearing on the international community’s policy in Syria, clearly because that’s what I wanted to believe. It’s only now that I can painfully admit her stories had little impact. The killing in Homs, the place where she was reporting when she died, continued after her death. More than one year later, it continues today. Still, keeping a diary was really, really cool. So cool that I still do it, as a matter of course. One great help is that I can do it on my iPhone. I just tap Hindenburg and start talking. That way if I’m in public, I don’t look like a crazy cat lady — I look like I’m talking on the phone. At the risk of repeating myself, I have to say that I think the key here was knowing that someone would be *listening* to these diaries, that someone actually cared to know what I had to say.

About Killer Whales I’m a scientist. Well, that used to be my fulltime job. Now I make radio and multimedia about science…mostly. Let me back up. While I was finishing my PhD in oceanography, I thought about what I would do when I graduated. I wanted a job where I’d continue to learn. And I wanted to have the chance to be creative. I considered academics, maybe science policy. And I also thought about doing radio. I met up with Samantha Broun at Atlantic Public Media and discovered they were making “science minutes” for WCAI, the local radio station in Woods Hole. More about those science minutes later. I began to see how I could blend my academic training with my burgeoning interest in radio. As a scientist, I studied marine mammals. Seals. Dolphins. Whales. But mostly killer whales. Last summer, I made plans to visit my friend Volker who was searching for killer whales off the Shetland Islands (north of Scotland). I decided to bring along some gear and make a radio piece about the trip. Before leaving, Jay Allison and Viki Merrick gave me a lot of advice: Record everything. Talk with the locals. Capture conversations. Remember that the characters I find charming will probably charm others who are listening to the piece. Use the microphone like a diary, a confessional, a cell phone. Capture the sights, tastes, smells, textures of Shetland. I went to the Shetland Islands hoping for at least one incredible encounter with the killer whales, which would allow me to capture the excitement of doing fieldwork, the joy of science in action. I had anticipated recording the adrenaline and eagerness in Volker’s voice as he coordinated the field effort aboard the small inflatable boat. The sounds of sea spray, killer whale exhalations, and shrieks of discovery each time an animal surfaced. But I learned that in radio, just like in field biology, you don’t always get what you want. I stayed in Shetland with Volker and his field team for almost 5 days. But each day passed without our seeing a single killer whale, an outcome that was not all that unexpected (as a scientist) though somewhat disappointing (as a radio producer). I recorded as many of the locals and tourists as I could and interviewed the field team at great length. I captured ambient sounds (the wind, the birds, the hum of a motor, cooking noises, an impromptu chorus of the field team blowing air over beer bottles one night in the cabin) and transition sounds. But no whales. Maybe I had forgotten to contact their agent. I came home with hours of tape and not a single killer whale encounter. Obviously, this changed the type of story that I could tell. I had to rethink my plan. When I returned to Woods Hole, I played the tape for Jay and Viki and they pushed me to rethink the piece through a more human lens, one that considered what motivates people to pursue their passions even if it means waiting around for days with no pay-off. That advice really helped. So I made this piece instead, which is more about the search than the reward. And I hope that kind of quest is something that lots of people – those that study killer whales and those that don’t – can relate to. [donation copy=”Killer whales, people, it’s not every day you get that”] Gear I used a Marantz 620 digital recorder and Beyer MCE 58 omni microphone. I liked the setup because all of my gear fit into the mic bag, which made it easy to transport in the field. Those Science Minutes I Mentioned Earlier Atlantic Public Media initiated the whole Sonic IDs idea that other local NPR stations have picked up. Like sonic IDs, science minutes (also produced by Atlantic Public Media) are brief (30 – 90 seconds), sound-rich portraits. But science minutes are portraits of scientists, their work and its relevance to everyday life.

About Killer Whales I’m a scientist. Well, that used to be my fulltime job. Now I make radio and multimedia about science…mostly. Let me back up. While I was finishing my PhD in oceanography, I thought about what I would do when I graduated. I wanted a job where I’d continue to learn. And I wanted to have the chance to be creative. I considered academics, maybe science policy. And I also thought about doing radio. I met up with Samantha Broun at Atlantic Public Media and discovered they were making “science minutes” for WCAI, the local radio station in Woods Hole. More about those science minutes later. I began to see how I could blend my academic training with my burgeoning interest in radio. As a scientist, I studied marine mammals. Seals. Dolphins. Whales. But mostly killer whales. Last summer, I made plans to visit my friend Volker who was searching for killer whales off the Shetland Islands (north of Scotland). I decided to bring along some gear and make a radio piece about the trip. Before leaving, Jay Allison and Viki Merrick gave me a lot of advice: Record everything. Talk with the locals. Capture conversations. Remember that the characters I find charming will probably charm others who are listening to the piece. Use the microphone like a diary, a confessional, a cell phone. Capture the sights, tastes, smells, textures of Shetland. I went to the Shetland Islands hoping for at least one incredible encounter with the killer whales, which would allow me to capture the excitement of doing fieldwork, the joy of science in action. I had anticipated recording the adrenaline and eagerness in Volker’s voice as he coordinated the field effort aboard the small inflatable boat. The sounds of sea spray, killer whale exhalations, and shrieks of discovery each time an animal surfaced. But I learned that in radio, just like in field biology, you don’t always get what you want. I stayed in Shetland with Volker and his field team for almost 5 days. But each day passed without our seeing a single killer whale, an outcome that was not all that unexpected (as a scientist) though somewhat disappointing (as a radio producer). I recorded as many of the locals and tourists as I could and interviewed the field team at great length. I captured ambient sounds (the wind, the birds, the hum of a motor, cooking noises, an impromptu chorus of the field team blowing air over beer bottles one night in the cabin) and transition sounds. But no whales. Maybe I had forgotten to contact their agent. I came home with hours of tape and not a single killer whale encounter. Obviously, this changed the type of story that I could tell. I had to rethink my plan. When I returned to Woods Hole, I played the tape for Jay and Viki and they pushed me to rethink the piece through a more human lens, one that considered what motivates people to pursue their passions even if it means waiting around for days with no pay-off. That advice really helped. So I made this piece instead, which is more about the search than the reward. And I hope that kind of quest is something that lots of people – those that study killer whales and those that don’t – can relate to. [donation copy=”Killer whales, people, it’s not every day you get that”] Gear I used a Marantz 620 digital recorder and Beyer MCE 58 omni microphone. I liked the setup because all of my gear fit into the mic bag, which made it easy to transport in the field. Those Science Minutes I Mentioned Earlier Atlantic Public Media initiated the whole Sonic IDs idea that other local NPR stations have picked up. Like sonic IDs, science minutes (also produced by Atlantic Public Media) are brief (30 – 90 seconds), sound-rich portraits. But science minutes are portraits of scientists, their work and its relevance to everyday life.