Expert Tips for Editing Investigative Podcasts

Image: Shutterstock Expert Tips for Editing Investigative Podcasts In June 2020 local print reporter Sydney Brownstone visited the site of a shooting at a protest in Seattle, in the US, and just happened to record some video and audio of the angry and confused crowd on her iPhone. She had no idea that, years later, her recordings would end up as the lead scene in a major investigative podcast series, We Keep Us Safe, from NPR’s Embedded — which digs into untold or overlooked stories — on the unsolved killing of a teenager at a Black Lives Matter protest. As a narrator, Brownstone is heard saying: “I remember the shooting happened on a Monday morning, a few blocks from where I used to live in a neighborhood called Capitol Hill. An editor asked if I could go down and report from the scene… People are walking their dogs; grabbing their fancy coffee drinks. Then I cross over onto 12th Avenue and it’s like stepping into a different universe. I end up walking into ‘CHOP’ — an occupy-style protest that included a field of tents; there were crowds, art installations, and make-shift barricades. This morning — the morning of June 29th, 2020 — this isn’t just a protest. It’s a crime scene.” She continues to narrate over those recordings of gritty crowd sounds and hoarse cries, where you can faintly hear a clergyman shouting “Enough killing is enough!” In a session on editing investigative podcasts at the recent IRE26 conference, panelists agreed that this opening sequence alone crystallizes several key lessons for editors and reporters new to investigative podcasts. The panel featured Katie Colaneri, senior editor of podcasts at New Hampshire Public Radio, Adelina Lancianese, senior producer for NPR’s Embedded podcast, and Curtis Gilbert, deputy managing editor of investigations at APM Reports. The tips they mentioned included: - Your reporter-narrators don’t need to be audio people. Brownstone is a print reporter at The Seattle Times, but turned out to be a notable voice talent. - Old events deemed “dated” for text stories are actually a plus for podcasts. Unlike the heavy bias toward recent events in traditional text investigations, Gilbert said investigations connected to historical or origin moments lend themselves well to the podcast format. “You need to choose stories that unfold in chapters,” he said. “If the story started 20 years ago, the passage of time creates natural chapters: subsequent events, plot twists, surprises.” - Encourage reporters to record everything — and archive it. “Always be recording — it’s easier than you might think,” Lancianese advised. “Everyone has a quality recorder in their pocket now: your phone. You don’t need some fancy recorder or shotgun mic. If you get a public records request and it’s not what you asked for: record your frustration. A source you’ve been after for six months finally agrees to talk: record your reaction. You won’t use 90% of that, but the 1% or 5% you use will make your podcast story more interesting.”She added: “You never know — six years from now — whether the tape you’re recording might make a podcast series later.” Tip: Tell your reporters never to type on their keyboards while recording phone or video interviews, and to rather transcribe later. The tap-tap-tap noise from typing, panelists agreed, tends to render recorded sound unusable, even with advanced noise cancellation apps. “There are bad habits, and I can’t tell you how many reporters I’ve worked with who are interviewing someone on Zoom or whatever and you hear the tap-tap-tap of them typing,” Lancianese lamented. “Think in sound.” - Tape does not have to be perfect. “Quality recording is important and studio interviews are great; but all settings together are even better,” said Lancianese. “You want your reporter meeting people where they are: in the cafe; on the phone; in the field. I think stories that are recorded totally in-studio aren’t really interesting, because the texture isn’t there, it feels artificial.” Referring to Brownstone’s opening scene, she added: “It isn’t perfect tape; you can hear background noise; there’s a lot of chaos; it’s a combination of video and iPhone audio – but it was visceral, and such a good starting place.” - Text writing rules don’t apply. A podcast script can switch easily between past and present tense; between first and third person; between relevant facts and the reporter’s personal life — seemingly breaking every journalism school rule in the cause of telling a gripping, building, relatable story. - Behind-the-scenes newsroom decisions are relevant content. Details of reporting assignments and news desk decisions that are never used in text stories can help reporters take podcast listeners along with them on their fact-finding journeys. - You don’t need “smoking-gun” findings in these investigations. As with many successful investigative podcasts, this project pursues a killing that remains officially unsolved — yet it shines a light and offers new insights and pathways to accountability. An investigative podcast editor, Colaneri noted, “is the person responsible for supporting the entire project, and the process of making it: the lead editorial figure, and the project manager.” Specifically, she explained, they are responsible for greenlighting the project, guiding the investigation, making decisions on fairness and ethics, setting a production schedule, and — perhaps most importantly — standing in for the future listener. “Podcasting is a team sport, involving reporters, producers, bosses, the marketing department,” said Colaneri. “But the editor is the 360-degree person, and editing in particular requires two modes: zooming out to see the bigger picture — ‘What’s this story really about? Why are we doing this story? Why is it a podcast?’ — and then zooming in. Focusing on really small details: ‘Did we get corroboration for this information? Is this really the right word here? Is it ethical to use that piece of tape?’” Why Make it an Investigative Podcast? Reasons to not present an investigation as a podcast can include a months-long time commitment; isolated incidents that are better suited to text; a dearth of human characters, non-systemic issues — and the podcaster’s maxim of “no tape, no story.” But the popularity of podcasts in general among audiences is growing rapidly around the world, with more than half of adults in nations such as Indonesia, South Africa, and Thailand now listening to at least one hour weekly, and adoption rates soaring in many other countries. And newsrooms are recognizing the format as a key channel for engaging younger audiences and non-traditional news consumers in accountability projects. “How many times have you heard from a friend: ‘I’m going on a long road trip; what podcasts should I listen to: maybe a juicy story that unfolds episode after episode?” Gilbert remarked. “And people share them.” He said the potential for virality, the satisfaction of emotive storytelling, and the media trust benefits of helping audiences understand how journalists work were other reasons to consider the format. And impact, he said, can still be achieved. Gilbert pointed to an APM Reports podcast, Sold a Story, by Emily Hanford which triggered changes to laws in 26 US states, after similarly excellent radio reporting by Hanford on the same education issue had failed to move the needle. “The first season of the podcast was about how schools were teaching in a way scientifically proven to not work,” he explained. “Previously, she made five, hour-long radio documentaries connected to the same topic, and the impact from those was nothing like what she got from the podcast. It had that long tail and a strong and viral nature — 26 states changed their laws afterward, it’s kind of amazing.” However, Gilbert said these projects generally do need the same ingredients, which include: - Twists, turns, and surprises that can anchor episodes - A strong central narrative - Audio or video tape of scenes and “found recordings” (police body camera; special media; archival clips) - Compelling characters - Evidence from data or documents - A big idea. “Not every story should be a podcast,” Gilbert conceded. “As an editor you need to ask: ‘Is this enough to sustain people’s interest in a serialized story?’ It’s got to have a bunch of things to keep people listening. Tape should be more than just your interviews; they need to have a sense of place; to bring listeners into rooms where things are happening; to get into individual interactions.” He added: “Look for a main character who wants something, but there’s something standing in their way. Use public records to ask: ‘Where else does this happen?; How often does this happen?’” The Editing Process Tips from the panel for the editing process included these: Keep a tape inventory spreadsheet in a single folder. “As tape is coming in — whether from iPhone for studio or whatever — keep track of it,” Lancianese advised. “It’s a game-changer. We had 750 rows in our spreadsheet (for “We Keep Us Safe,”), each one a different piece of tape over a year of reporting. On top of that, we had 300 rows of video, so over a thousand rows in total for easy tape access later on.” Be creative in presenting document-based evidence. Panelists said finding audio-format solutions for presenting dense evidence from records represents both a source of stress and fun for editors. For instance, Sowt’s Sharait program collected thousands of documents for its When Children Were Arrested podcast, which — in collaboration with Lighthouse Reports, BBC Eye, and others — revealed how an international NGO conspired with the Syrian Assad regime to steal children from their families. The solution that editor Mais Katt and her colleagues found was to invite a digital investigator at Lighthouse Reports to have a two-part conversation with the hosts to unpack the findings from those dense documents “in a natural way.” Use trusted podcasting tools — where you can edit audio simply by editing text. After the session, Lancianese provided GIJN with a list of podcast tools that work well for investigations, include these: - Descript – for both transcribing and drafting. - Riverside – an AI-powered platform that helps with remote audio or video interviewing. - Airtable or Trello – for making production calendars. - LucidChart – for storyboarding, mood boarding, and ideation. - Google Sheets – for keeping track of audio in a tape inventory. Lancianese used the Descript tool for the We Keep Us Safe project, which she described as “a game-changer.” “We used this as both a transcription tool and a scripting tool,” she recalled. “I’d upload the interview to transcribe it, and it offers speaker labels; headings; everything you need. When it came time to write the thing, we were still doing it in this program. It’s like the karaoke of the podcast world.” There are also several apps that can seamlessly strip out repeated “filler” phrases that might irritate listeners, such as “um” and “ah.” Debrief reporters and their tape to inspire onward questions. “When the reporter comes back, have a debrief session — like: ‘Oh my gosh, what did they say?’” said Colaneri. “But then I love the chance to take a walk and listen to all their raw tape, because then I know what they have, and also what they don’t have. So the next time we’re talking, I can say “Hey, the next time you talk to this source, do you think we could get x, y, or z? Can we also talk to this kind of person?’” Keep a production calendar. “For all these steps, you have to have a calendar,” said Lancianese. “Two tips: make a calendar, and keep adjusting it. You’re going to be blowing by many deadlines, because podcasts evolve over time. And stress-test your calendars, for where there are uncomfortable overlaps — where someone is doing three episodes at once – and plan for holidays. My favorite tool is Airtable, but even Google Docs can work.” Get early feedback from friends. “Unlike in print, we send our draft episodes out to a bunch of people and get their reaction — especially if they know nothing about the project,” Lancianese revealed. “We send drafts to a dozen people for feedback — a mix of subject matter experts; friends; peers. Then rinse and repeat for every episode.” Consider a rough draft walk-through as a storyboard. Since journalists are natural storytellers, panelists said an initial, marathon studio session with reporters can serve as a storyboarding model for the whole series. “On one project, we booked studio space eight hours a day, five days a week — and I asked the hosts and reporters to just tell the story from beginning to end,” Lancianese recalled. “We took that plus the audio from social media and interviews and scenes and created something that approximated an entire podcast series. That was like our story board: we could see ‘the structure works in this way but not that way.’ About 5% of the final product came from that draft session.” Use the authority of the future listener to cut. Panelists agreed that the passion of reporters and courage of sources makes it difficult to cut large sections of tape. But this is often required — and the editors can use their role as stand-in for listeners to justify it. “Stop yourself from getting too close to the material,” said Colaneri. “If there is too much, people won’t hear any of it.” She added: “The biggest part of the job is clearly articulating problems in the script, and working out the fixes. Pay attention to your gut reaction: ‘Am I feeling confused? Did I not understand that section? Am I just bored? Is too much coming at me? Or, on the positive side, ask: ‘Where am I feeling excited? Where am I feeling surprise?’” Rowan Philp is GIJN’s global reporter and impact editor. He was formerly chief reporter for South Africa’s Sunday Times. As a foreign correspondent, he has reported on news, politics, corruption, and conflict from more than two dozen countries around the world.