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We talk a lot about the intimacy of audio, but really taking listeners into someone elseâs life is a complicated challenge. Audio diaries are a powerful way to do just that. Told entirely in a characterâs own voice, these accounts bring you inside their thought processes, inside their daily struggles - without the interruption or interpretation of a narrator.Â
Award-winning audio and documentary producer Jo Erickson often uses audio diaries in her work. Jo is a producer for Colorado Public Radioâs Audio Innovations Studio. She currently hosts and reports Systemic, an award-winning podcast that uses audio diaries to document the lives of people working to create change. Season one was about police reform; season two is about education.Â
Here Jo shares her key tips for producing gripping audio diaries:
Immerse your listenersÂ
Audio diaries became my substitute for work I couldnât do myself as a field reporter. Coming from the BBC, I made a lot of documentaries about young people - following them as they were dealing with issues. For example I followed a young Black man after he lost his best friend to knife crime. I wanted to still be in that space with people as theyâre going through an issue or crisis.Â
So when I find a subject, Iâm trying to see it through their lens - and audio diaries are probably the best way to get to that lens. You can feel immersed in their work [or story]. Â
Start at the beginningÂ
From the outset, you have to do some investigations to know whether this personâs story has legs to give you enough material. Theyâve got to be in a space where they still have decisions to make. If theyâre already through, forget it - because all youâve got is reflection at that point. You need to be near the beginning of their story. You need the diarist to be in the moment of whatever crisis theyâre going through.Â
Some stories already have a natural beginning, like a shooting. That would be a beginning - itâs like, how do you heal from that trauma.Â
Letâs take the new season of Systemic as an example. For episode one, No Equity, No Voice, I met a woman called Melissa, a lovely Black woman who is a school volunteer and has four children at the school. She showed me a video that was so horrific. In it, Melissa is directing traffic at the school when out of the blue she is assaulted verbally by another parent who was picking up her white kid. There were a lot of N words - it was really nasty. Melissa had the gumption to film the incident. When I saw the video, I knew this wasnât going to disappear. I knew she was at the beginning of this thing - she still has to take her kids to the same school this womanâs [kids are] at. It was like, how does a Black woman navigate this?Â
Think of the wider context
Diaries can be a way for us to cover a broad subject or systemic issue through a focussed perspective. In Melissaâs story, there was the bigger picture of school boards being taken over by radicalised parents. They want to stop the teachings of Black History Month, they donât want their children to know about LGBTQ - thatâs the backdrop of this story. Melissa took me on her journey - and what the school did to remedy the situation, which was very little.Â
She recorded herself on good days, bad days. I recorded her children as they dealt with this, I recorded the school board as they banned the equity board. I recorded school board meetings where people were just incredibly racist. But it was all through her lens. You felt like you were really in her life - you felt her anxieties, you felt her childrenâs anxieties.Â
Listen and guideÂ
Itâs your responsibility to listen to the audio diaries as soon as youâre sent them. Log them and listen! Then if you need more information, itâs about asking the diarist to stay in the moment a little longer.Â
Often when people are talking about their lives, theyâll say, âI donât know what to talk aboutâ. Itâs your job to help them along. Because inevitably the first few diaries you get wonât say all that much - itâs surface level: âI went to the shop today, then I did this, then I did that.â So youâre going to listen and ask them to tell the story: what shop was it? Who did you meet? What happened in the parking lot? Logistically you can do this via an interview, and then cut out your own questions in the edit.Â
The process takes a while because the journey is on both sides. Remember that weâre privileged in that they are opening up their lives. You always want to be thanking the diarist and praising what theyâve recorded.Â
Start building your story arc early
While youâre listening youâll see thereâs a lot of stuff that you donât want or need: youâre cherry-picking the best bits. And then youâre thinking about where to expand the story, what the key areas might be. You need to start plotting the story arcs and have your highs and lows.Â
Not all diaries have to be explosive
In S2E3 of Systemic, Tipping Point, we meet Kevin, a Black teacher. He was the poster boy for pushing equity in his school. But there was something he said to me that I thought, oh I can see this as a story. He said: âEvery day, I wake up and I just want to leave.â The backdrop is so many people have left the teaching profession - thereâs a teacher shortage, itâs an absolute crisis. And for teachers of colour, itâs really bad.Â
I spoke to Kevin a couple of times but wasnât sure what I could do with this. Because what he was describing was so difficult to capture: he was describing microaggressions towards him as a Black male teacher. How do you capture that? Itâs nuanced.Â
It meant investigating things that happened during the school year that seemed to recur in his life. For example, Kevin teaches AP history. And his English-teacher colleagues would be asking him about the use of the N word historically in Huckleberry Finn. Heâs like, âyou guys shouldnât be coming to me with this because Iâm a Black person!â
Or another time when he was talking about Black girls being very loud in class. And how that was being interpreted [by other teachers] as âtheyâre unruly, theyâre not listeningâ. Kevin was explaining, âactually theyâre excited! Theyâre really into the class but youâre interpreting that behaviour as disruptive and something that needs to be suppressed.â Itâs like why are you sending young people to detention because they have a different way of expressing their engagement? Canât we have space in the classroom for them to express their joy?
So with Kevinâs journey, it wasnât the explosive story with big drama moments. It was smaller, it was nuanced. But it was something that I donât think anyone has ever discussed: what do microaggressions really mean and how do they impact people over the course of a year? People didnât necessarily see things from a Black teacherâs lens, or see how these microaggressions might be connected to why teachers are leaving [the profession].Â
(As for where that diary began in time, I started it at the beginning of the school year - so you can find a chronological beginning in that way).
You want scene tape
For instance if your diarist is going to have a meal with their extended family, ask them to put the phone in the middle of the table with everybody talking. I donât care if theyâre all talking over each other - Iâm bound to get something thatâs lovely for my purposes. 95% of that tape I canât use, but 5% of it will be exquisite! Itâll be scene-setting, it will give me drama, it will immerse me in that scene. So keep in touch with the diarist, ask where theyâre going, and if they can record there.Â
Itâs a relationshipÂ
Your diarist might be having a bad day and you can hear that in their voice - but maybe you donât have enough of that tape. So you need to have a difficult conversation where you ask them to stay in that low moment and really explore it.Â
For that, you need to have developed a good rapport with them. And itâs more than journalism, itâs like being a friend. I donât like the word exploitative, but in journalistic terms it can be seen as exploitative. In podcasting terms, itâs storytelling. You want those deep moments. Theyâre talking to you as someone that they trust. This is key with audio diaries - because itâs not parachute journalism where you come in, do the story and you never see them again. This is a prolonged relationship, and like any relationship it develops over time. I often share my own personal moments with them, which encourages them to share.Â
Be mindful of traumaÂ
Everyone is different in how they express or navigate trauma. S2E3 of Systemic, Safe Space, features Naomi, an educator who has a gender-fluid 10-year-old. Itâs the same school district as Melissa, where theyâre targeting LGBTQ youth. Naomiâs freaking out; sheâs scared. At some point she doesnât want her child to be in the school. The bullying and the abuse is just out of control.Â
I suggested using the audio diary as therapy. So every night before she went to bed, she would decompress her day. She was sharing that she was frightened, she was crying. Sheâs pouring her heart and soul out because thereâs no one to turn to in the school. Sheâs feeling isolated and using her audio diaries to let it out.Â
I know Iâve got this really sensitive tape. So I started editing and then sent it to her. This is the biggest no-no for journalists to send your edited stuff to the person that you are telling the story about! But I think itâs a courtesy and I donât want to exploit or make things worse. So I donât hide anything. I asked her, is there something I should change - and I will change it. I was happy to have her guidance - and then I took it to my editor from there.Â
Logistics
In terms of recording, youâve got to make things easy for people - always, always. Iâve never given anyone any equipment, they always record on their phones.
How often the diarist records is subjective, but my starting point is two diaries per week. If I havenât had something in four or five days, Iâll prompt them â in a friendly way!Â
As for the length of the process, I always go in thinking three to six months. Some of them have been longer because I wasnât sure what the ending was. As the producer, youâll know when the ending is. You want to make sure youâre still in the moment, where the story is still happening â not reflections.Â
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I've been really disappointed in trying to find audio documentaries lately. I want cinéma vérité, but no one makes them in that style. What Jo is doing sounds close to what I'm looking for. Thanks for sharing her work.