I have been editing and playing with audio since I began my radio career at the age of 17, nearly 40 years ago. I began with a razor blade, a splicing tool and white splicing tape to edit together sound on reel-to-reel tape. I became an artist at this kind of editing, because you only really get one shot to make the edit sound good. The advent of digital editing has made the task easier, but I still consider audio editing to be an art form. I am proud of the audio work I can produce.
(Note: Please remember that some of these pieces were produced in the 1990s and early 2000s. My equipment and skills have improved since then.)
Storytelling examples:
Soulforce action at Bob Jones University, April 5, 2007
(Background article)
News reports:
16-year-old Charles (Chet) Planchard was working at a Burger King in Cobb County, Georgia, on March 11, 1992, when Ronald Lupez Freeman walked in, placed an order, then shot and killed Planchard in what police would later say was a gang initiation. I visited with his family in the wake of his murder. Their grief is palpable.
This story/report won the AP award for feature news in 1992. I visited an archaeological dig and learned the truth behind the Hollywood glitz.
A 911 operator walks a frantic mother through CPR when she finds her child lifeless in the bathtub.
I got to talk with a lot of people about their hopes for 1993 as the peach dropped in Atlanta on New Year’s Eve.
Podcast production and hosting examples:
Rainbow Radio – A pre-recorded radio show that aired in South Carolina from 2006-2007
- Cleve Jones – an American AIDS and LGBT rights activist who conceived the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
Whosoever Godcast – A podcast for Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ Christians, which I founded in 1996.
- Peterson Toscano
- Diana Butler Bass – Author/Christian historian
- Organizer of the Ku Klux Klowns protest in Knoxville, Tenn. (Background article)
Weekly Wisdom from Jubilee! Circle – a podcast of weekly sermons from Jubilee! Circle.