Laura Bertran, Supervising Editor, Arts Unit

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Laura Bertran came to work at NPR in 1982 for the division called Cultural Programs. During her time at NPR she’s worked in nearly every “behind the mic” position, including Broadcast Director, Line Producer, and Editor. Currently, she’s the Supervising Editor for the Arts Unit helping to guide the networks coverage of the arts, entertainment, media, and digital culture. In this session with NPR’s interns, she explains that a successful story pitch is one that grabs listener’s attention and makes them want to hear more. It’s important to know why it would interest NPR’s audience and how to tell the story.

More Next Gen information on pitching stories

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Barbara Bradley-Haggerty, NPR’s Religion Correspondent

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Photo: Steve Barrett ©2006

Barbara Bradley Hagerty has been the religion correspondent for NPR since January 2003. She reports on the intersection of faith and politics, law, science, and culture. Before that, she was NPR’s Justice Department correspondent and covered legal affairs and crime. Barbara spoke to the NPR intern class for the Fall of 2007 about how she finds and reports stories.

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Evie Stone, Producer, NPR’s National Desk

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Evie Stone joined NPR as the election unit intern in 2002, making giant posters for election night. She’s now on her fourth election with the network, and has worked her way up to field producer. Between political seasons Evie is a producer at NPR’s National Desk, covering news and feature stories ranging from Terri Schiavo to Hurricane Katrina to a Methodist family camp in Georgia.
Evie spoke to the Fall 2007 interns about how to create scenes for radio.

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NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling

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Daniel Zwerdling’s acclaimed investigative and documentary reports appear on all of NPR’s major news shows. His stories have repeatedly attracted national attention and generated national action. He has won numerous awards, including the Peabody, Edward R. Murrow, the Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the Robert F. Kennedy awards for investigative reporting.
In this discussion before the NPR intern class for the Fall of 2007, Daniel tells of his background and how he puts stories together.

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Jonathan Kern, News Training Unit

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Jonathan Kern has nearly thirty years experience in the radio news business. At the Voice of America, he was a producer, reporter, board operator, program host, editor and manager. At NPR, he spent five years as editor of All Things Considered, and one year - starting on September 11th, 2001 - as ATC’s Executive Producer. Since 2002, Kern has headed NPR’s News Training Unit. He is also the author of the broadcast journalism handbook Sound Reporting (to be published in Spring 2008).

More Next Gen information on writing for radio.

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Sora Newman, Acting Director of Training

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Sora Newman is Acting Director of Training for National Public Radio. She works with radio journalists at NPR as well as reporters throughout the NPR system. She teaches seminars in writing for radio, on-air delivery, and editing. She also runs a mentoring program within the newsroom, and oversees technical and production trainers. As an editor, Newman has won a DuPont –Columbia Award and a Peabody Award.

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Evie Stone, NPR National Desk Producer
David Greene, NPR White House Correspondent

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It’s the eternal (infernal?) question: “So, what does a producer do?” Next Gen columnist Martina Castro addressed it in a column a while back. Now, we’ve gone the extra, extra mile or three. Just like a producer. National Desk Producer Evie Stone and NPR’s White House Correspondent David Greene spoke to a class of interns and we recorded it. Evie and David pull out an example of an election related story they worked on together and explain how the relationship between a producer and reporter enhances the amount of work that can get done. It’s especially true these days where media companies are asking for more than a single radio story but visual content of same story, told slightly differently and under almost the same deadline.

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