Week 5- Radio & the sounds of silence

I was looking forward to the Richard Fidler interview in the lecture for week 5. I try to listen to Conversations as much as possible. I like his interview style; he seems engaged and friendly and seems to create a sense of trust and harmony with the person he is interviewing.

He offered many good insights and advice on conducting radio interviews and the use of radio as a medium. The fact that there are no visual aids has positives and negatives. Radio can be very intimate, but it can also fade away into the background while people are ‘driving, making breakfast’ etc. This is important to remember for later on when he mentions who he sees as his ‘audience’. He considers it his job to be a facilitator between the audience and the interviewee; a striking and wonderful description.

Conversations is an hour show, usually with just one guest but sometimes two. Nevertheless the research that would go into the show must be very thorough. He says that often the best guests are people whom no one has heard of. That reminded me of one show I listened to with Colin Dillon, Australia’s first Indigenous police officer. I had never heard of Colin Dillon but it was one of the more interesting interviews I had listened to, and still remember it vividly more than three years later.

An interviewer needs to be curious and interested. Fidler argues against following a relentless and belligerent line of questioning. The interviewee is likely to become defensive and offer less. One of my favourite interviewers is Andrew Denton. I loved watching Enough Rope. There are a number of clips I could use as an example of the way he creates an environment and trust to get the most out of his interview subject but I chose to share this clip because Dave Grohl rarely speaks about Kurt Cobain, and in this clip he spoke so beautifully and unhindered about Nirvana, Cobain and Cobain’s suicide. (From about 5:00 on).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0bsPaIz9Wk

He mentioned the use of silence. I would have thought silence in radio would have to be a big no-no but he said silence can be incredibly powerful. But it shows respect for the guest. You don’t want to jump in the second after they have revealed something incredibly powerful or personal. It makes perfect sense and I have taken notice of this when listening to interviews since.

Towards the end he gave advice for journalism students such as worldliness, voracious reading, ask questions, be open minded. But the most interesting thing he said was to have a willingness to expose yourself to people and ideas you disagree with, people with different currents of thought. It seems so simple but it is so necessary. I struggle to sit through more than one minute of FOX news. The only time I have watched Bill O’Reilly for more than five minutes is looking up YouTube videos where he gets shot down in an argument (like below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_uBWxdZqpI&feature=related

Radio seems to be moving with technology as well as any other news medium. Podcasts, online streaming are available worldwide for popular radio shows. If anything radio has found a new and larger audience.