Jad Abumrad's Steps to Better Storytelling | Hacker News Reader

Jad Abumrad's Steps to Better Storytelling

descript.com

40 pointsnonoesp9 comments

I loved old school Radiolab, especially the themed episodes (e.g., Blood) but I stepped away from listening a few years ago because it started leaning too heavily on eyeroll-worthy ideas such as 'ooh, maybe there IS a mystical force behind this phenomenon!' The credulous tone was offputting for me. But I listened to a few recent episodes and it seems like they've dialed back that device.

One thing that still bothers me about the podcast, however, is hard to explain: as Radiolab listeners, we might hear a few sentences from an interviewee, then the host voiceover jumps in to summarize something, and then we hear a little "that's right!" or "yes!" or "mmm hmm" from the interviewee.

I know the interviewee is not actually reacting to what the host said, the voiceover is recorded after the interviews. The Radiolab sound designers just plucked the interviewee's confirmation vocalization from another part of the audio and inserted it there. To me it feels just a little bit dishonest, it's putting words in the interviewees' mouths. Imagine if you were interviewed for the show, and the host made an erroneous statement, and then your voice involuntarily chimes in with "That's right!"

It's just a little thing, but it rubs me the wrong way, and they've been doing it for as long as I've listened to the show.

I think that's mostly just clever editing. Standard interview practice is to just let the tape roll and talk about stuff as free-flowing as possible. Then pluck out the salient bits and inject explanation when they speak in shortcuts. Surely they could be putting words in a subject's mouth, but I seriously doubt it.

Oh, I'm sure their intent is to just brighten up the audio, make it more engaging. And they probably rarely or never misrepresent the views of their interviewees. Still, it just sits wrong with me for a person's words to be used to say something they didn't exactly intend to say. It's like quoting someone out of context.

Like I said, it's a little thing. It doesn't ruin the show for me, I just cringe a little every time the trick is used.

You have really hit the nail on the head. I couldn't really articulate why some episodes really irked me but this is exactly it. One episode that highlights were this process not only goes wrong but really disastrous is the yellow rain episode:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/segments/23954...

At some point, the story of yellow rain took over and a narrative was pushed. The hyperfocusing on the story is unfortunate because within the yellow rain narrative was another, potentially even more interesting: the persecution of the Hmong people and the chemical warfare in vietnam.

No you're right, I loved the old Radiolab but also started to think they were somehow "overproduced". It became difficult to listen to, I felt that the hosts were somehow indulging themselves more than anything.

I think the article is borderline corporate blogspam. I'm still glad to click-through and read because (a.) Abumrad is terrific, (b.) the steps seem to be a solid production process and (c.) the product seems interesting. "Better storytelling" is so much broader than the production process that I don't think the title is descriptive.

I agree with you. It's really five steps of Abumrad's process/workflow.

I love Jad Abumrad. This is just an ad though. Did Jad consent?

Hey, Grismar!

> This is just an ad though.

I'm a paying user of Descript and thought these tips can be great for someone getting started. I see your point of this being an ad—that was definitely not my intention sharing this.

> Did Jad consent?

If you're asking of whether Jad consent to have that blog post made, he's been collaborating with Descript to promote their product and appeared on some of their live events.

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