Ghost town.

Planted pansies yesterday.

Not sure where they came from! It's super-late in the season, but Charles scrounged some up, somewhere or other, and they were nicely rooted out. Of course, the ground was frozen solid in some places. Claudette came over and planted with Charles and me and it was delightful. Charles and Claudette get extremely campy when the lady of the house isn't around -- they sing showtunes in "call and response" and generally have a grand time, while all the same time planting pansies with incredible dispatch. Between the three of us, we got all eighteen flats planted in practically no time, and then topdressed, and watered in, and I dare say Sissy's has *never* looked so bloody fabulous as it looks now. A few crucial, previous "dark corners" have been planted to tie the whole thing together. By spring, it should be a raving marvel.

Charles had to work for Gertrude today, so there's nothing more to do at Sissy's, for the time being. Today, I head in to the newsroom.

At ten we'd planned on having the year-end "reporter's roundtable", where we bring in whatever print journalists will talk to us and discuss (a) what the biggest stories of the year were, and (b) look forward to what we can probably expect for the upcoming year. After a little scrambling, I got to engineer, which was a privilege.

Trip Jennings was there from the Albuquerque Journal -- he's New Mexico's quitessential "follow the money" reporter. If there's the slightest hint of so much as the appearance of fiscal malfeasance, he's likelier to get to the bottom of it than anyone in the state that I know.

Steve Terrell was there, too, from the Santa Fe New Mexican, whose knowledge of things happening in political circles is so forward-thinking it's almost frightening. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he knows who the next three governors will be -- but of course, he'd never quite come out and say that in the presence of other reporters.

I couldn't be happier just to be a fly on the wall.

Jim joined in on the conversation, and Steve moderated. I got to be the "engineer" because it's better just to moderate than it is to moderate while twiddling knobs with one hand and fading sliders up and down with the other.

My engineering wasn't perfect, but it got better as the conversation went on. It sounded "live", that's for damn sure -- I was mostly sitting there thinking "mic 2 is humming, and it seems to be feeding off mic 1 in such-and-such a way" so for the first ten minutes or so; until I figure out the unpredictable visual cues between mic-accustomed and print journalists, not to mention the differences between sliding faders and twiddling knobs. It sounds like people start talking off mic and then lean in, which the speakers were doing, a little, but not near as much as it sounds like, for the first ten minutes. At its worst, it's still worth listening to for its content, even if there are whole seconds now and then while I figure out who to fade up how much where and when.

The *content* of the conversation is intact, though I'm sure the best production people will cringe when they hear what I've done, from the depths of my ignorance. I *invite* their criticism: I've got *lots* to learn.

Many thanks to Tristan for figuring out a workaround for some unpleasant technical problems in Studio C -- if anything's wrong with the sound, at this point, I take full responsibility for it.

The conversation after we turned off the mics was *great*. And you'll just have to take my word on that. :)

Looked at the waveform and realised the levels were all over the place. With no disrespect to anyone involved, it takes actually working with mics on a daily basis -- and listening to the sound *as* it happens -- to figure out how close to place yourself, how loud to speak, and all of that. There were a bunch of variables and the sound was kind of "all over the place", level-wise.

Sam takes some time and fixes us up. First he does the "group waveform normalize" thing you can apparently only do in the version of the editing software that none of the newsroom people are comfortable using, because every time we try, we come a little bit too close to burning down the building.

But then, after he's done that, there are other issues, too. We're clipping in the upper frequencies here, and the bass is way overaccentuated there, but not clipping, and so on. He spends maybe half an hour fixing it up and putting it in a form where it can probably just be edited, straightforwardly. It's not flawless, network quality stuff, but heck, neither is most network stuff. It's *way* the hell more uniform and less clippy without a bunch of weird and unpredictable room noise than we could otherwise have hoped for. It was an education watching him. As always. If I only use one in ten things that he showed me, that's one thing I wouldn't otherwise have figured out how to do, on my own.

My intuition, as a careful listener to news and public affairs programs, tells me that if I can adjust the volume knob *once* at the beginning of a broadcast to a level that's comfortable for me, I'm *far* likelier to stay tuned through to the end, regardless whether a second here or there sounds "processed". I'm looking for dependable levels -- I don't want to have to turn my volume up and down -- and generally won't, unless what I am hearing is completely earth-shattering, hard, breaking NEWS and there's just no other way to get it. I'm also willing to take a little understated boosting of room noise from time to time -- *if* I don't have to change my volume to hear the ideas being expressed.

I don't listen to music the same way, and doubt anyone does.

I then spend a few hours taking three soundclips, editing those, writing a script around 'em, recording it, editing it, boosting my levels, and training myself how to manipulate envelope curves in multitrack editing mode so it sounds like I'm crossfading, for a "promo".

I totally respect the people in production. For me, with my mindset, production is just a means to an end. For them, they seem to enjoy production challenges in and of themselves. I enjoy it well enough, but only insofar as it serves the news department's end of things: the dissemination of facts, and what have you. But editing out 14 different f-bombs in a single song 14 different ways for something that *might* air at 3 AM? I deeply respect the mindset that undertakes such challenges, but I would never do such things, myself, just for the love of doing so.

I'm used to doing "news spots", which can range anywhere from "give listeners the relevant facts in an understandable format as quickly as possible" to "make a human story out of this complex policy issue" in anywhere from under a minute to oh, I dunno, a couple of minutes, tops, depending where you want it to get played in any given broadcast.

The line between "spot" and "feature" seems not to be super-clearly defined, but if a story's over 2 minutes it might as well be anywhere from 4 to 7 minutes long, depending on what else the host has got to run, and that time *better* be used well! I don't think I've done any serious "feature" stories, though I have come pretty damn close, a time or two. All in good time.

Airtime is priceless.

A "promo" is, perhaps, *the* perfect excercise in brevity, and it does me a *lot* of good to do one, now and then. It's basically a 30-second "teaser" spot that has to tell listeners why this matters, give them a little sample of what they can expect to hear when they listen to whatever show we're promo-ing, and drill it into their heads (in case they missed it the first time we said it) when and where they can tune in -- all without sounding like commercial radio.

I can put together a passable news story of two or three or four minutes length in under half an hour, if I have to. But producing a promo? That takes *hours*.

People will hear a news story *once*. People will hear a promo several times, probably; and its *intent* is different, because the whole purpose is not simply to beat the papers in telling people that "this happened", but to mould their future behaviour, to get them to actually tune in, when they might otherwise not. There's less margin of error on the one hand, and more time to play with getting it right, on the other. You're trying to do far more with less. All I figure I can do in a promo for an end-of-year roundtable is

(a) say 2007 was historic for New Mexico,
(b) provide a short, enticing quote to back up my statement,
(c) tell listeners when and where to tune in,

(c)(1) explain the roundtable we're having with these journalists,

(d) explain that we will also look forward to 2008,
(e) provide two lively, conversational quotes to back up that claim, and
(f) remind listeners when and where they can tune in.

Simplicity itself.

The station is increasingly a ghost town. We're down to skeletal staffing as it is. I can only imagine that by the time everyone comes back from their various holidays we'll be holding the place together with duct tape and paperclips.

I can also only guess that all the government agencies that want to bury news stories release their stories in these coming days.

I'm in my element.

Did a quick story on "Veterans for Peace" (VFP), too. They're a pretty amazing organiation -- goodness knows I've recommended them to several veterans I've worked with in restaurants (back when I regularly worked in restaurants).

I've done so many stories on "lab funding this" and "lab safety and security breaches that" in these last few days that I'm practically *dying* to do a nice, breezy "holiday" story.

Got a call during the time I was engineering the "end of year" thing.

Thankfully, my phone was on "vibrate", which it pretty much is, permanently. Didn't recongnize the number. Jim laughed, silently, while watching my try to dig the damn thing out of my pocket, only to sit on it (literally), but the recording wasn't jeopardized.

Hours later I finally get a moment to listen to my messages.

Someone from VFP had gotten my name and called me to tell me about something they were doing later that day, but by the time I'd gotten the message, my cellphone batteries were shot to hell and the event had long since wrapped.

I wish I'd known about it sooner, 'cause I would have *loved* to cover it, in greater depth, but oh well! Things happen fast, and I'm not going to beat up on myself just because I didn't cover something I didn't know about until after it happened.

I call him back at 4:30.

I ask him if he's ready to be recorded.

He says he's willing to be recorded, but asks if I can give him forty minutes.

If I'd been ever so slightly more cynical than I am now, tonight's story would not have happened.

My dearly beloved, deeply dedicated, citizen activist freinds: I adore and respect you to the very core of my being; but you have *no* idea what "tight deadlines" are 'til you've actually worked in a newsroom. I know it's tough when it's just you and a small group of like-minded people talking about issue "x", "y", or "z", in addition to juggling your lives, and you feel like you're up against a powerful, entrenched bureaucracy, which usually, you are.

But like it or not, if you're advocating for a cause, whatever that cause might be, it would do you well to assume that whoever is working on the other side of a given issue has easy answers to standard questions more or less ready at hand for whenever they happen to get called up by the press.

If you are sufficiently convinced of the rightness and truth of your cause when you call a reporter, you should be prepared to speak of it to her, on the record, when she picks up the phone.

Various federal agencies are, at least, prepared to call me back precisely one minute prior to whatever deadline I tell them I am working under, with a statement, even if it's two hours after their offices have closed for a holiday weekend on the east coast, and even if it's only to say that they won't comment on pending litigation. If they do so, I'd be remiss to say they didn't get back to me. And I know damn well that their "talking points" are scripted, but my job is to facilitate a dialogue, and even under such constraints, I would be lying if I told listeners "they didn't respond" if they did. My credibility's at stake.

I tell the gentleman who asks me for forty minutes that I will try to call him back.

Right then, we're going on air with the evening's first news broadcast. Weather conditions are such, at that precise moment, that I wonder whether I should call him or the weather people.

To his credit, he calls *me* back, right *after* we go off air and cut to network -- I can only guess that he's been listening, carefully. He does this much completely right: I might have written off his story in order to do something else more pressing -- like deal with the details of the latest winter storm warning -- but he has made his own story more pressing.

I call him back, not from my cellphone, but from the newsbooth phone I need to use to record interviews.

We're not looking for manifesti or broad-based statements of principle. We *are* looking for human stories. We're not looking for ten-point declarations which you hope will drive policymakers into whatever directions.

We *are* looking for what you did today, and the reason you did it. And, ultimately, why does it matter? You know -- to the listener who didn't know, this morning, that you even existed?

We're not looking for explanations of organizational structure (important as they are, internally). We're looking, as outsiders, just to find out who you *are* at all -- what kind of human beings *are* you? What might we have in common with you? Why might your actions actually make a difference? And, finally, how might anyone interested get in touch with you? Most of all, we want to know *why* you're there in the first place.

Reporters can answer all the other "Ws", but the big one's up to you.

We can fill in the whos, the whats, the wheres, the whens, the hows. What we can't tell listeners is the whys. That's your job.

Yeah, I did a story on Veterans for Peace. Good organization. Wish it could have been more than 1:06.

Wish I'd known, say, 48 hours ahead that the event was happening -- it could have been a heck of a good feature. Would have loved to bring in some other voices; would have loved to have facilitated a more fruitful dialogue; would have loved to have actually advanced the story.

Would love to have broadened the issue, so that it wasn't just "the public radio station's answer" to the "standard 'toys for tots' story".

Live and learn, I guess.

But I guess you have got to start somewhere.