Inside War News Radio: 01.16.11

The War News Radio staff met tonight for the first time in 2011, and the semester is off to a promising start. As an experiment in transparency, we’re publishing our notes, and would love to get some feedback.

At least a few staffers will take on new semester-long roles. Kyle Crawford will lead digital initiatives, Sam Hirschman will stay on top of the content and Amandine Lee will take charge of training new staffers.

We are considering a switch from Pro Tools to Garage Band for show production. It seems stable, intuitive, and – at $14.99 – quite accessible. We’re going to try Mac Mini server for archiving.

Traffic on the new site was strong in December but not that great so far this month. We’re blaming rerun shows and holiday audience distractions, and making plans to avoid this problem in the future. Maybe summer production can be the key?

Site development is progressing well, but there are still plenty of challenges to untangle. Updated staff pages are coming next, and reorganized archives will follow.

We will hold workshops on Garage Band, WordPress, writing for broadcast, social media distribution, and free content. Staffers will soon manage their own profile pages, linking to their own reports, which will point back to the bios as well.

We’re looking at more podcasting platforms, and considering if the extra listens are worth the extra effort. At the same time, we hope to boil down the technical workflow.

Interns Aaron Moser and Karim Sariahmed are in pursuit of some outstanding speakers to visit War News Radio this semester. Stay tuned.

Staffers are working on stories about Muqtada al-Sadr’s return to Najaf, pollution in Afghanistan, smaller nations participating with ISAF in Afghanistan, a couple of authors and much more.

We’ll meet on Wednesday nights this semester, beginning later this week. Everyone in the Swarthmore College community is invited.