The Masterclass Podcast

“What makes you different from your peers who also want to get a job in journalism?

ABC audio producer and digital reporter Wing Kuang is an expert at turning a disadvantage into an asset. Having first come to Australia as an international student, she encountered a lot of barriers to finding a job as a journalist.

She says that community radio provided important opportunities to develop her skills and build a portfolio, and that it was ultimately her social media presence that led to her first job.

“Tweeting had become my only way to make myself known.”

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“The minute I walk into that space, I turn my audio ears on.”

ABC broadcaster Kirsti Melville is an award-winning radio documentary maker, who always starts planning for an audio feature by thinking about sound. Melville describes how she triages the audio in any recording environment, and how she works with sound to create immersive and impactful storytelling.

"I often talk about it in quite filmic terms. Think about it in terms of small close-up sound and broader, wider sound that creates a scene."

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“Your voice is such a personal quality…It’s like your own aural fingerprint.”

As an ABC voice coach and journalist, Tamara Oudyn is shaping the diverse voices of the national broadcaster. Here she describes the lessons she teaches cadets, including the role of the 3ps - pitch, pace and pausing - in broadcasting. 

Her emphasis is on training young journalists to sound like themselves on air. 

“Authority comes from being comfortable in front of a microphone and knowing what you are on about.”

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"The thing that I love about audio is that...it's really intimate."

ABC journalist Jo Lauder says audio can be really effective in transporting the listener to a particular time and place. She explains how she goes about planning different types of audio pieces, whether for Triple J's Hack or long-form narrative podcasts like Saving the Franklin. She says it is crucial to engage the listener right from the start.

"You grab them with the curiosity. You just have to really hook someone in so they want to find out what's going on."

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“Who measures objectivity? Who judges objectivity?”

Objectivity is traditionally seen as a cardinal tenet of journalism, but Daniel Browning's long experience in Australian newsrooms has left him questioning whether objectivity is possible, or even beneficial.

The Bundjalung and Kullili man, who leads the ABC's Indigenous Radio unit, says First Nations communities have been failed by the Australian media.

He champions the idea of subjective journalism, believing that being 'close to the subject’ can be an asset.  

“The lie of objectivity is that we assume we have it.”

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