Reporter Guidelines - Types of segments

TYPES OF SEGMENTS FSRN ACCEPTS:

Features, Mini-features, and Headlines

We are always looking for true stories, events or people that present something new, important and interesting to a national audience. Most of our commissioned segments are features, mini-features, and headlines.

Our allotted time for a feature story is about 3-4 minutes. A full feature requires at least three different interviewee voices. Our second tier shorter news story ("mini-feature") runs between 1:30-2:59 minutes and requires a minimum of 2 voices.  Features and mini-features must include multiple viewpoints. Full features pay $170; mini-features pay $80.

FSRN headlines are short segments, typically one minute or less.  Headlines include the most breaking stories of the day.  Some headlines are commissioned to include an audio actuality; others are commissioned as voice-only headlines.  Headlines with tape pay $40 apiece; voicers pay $30 apiece.

More details about producing FSRN features and headlines is at our main Reporter Guidelines page.

Reporter's Notebook

The story behind the story! We know that when you're out reporting you often see and hear things that don't make it into your hard news report. FSRN recently started a new segment that lets reporters share a more intimate snapshot of a story, place or person and also what they experienced during the reporting process.

The Reporter's Notebook isn't an editorial, but a way to communicate more of a "behind the scenes" glimpse of reporting and how your story was made. Or, it can include more subtle and personal details about your subjects and their experiences that you couldn't fit into your original report.

The first-person is encouraged, as well as natural or ambient sound. The length should be about 2:30-3:00 minutes, and the rate is $50. Here's a few examples:

Reporter's Notebook: A Correspondent in the Khyber Agency

Reporter's Notebook: Rami Al Meghari in Gaza

Reporter's Notebook: Covering Brazil's Landless Movement

Vox Pop Segment - "Street Beat"

Street Beat is FSRN's vox pop segment in which we feature a montage of voices all responding to the same question. Contributors can suggest a question to producers@fsrn.org or we may assign various Street Beat producers a question based on the hot news topics of the week. Rate for commissioned vox pops: $50.

This is a great opportunity for news directors to engage new radio producers, or for experienced producers to get out on the streets and try something different. Because there is no fact-gathering or script writing, production should be straight-forward and take 1-3 hours of work.

Street Beat production guidelines: Street Beat should run 2-3 minutes long and include 6-10 different voices, ideally representing a diversity of ages, genders, ethnic backgrounds, economic classes, etc. There is no reporter narration in this segment, just a series of short (10-30 second) responses to your question, edited together in one file. To make sure the segment flows, we'd like to limit the number of clips needing translations. Please use 2 English clips for every 1 clip in a non-English language.

Please include a proposed anchor lede that ties the issue to something in the news and introduces the question you asked and where you asked it (downtown Seattle library, DC airport, San Diego burrito stand, Atlanta supermarket, etc). You should also send us the names of the people you interviewed -- we will "back announce" who listeners just heard at the end of the segment.

Questions should be crafted in an open-ended way that provokes a thoughtful response. Questions can be general, for example, "What are you doing differently in the face of rising gas (or food) costs?" Or, questions can look at a specific local issue that would be of interest to a national audience, for example, "The Richmond, CA city council is debating a controversial request from Chevron to expand its oil refinery in the city. Why do you support or oppose Chevron's attempt to expand the refinery?"

The first question could be posed in any public place, in any US city. The second would need to come from Richmond, CA, perhaps outside of a council meeting. Choosing your location to find people is important -- usually public places in downtown areas will give you access to a steady stream of different people: students, business people, working class, homeless, etc. If people decline your request to be interviewed, don't despair! Keep asking -- you will come across those who have an opinion and want to talk.

Raw Tape/Unedited Recordings

FSRN will consider purchasing raw tape from reporters and producers, including speeches, press conferences, demonstrations/rallies, and panels/forums. A written summary of the who, what, where, and when is also required. If your tape has multiple voices, we'll need to know who's speaking and when. If we use the tape, we'll pay a flat rate of $30.

This is ideal for people who may be recording for other reasons, but who can't produce a feature story for FSRN. News directors, this could be another way for new producers to get their feet wet.