NPR Newscast

Who anchored the newscast: Jack Spear
How many reporters contributed to the newscast: Three reporters
Length of the newscast: 4:46 min 

Review

      The newscast covers various local US topics which comprises the US war in Afghanistan, unemployment in the US, explosives in Philadelphia Airport and Haiti refugees to US etc.

 
       The newscast is a bit boring due to news content and  production technique. The content concentrates only on the US news which might not be interesting for many people. The anchor commences the newscast with a good speech rhythm and then all of a sudden he speeds up. This approach makes it a bit difficult for the audience to follow the newscast and affects the listener’s interest in hearing the upcoming news.
      By reaching two third of the newscast Jack Spear, the anchor, gives the listeners a one second break saying “This is NPR News”. Usually, this sentence coexists with an intro newscast music at the background. Unfortunately, the lack of music makes this break stiff and un relaxing for the listeners; especially after hearing a flow of news.
    Playing music is really significant as it makes the newscast less boring, gives the listeners a space to breathe after hearing a nonstop news and draws the audience attention to what is coming up. Also, the production can be more interesting by applying an intro music at the beginning and the end of the newscast. More important is to use nat sounds or distinctive ambiance sound with some news pieces. Relying on the reporters’ voices to break the monotony of listing to one voice is not enough to make the newscast motivating for the audience. Further, towards the end of the newscast (between minute 2:58 -2:59) the anchor says ‘This is NPR news’ and then two seconds of silence, this space of time on air is  long and boring.
     In addition, the use of nat sound can break the monotony of the on going newscast and makes us feel the location of the event. For instance when talking about war in Afghanistan I expected to hear gun fires and people yelling; and for the Philadelphia airport news I expected to hear the sound of airplanes engines. Such sounds help the audience to live the event and influence the listeners to hear more news. The sound quality is clear and good except for certain parts where the voice of the first reporter, Laurence, suddenly begins to faint and is barely audible, this happened between second 48  and  second 53.   Also, the sound quality of the third reporter’s voice, Paul Brown, is strong between minute 3:36- 3:37 and suddenly  the sound quality drops down or faints between minute 3:38- 4:18.  Un like the later, the sound quality of other recordings are good, clear and strong such as the one with Neguchi.
      The announcer’s voice is clear, strong and stresses on certain words which helps the listener to comprehend what is said. However, after the first minute he began to speed up and at minute 2:15 I was hardly following up on what he wanted to say. Also, I think the announcer’s voice is a ‘Nasal Voice’ (the source of the voice comes from the nose not the vocal cords), which makes it hard for me sometimes to hear the proper sound of the word he wants to say.  However, his voice is serious, clear and strong which is suitable for the type of news he is reading. All in all, the newscast is just at the right length. It is not too long nor too short. It is informative and covers various local topics.