Two teenagers from a Colorado High School took tape recorders on a service trip to help clean up a school in New Orleans. They went on their fall break, along with other students from their high school. Their local station provided the recording equipment.
The piece starts on the bus. We meet our two guides, and then they interview their principal about how the trip came about. It's a fine start. But I felt like I got more information about the process than I needed. As a listener, I was eager to get to Louisiana! And in some ways, I ended up disappointed because I never felt like I really got there. We are on the bus and hear about where the students are headed, and then next, we are hearing our guides, in what I think is an interview back at the radio station in Colorado, talking about what the trip was like, in the past tense. What I wanted from the piece was a story to unfold before my ears, but what the piece delivered was sort of a re-cap of a trip, with the focus on the kids who went. That focus is OK, but I wanted more interaction, more action. We do get some nice clips of hurriance victims talking about their circumstances. But it was "interview" tape rather than scene tape. I wanted more scenes, more of a narrative through sound.
I think this piece has a strong foundation - a good idea, and two teen reporters/ diarists with nice presence on the air. But I think the story needed a stronger sense of beginning, middle and end. Save the interview/ reflection tape for the end of the story, and bring more scene tape into the heart of it.