BSquared
Oct 11th, 2006, 05:39 AM
The Statistics
What’s it Called? Morning Stories
Where can I find the show? http://www.wgbh.org/morningstories
When was the first episode produced? October 2004
How long is the average episode? Less than ten minutes
How often is an episode released? Once a week
The Review
Based on the premise that everyone has a story to tell, Morning Stories is a vehicle for ordinary people to tell their often extraordinary stories. Each episode contains one or two short pieces told by a wide variety of mostly, although not exclusively, American people from all walks of life. Tony Kahn and Gary Mott host this podcast but on air they take a back seat to the stars of the show (the storytellers) and confine themselves to short observations about the story of the day and sharing feedback from the show’s many devoted fans. I’m pretty sure Tony and Gary’s hardest work is done outside the episodes in finding people with stories to tell and persuading the reluctant among them to share their tales.
Recent episodes have given us the story of a woman who grew up the daughter of a Nazi Officer, the journey of a couple who turned to marathon running after one of them overcame illness and an account of way 11 September 2001 changed forever one man’s relationship with his brother. For me the thing that links the morning stories is that they tend to highlight the endless variations in the way people deal with the dramas, adversities and events in their lives.
The show is one of the many public (government funded) radio broadcasts that is re-packaged and released as a podcast and demonstrates the consistently high quality audio and production standards to be expected from professionals with access to good equipment.
The show’s website has all the episodes available in an archive which can be browsed by date or show title. There is a short, accurate description of each episode so new listeners can easily select a few episodes they like the sound of to try out. Morning Stories would benefit from providing opportunities for listeners to interact with each other via comments or forums. The fact this opportunity doesn’t exist demonstrates that the show, or perhaps the parent radio station WGBH in Boston, hasn’t fully grasped that there is a bigger difference between broadcasting and podcasting than the delivery method.
Despite the quality of the production, the professionalism of the hosts and the genuinely interesting stories told I don’t particularly enjoy Morning Stories. To me it feels contrived. The way the stories are edited and the thematic sound effects which are added make the stories sound like polished performance pieces and I often find myself wondering what the story sounded like the first time it was told. These “finished products†seem to me as if they’re trying a little bit too hard to pull at the heartstrings of listeners and are a little bit too obvious at pointing out the Inspirational Message (deliberate capitalisation) that listeners are supposed to glean. I have discovered I like my stories a little more raw than those on Morning Stories. However, as already mentioned, the show has many dedicated fans so clearly not everyone is as disgruntled or overly analytical a listener as I am.
The Rating
Will listen again; maybe not religiously to every episode
This review was originally published at podcast fanatic http://www.podcastfanatic.com/morning_stories.html
What’s it Called? Morning Stories
Where can I find the show? http://www.wgbh.org/morningstories
When was the first episode produced? October 2004
How long is the average episode? Less than ten minutes
How often is an episode released? Once a week
The Review
Based on the premise that everyone has a story to tell, Morning Stories is a vehicle for ordinary people to tell their often extraordinary stories. Each episode contains one or two short pieces told by a wide variety of mostly, although not exclusively, American people from all walks of life. Tony Kahn and Gary Mott host this podcast but on air they take a back seat to the stars of the show (the storytellers) and confine themselves to short observations about the story of the day and sharing feedback from the show’s many devoted fans. I’m pretty sure Tony and Gary’s hardest work is done outside the episodes in finding people with stories to tell and persuading the reluctant among them to share their tales.
Recent episodes have given us the story of a woman who grew up the daughter of a Nazi Officer, the journey of a couple who turned to marathon running after one of them overcame illness and an account of way 11 September 2001 changed forever one man’s relationship with his brother. For me the thing that links the morning stories is that they tend to highlight the endless variations in the way people deal with the dramas, adversities and events in their lives.
The show is one of the many public (government funded) radio broadcasts that is re-packaged and released as a podcast and demonstrates the consistently high quality audio and production standards to be expected from professionals with access to good equipment.
The show’s website has all the episodes available in an archive which can be browsed by date or show title. There is a short, accurate description of each episode so new listeners can easily select a few episodes they like the sound of to try out. Morning Stories would benefit from providing opportunities for listeners to interact with each other via comments or forums. The fact this opportunity doesn’t exist demonstrates that the show, or perhaps the parent radio station WGBH in Boston, hasn’t fully grasped that there is a bigger difference between broadcasting and podcasting than the delivery method.
Despite the quality of the production, the professionalism of the hosts and the genuinely interesting stories told I don’t particularly enjoy Morning Stories. To me it feels contrived. The way the stories are edited and the thematic sound effects which are added make the stories sound like polished performance pieces and I often find myself wondering what the story sounded like the first time it was told. These “finished products†seem to me as if they’re trying a little bit too hard to pull at the heartstrings of listeners and are a little bit too obvious at pointing out the Inspirational Message (deliberate capitalisation) that listeners are supposed to glean. I have discovered I like my stories a little more raw than those on Morning Stories. However, as already mentioned, the show has many dedicated fans so clearly not everyone is as disgruntled or overly analytical a listener as I am.
The Rating
Will listen again; maybe not religiously to every episode
This review was originally published at podcast fanatic http://www.podcastfanatic.com/morning_stories.html