Audio Story Ideas and comments 2

Interview the president of the Black Student Union. Michael Guidy

1. Type: Issue-oriented story
2. Pros and cons: Current and hot. Involves wide range of students. The interviewee may not
have a strong character.
3. Audience: SUNY Cortland community
4. Focus proposed by the author: President, Eric Bitterbaum. Guidy carefully guided the open
forum as well as participated in a radio show discussing racial concerns on campus. The students
involved in the radio show, along with faculty and President Bitterbaum, look to the future for
change. I hope to check in with Guidy to see if any progress is possible at SUNY Cortland.
5. Recommendation: This idea has a great potential to be a good story. Issue is hot and engaging.
Character based story may not be good idea. I would recommend interviewing 2 or 3 more
related to BSU or one of the presenters in the town hall talk (I was there. Many interesting
characters). Also, find out tension/complication/conflict in the case of SUNY Cortland. I really
look forward to how this story develops.
Love Your Melon.
1. Type: Introduction story. Humanity story or PR story.
2. Pros and cons: Good cause with engaging topic. Need to find elements to engage people.
Image will not be vivid.
3. Audience: SUNY Cortland community
4. Focus proposed by the author: Introduction of the organization.
5. Recommendation: It will be a good story to tell. Try to make it a story people want to hear.
Find elements that will concern many people. Also, find out anecdotes that will define
tension/complication/conflict in this story.
The graduation commencement ceremony at SUNY Cortland.
1. Type: Universal story.
2. Pros and Cons: Graduation is a story for everybody. But it will not be a news story without
focus. Also, can you make the deadline of March 22th?
3. Audience:
4. Authors focus: I would get the background information about the ceremony from
Cortland.edu and I would narrate with music and sounds throughout the audio slide story. I
would use the traditional ceremonial graduation march song, clapping sounds, and footsteps
walking.

5. Recommendation: Many people will be recording the ceremony. Is your story going to be
different than others? Otherwise, this might turn out to be a family video. How about covering
the preparation, expectation or controversies about the commencement at Cortland? For example
does everybody agree about speaker at the ceremony? How she/he is decided? Or how about a
story of past memorable moments at Cortland commencement? Or what students want but what
students do not see in Cortland commencement?
Music now a days vs Music back then
1. Type: Trend story. Social media story.
2. Pros and cons: Diverse sources. Hard to generalize.
3. Audience:
4. Authors focus.
I got this idea when I was doing some research for another class. I came across a bunch of blogs
where people were complaining about music today and comparing it to music back then. Being a
90s baby I was able to relate to most of the arguments made on these blogs.. I think this topic
is a good topic to talk about in class considering most people never think twice of how music is
being viewed at in our generation and time.
5. Recommendation: Again, potential to be a good story. The success of the story may depend on
how much the author can narrow down. The proposed focus by the author, as it is, my require
him to interview at least 50 people. So my advice is to target one or two genre of the music. Or,
personalize the topic, if you can find interesting people. Start asking why first, to narrow down
the focus.