1. https://storycorps.org/stories/patrick-haggerty/
Personally I really liked this story. It hit home for me and I love hearing the stories of queer people in rural communities, especially in a time when being queer was so stigmatized. As far as sound quality goes, it seemed a little tinny and/or muffled to me. My guess is that it’s the mic quality. The pacing was good! The story moves at a nice and brisk pace – not too quick, but not too slow. For scope, I really like how the story showed the parallel of Patrick being ashamed of his father for being a farmer, which in reality is not that big of a deal, while Patrick’s father wasn’t ashamed of Patrick for being gay, which was a really big deal in the 1950’s. I think it teaches a good lesson about love and judgement. I also liked the music at the end. I assume it’s a song from Patrick’s and, which fits perfectly. If it is Patrick’s band’s music, I actually think it should be a little longer so we can better experience his music.
2. https://storycorps.org/stories/fear-wasnt-a-word-his-father-knew-the-origins-of-a-civil-rights-leader/
I really appreciated hearing this story. As someone who works with words, I really appreciate the sentiment of “say what you mean and mean what you say.” As far as sound quality goes, Rev. Blake’s S’s seem a little lisp-y. My guess is either that’s just the way he speaks or it was an issue with the mic he was given. The pacing was good; Rev. Blake speaks a little slow, but I don’t think it’s that detrimental to the story. It just gives the story a different tone, which is appropriate since the story is more solemn than the previous story. I think that if I had edited the story, I wouldn’t have had the music at the end go on for 27 seconds. I would have probably cut it off at 10-ish seconds. I think having long outro music keeps the listener hanging for too long, but I also don’t think it’s the worst thing known to the world of audio editing. For scope, I really liked that they included an intro for this story. It gave enough information so the listener wasn’t lost at the beginning of Rev. Blake’s story, but not so much detail that the message of the story was spoiled.
A Community Audio Journal