Austen Williams

There were so many high quality audio pieces on the University of Indiana School of Journalism website, that it was hard to choose one over some of the others. They all seemed excellent, and I spent way more time listening to them than I really had time for.

The University of Indiana seems to have a very strong journalism program going there with many high profile internships available to their students and it would be well worth it to return to the site again and again.

Before deciding on one of these student pieces, I also considered a clip from “The Kitchen Sisters“. It is an NPR  show and also has some wonderful work.

One reason I chose Austen Williams’ audio piece, “Fighting Parkinson’s“, is because I loved the way she mixed her background noise in with her story. It served to give the idea of action and activity just outside the listeners view.

I also like the way she involved several people in the piece without it getting confusing. It was easy to understand each person’s perspective, even when she wasn’t necessarily going into a lot of explanation about  who was who.

The content clearly communicated the depth of the struggle these people were going through, yet without anybody getting into a pity party. Their statements served to make the listener keenly aware of what the people with Parkinson’s go through day after day.

The way she threw in the plays on words about fighting back was cute, but restrained, so that it wasn’t overdone or trite.