Get $10 off Radio Skills or Radio Style Guide

Late last year I ordered copies of the CBC Radio Style Guide and CBC Radio Skills books from CBCShop.ca. I finally got around to reading them over the holidays, and recommend them both. Radio Skills goes through the process of getting a story to air, and covers interviewing, writing, vetting, and performance. The Radio Style Guide goes deeper into writing and performance, with special focus on storytelling and writing for the ear. The section on focus sentences is an excellent summation of what McKee calls the "controlling idea." And now, you can get these books on the cheap with this coupon code for CBCShop.ca: "Save $10 off a purchase of $15+ with coupon code kidscbc." But do it soon, because the offer ends January 31, 2005.

Good things come to those who wait. Better things come to those who wait longer.

Or perhaps, equally appropriate, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” That’s certainly the way it feels right now. Nearly six months in the making, my internship at CBC Radio has finally been approved. I received this in my inbox yesterday afternoon, the result of my incessant pestering of Joan Melanson:

I was in yesterday, and I have some good news - the approval for your internship at CBL has gone ahead.

Joan has been absolutely wonderful – an advocate and a champion, navigating the turbulent waters of CBC bureaucracy on my behalf. After being told “maybe” for so long, then very recently “no,” she somehow managed to wrangle a “yes” out of the powers that be. Kudos to her.

Keeping track of radio content using Technorati

I've recently been digging Technorati (Peter describes it as "Google for weblogs"). I've set up a watchlist for CBC Radio, so everytime somebody blogs about our national public broadcaster, it shows up in my Bloglines. And tonight, I learned about Technorati tags, which allow bloggers to categorize their posts. Apparently you can search by tag, so I tried to set up a watchlist for tag:radio. Presuming it works, I'll get radio photos from Flickr, links from del.icio.us and Furl, and blog posts from Technorati, all in one feed categorized by human beings. I like when information I want comes right to me. Update: the watchlist I created for "tag:radio" kept coming up empty, so I emailed the folks at Technorati, and they told me that tag watchlists haven't been implemented yet. Their full reply, including a workaround, follows:

Dan, This is on our "short list" for feature extensions. We hope to have it soon. There's one thing you can do in the meantime: You can create a watchlist on URL for the tag, for example: http://technorati.com/tag/radio The limitation is that you'll only get posts with Technorati tags in them, not blog categories. But perhaps you'll find this useful until we get our act together :-) Hope this helps. Thanks for your interest in what we're doing, and for taking the time to write to us. Adam Hertz Vice President of Engineering Technorati, Inc.

Technorati tags: radio, tagging

And it's off...

Finally, after weeks of drafting, my application to become the This American Life intern for Summer 2005 has been sent. With my questionnaire complete, my references set up, and my resume polished, I walked to the post office today and XpressPosted it all to Chicago. The whole thing amounted to nine pages. Here's hoping they read it. And like it. The website says "We will notify all applicants of the decision by the deadlines listed above," which in my case, is March 1. If they decide to interview me, I guess I'll know sooner. I've got my fingers crossed.

CBC Radio Insite

I meant to link to this a while ago: earlier this month Peter Rukavina over at ruk.ca pointed out The Coolest CBC Resource You Don’t Know About -- the Insite system.

Build a New CBC

Earlier this week, I received a mass email from Ian Morrison at the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. This is what he had to say:

FRIENDS has learned that the federal government is poised to announce a new round of budget cuts, despite its $9 billion surplus. CBC is a target, even though two House of Commons Committees -- Finance and Heritage -- have called for increased stable funding for CBC. Unless we act now, CBC could suffer yet another in a long line of funding cuts that have taken a tremendous toll, especially at the grassroots.

Tonight I took a few minutes to write a letter to the Prime Minister, expressing my concerns. I encourage you to do the same. The Action Centre makes it easy, addressing it to the PM, Liza Frulla, Minister of Canadian Heritage, and your local MP.

Applications, more music

It seems like most of my time these days is spent trying to make myself sound impressive and clever. I'm working on a total of five pitches/applications, including my internship application for the summer 2005 term on This American Life (due February 1), a pitch for my senior practicum project (due this Friday), a simultaneous pitch to Outfront, an idea for the CBC Radio program development group (I heard from Chris Boyce today), and possibly a submission to Ideas (also due this Friday). And by way of an update to my entry about radio scoring, here are some more soundtracks I've been enjoying: Jon Brion's work on I Heart Huckabees, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Magnolia, plus Mark Mothersbaugh tracks on The Life Aquatic.

Northern Exposure

After reading The Lowedown in this week's Coast, I listened to the first two episodes of Doug Gordon's New Audio Showroom. Particularly liked the "This Canadian Existence" show. You can listen to all three shows online in RealAudio. And speaking of RealAudio, I've gotten rid of RealPlayer, and am now listening using Real Alternative.

The same song over and over

Heard this today and thought it was funny. From NPR's All Things Considered, Music Fan Pokes Fun at Nickelback Song Similarity.