Julia Barton

Third Coast Conference: Narrative off the news

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• November 20, 2014

Editor’s note: In her third and final dispatch from the recent Third Coast audio storytelling conference, radio producer Julia Barton examines a dilemma journalists in every medium face: how to create good narrative on deadline. In a session titled “Making … Read more

Third Coast Conference: the invisible craft of StoryCorps

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• November 17, 2014

Editor’s note: In her second dispatch from the recent Third Coast audio storytelling conference, radio producer Julia Barton looks at the approach the producers of StoryCorps, the non-profit oral history project, take to invisibly piece together their compelling … Read more

Third Coast Conference: Are journalism and storytelling “frenemies?”

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• November 14, 2014

Editor’s Note: Every other fall, hundreds of radio producers, journalists, documentarians and other audio artists gather in Chicago for the Third Coast conference to examine, explore and celebrate the world of audio storytelling. In the first of a … Read more

Audio Danger: Radio storytelling and the perils of digital permanence

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• March 20, 2014

Back in the distant 1990s, This American Life host Ira Glass described a recurring dream of NPR’s Scott Simon: Simon would shoot a basketball over and over, but then it would disappear. The ball never landed. That, … Read more

Audio danger: Going live

By Julia Barton• Story Craft• October 4, 2012

One morning this summer, I got on the elevator with a colleague at WNYC, where I’m working as an interim producer for national programs. My elevator pal had just gotten off the subway and was running late for a meeting … Read more

"Why’s this so good?" No. 43: "Radio Diaries" on teenage drama

By Julia Barton• Why's This So Good?• May 22, 2012

Boxing stories leave me cold. Like many sports stories, they seem to assume an audience of fans who will be thrilled − rather than sickened − by a narrative built on grueling workouts, bloodied lips and head injuries. So I downloaded “Teen Contender,” … Read more

Audio danger: transgressive voices

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• March 15, 2012

[The fourth installment in an ongoing series of posts by Julia Barton about audio narratives. –Ed.] Great audio, as I’ve previously written, transports us to an imaginative place somewhere between the story’s world and our … Read more

NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling on golden radio, Yoda parallels and the Robert Krulwich moment

By Julia Barton• Story Craft• March 2, 2012

[The third installment in an ongoing series of posts by Julia Barton about audio narratives. –Ed.] A ghostly crowd of voices parades across the public radio airwaves every day: politicians and hosts, foreign correspondents, callers, singers. Sometimes they catch … Read more

Audio danger: NPR’s Kelly McEvers on trauma and the calculus of risk

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• February 3, 2012

[The second installment in an ongoing series of posts by Julia Barton about audio narratives. –Ed.] The title of this series, “Audio danger,” is mostly tongue-in-cheek. But not in the case of Kelly McEvers. McEvers now … Read more

Audio danger: stories from the edge of listening

By Julia Barton• Digital Storytelling• January 4, 2012

[As part of our mission to look at storytelling in every medium, Storyboard is pleased to introduce Julia Barton, who will bring us several posts in 2012 focused on developments in and examples from the world of audio narratives. –Ed.] … Read more

About Julia Barton