The story behind data on a BBC radio documentary
“Data shows us where to travel to do our story”
The Guardian data projects team editor, Helena Bengtsson, said this in a radio panel discussing about the importance of data journalism. And that is exactly what Claire Bolderson has done to find out what’s behind a World Health Organisation (WHO) statistic: travel and broadcast three documentaries.
The WHO estimates that one third of women worldwide suffer physical or sexual violence by a partner. In the documentary podcasts “Behind Closed Doors”, the journalist visits three countries to “hear about different and often inspiring solutions aimed at combating it”.
After Kenya and Peru, Clarie Bolderson goes back to the place where she started her broadcasting career as correspondent for the BBC and Financial Times: Indonesia. There, another specific piece of data grabs the journalist attention. The country has just conducted its first ever national survey on domestic violence that found that 41% of women had experienced some form of domestic abuse.
“Behind Closed Doors: Solutions to Domestic Abuse in Indonesia” is a half hour podcast part of BBC programme “The Documentary”. In it, we hear about the work of a pioneering crisis and counselling centre offering holistic support, the first organisation of its kind in Indonesia.
What a radio documentary is meant to be
This piece can be considered a classical example of radio documentary, but “What the hell is a radio documentary?”. In an article answering this question, the managing editor and correspondent with American RadioWork differentiates a documentary from a long feature or enterprise story on two key factors: depth of research or proximity to its subjects and time spend in the field (Smith, 2001).
In the BBC podcast both factors were more than probably met. Bolderson interviews diverse actors — from victims, to organization activists and police officers — and that had probably taken time to find and approach them, and to make them feel comfortable.
Also, the fact that she has travelled to the place where the story is and that we hear her reporting from various settings gives us this impression. Her voice is on the setting describing it with the background ambience sounds like the street traffic, commercial music on the lively Sultan’s Palace Square, Muslim chants or traditional music played live.
From data to the field
As said before, the hook for this program is a statistic, as it is often the case for different podcasts in The Documentary (1). “If you can’t put a gripping story behind it [data] your audience won’t remember and won’t act”, is stated in this article.
The “gripping story” in Bolderson’s documentary starts with the journalist describing the busy street where she is standing on. We can hear the scene, we can feel it, we can imagine it. Then she starts interviewing the first character, a street vendor, about how does she live domestic abuse.
As it is a radio piece, interpreters and voiceover translations must be used. This happens during all the documentary. Sometimes, the journalist keeps the voice of the interpreter who is with her during the trip and who is translating on the setting. Other times, for example were men are to be translated, a voiceover is put on afterwards in the studio. This can sometimes change the emotion with which the story was told.
Bolderson also visits and interview people in the NGO Rifka Annisa offices, an organization that helps domestic violence victims. Later, she goes to a hospital, police headquarters and organizations meetings, because the woman interviewed in the NGO pointed out this institutions as partners in their work.
Ambience sounds but also silence is used to change settings. Always the journalist describes the scene where she is, details of what she sees, before interviewing anyone. Also, she uses some moments between settings to add context information.
During all the documentary, Bolderson goes back and forth the NGO. At the end, she adds part of an interview / conversation with an expert that had been interviewed before, mixed with her own views, to give a sensation of closing the documentary.
The role of the journalist
Although there are multiple interviews, Claire Bolderson is the main character of this documentary. We can hear her doing the interviews, the narration from setting to setting and adding conclusions of the different comments done in the piece.
She is the ‘consciousness’ of it, “who from time to time puts a spin on the narrative and offers value judgements and sympathies as a supplement to the story” (Murphet, 2005). And this can be seen in some summaries, overviews and conclusions that the journalist adds in the middle and end of the story.
For Sam Coley, Associate Professor in Radio Production at Birmingham City University, not cutting out the journalist questions out shows transparency and authenticity. Ira Glass, host and producer of the show This American Life, also points out that is good to have at some point the interviewer also on tape. Why? Because “the most interesting stuff usually came when they interacted with the people in the stories”, he said talking about other journalists works (Glass, 2010).
At the same time, too much narration can reduce the rhythm of storytelling. Bolderson introduces everyone she interviews with a classical interview. From my point of view, she sometimes introduces to much of what the interviewed is going to tell.
“At the heart of the documentary style are moments recorded on ‘tape’ in which the story unfolds in front of the listener. These scenes function like a film documentary, where events play out in real time.” (Smith, 2001). This don’t usually happen in this BBC documentary, I can only count the first time it happens in minute nine.
In this moment, we hear music in a local radio and the journalist voiceover only explains that there is a campaign that includes a radio show. It is only the first time the story unfolds by itself and listeners can relate what they are hearing without the guidance of the narrator.
Sometimes, I would prefer what Ira Glass, calls “tape-to-tape transitions”. That is when a story develops just with quotes and location sounds, with no narration (Glass, 2010). I have the sensation that some of Bolderson’s narration could be replaced by interviewees quotes or just by letting the scene itself develop and the listener to make their own relations in the story.
(1) I had been listening to these BBC documentaries for a while, as a way to improve my English. This documentary from Bulgaria is on of my favourites. I didn’t realise why until I’ve spent some time analysing it. What hooked me in was the data: Bulgaria is the country with the fastest-shrinking population in the world. What kept me hooked was the coldness in which the story was described, that made me feel like visiting these rural areas.
References
- Murphet, J. (2005). Narrative Voice. In: Fulton, H., Huisman, R., Murphet, J. & Dunn, A. 2005, Narrative and media, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; Port Melbourne, Vic. pp.73–85.
- Glass, I. (2010). Harnessing Luck as an Industrial Product. In: J. Biewen, A. Dilworth and Center for Documentary Studies, Reality radio: telling true stories in sound. Duke University: University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, pp.54–66.
- Smith, S. 2001, “What the hell is a radio documentary?”, Nieman Reports, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 6.
