During this time of social distancing, Blue Ridge Public Radio wants to hear what you are thinking and feeling. The coronavirus (COVID-19) impacts so many different arenas from school and restaurant closures to local businesses and mental health.
How are you and your family members dealing with the virus? Let us know through an audio diary. Below you will find instructions on how to record a voice memo for the Blue Ridge Public Radio news team and some prompts on what to share with us.
Send your memos or questions to news@bpr.org.
How To Record A Voice Memo
Newer Androids come with Voice Recorder. For older ones, download it from the app store. iPhones come with a Voice Memo app. Do a practice sessions to see how to start, stop and save a recording.
- The mic is at the bottom of your phone. Hold your phone flat in front of you, with the mic facing your mouth, with a slight angle for the best sound quality. When recording sounds or other people, point the bottom of the phone toward them.
- Please make sure you’re recording in a quiet place. Don’t sit close to a fan or A/C. Turn off any music or news devices.
- Each audio diary should be about 2 to 5 minutes. Always start your diary with your name (and identify the people you are with); the date/time; and location. This formatting should sound like: “I’m Lilly Knoepp in Sylva. It’s about 6pm on Thursday, March 19th.”
Audio Diaries Prompts
Self-Isolation: Describe where you are, what you’re doing, why and talk to people with you about their experiences.
Preparation and Prevention: What has your household done to prepare? When did you start preparing and what are you doing for prevention? Do you have any tips for the community? Maybe you know about a secret TP treasure trove? Have you lost a job or has your business changed/closed and how are you coping?Are you delaying major life events like a wedding?
Work: Are you working from home? Have you lost an income source since the pandemic was announced? What have you learned about your work and yourself? Do you have any work from home tips?
Keeping Busy: Do you have any self-isolation tips? Favorite hiking spots to share? Have you picked up an old hobby? Have you started a new one? Better yet – does that hobby make any cool sounds such as making music, cooking or the click of knitting needles. Record the sound and send it to us as a 2nd file along with your audio diary.
There are many more topics to cover - Feel free to share what is important to you right now.
If you aren't up for an audio diary, but still have thoughts, observations and news you’d like us to know about? We want to hear from you!
Send us an email at news@bpr.org. This can either be a one time thing or feel free to keep us updated.
You can also share images when you send in your audio diary. Ideally they should be horizontal and a large file size. (Ideal images are 960 pixels by 640 pixels).
Thanks for participating in BPR’s audio diaries project!
