NPR NEWSCAST with Carol Van Dam on Saturday Oct. 10, 12 a.m (duration: 4 min 49 sec)
This newscast included stories from all over the world, including the gunmen attacks on a main Pakistani army facility, killed NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, multiparty negotiations with North Korea about its nuclear weapons program, UN peacekeepers that were killed in a plane crash in Haiti, Pennsylvania's new budget, fires in California, the opening of the ski season in Colorado and Nevada, the US president speech to a gay rights group and several sports news. Most of the bulletins were readers and natsound was only used once for the story about the governor of Pennsylvania signing the new budget. Other than that some bulletins hosted NPR nationally and internationally posted correspondents.
I was surprised at how much better I could follow the NPR newscast than the BBC one. Hence, it's only natural that I found this NPR newscast much more interesting. The sentences were clear and concise and were all connected in context. I also liked that there was a sports section at the end. However, I found that only half of the newscast was focused on international news, the other half dealt with national news. And this is completely fine, considering it's called NPR, i.e. "National" Public Radio.
The quality of sound was great except for the recording of the correspondent in the Haiti story. It sounded like it was recorded over the phone. The sound was low and a bit muffled. I wish, the announcer would have mentioned that this was recorded over the phone. Maybe then I wouldn't have noticed it that much. As for the natsound, Van Dam only used one soundbit of the governor of Pennsylvania when he spoke about the new budget. I liked the use of that soundbit because it summed up what actually happened and also gave some background information.
The announcer's voice was good. Carol Van Dam seems to know what she's talking about and doesn't seem rushed in anything.
At the end of the day, I really liked that newscast. Even though it fit more stories into less time than BBC's newscast, I felt I could actually follow the information. The balance between natural sound and the information that was selected to make the bulletins conclusive was exactly right.
(Picture: copyright Carol Van Dam - The announcer of this newscast)
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