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On Friday I found myself sat wobbling on a bar stool like the late, great(but talking less sense) over at Bush House as part of a panel on podcasting. It was fun in the way only the World Service can be (where else would you find a discussion of music copyright in podcasts in ?). The audience probably knew more about the subject than we did, and there was a great question about presentation styles in podcasts.. Many podcasters adopt a deliberately "indie" feel; making a conscious effort not to ape professional broadcasters and to talk in a natural and unaffected manner. The questioner wanted to know if we, likewise, shouldn't be experimenting with giving ´óÏó´«Ã½ podcasts a "rougher" less polished sound.

As I said at the time: when and if, pods and blogs is ever podcast the ´óÏó´«Ã½ will have jumped with both feet into a whole realm of "unpolish". But usually on radio - to a greater or lesser extent - we try and tidy up all the audio. I remember a wonderful piece from - which very carefully de-ums most of its recordings - about how they edited interviews. They played the finished edit and compared it with original; it was quite a transformation.

Recently I did get a chance to hear how different editing styles can alter a piece I'd done. My report from Podfest was lucky enough to get into the Radio News Pod (download ) The editing was very tight. It's interesting to compare it with the rather ramshackle version on pods and blogs. It does show I think, the difference editing can make to the feel of a piece.

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