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Charles: an introduction
Welcome to a special section of my to my website.
You can certainly surf around, but below you’ll find a more succinct summary of my work. I have a pretty variegated palette which you might find impressive considering I’ve been freelancing for only five years. Shortly after September 11th I decided that I had something more to contribute to the country, something that seemed irresponsible to shirk. I have since blossomed into a dirt-digging reporter and fearless producer who never accepts the first no.
My Radio career started when I read a book called Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and attempted to reproduce it by interviewing thugs and drug addicts at my local laundromat with an executive style tape recorder. I won’t embarrass myself by showing you the results, but instead take a listen to what I’m able to do three years later.
This is a 3 minute demo for Voice of the Troubles: 25 Years after the Irish Hunger Strike. It’s a 52/59 minute audio documentary that has aired on 30 stations across the country. Jay Allison featured it on his show and John Biewen, Audio Program Director at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, called it “powerful” and “moving.” You can read the full review here.
At the same time I was teaching myself radio I was also begging for work at WSHU. I pitched one commentary a week for two and a half months before the news director finally relented. I kept my foot in the door and eventually started reporting regular spots and features. Here and here are a couple of wraps and here, here, and here are some features. 
(Here’s the NPR News version of the second wrap on housing discrimination and here is the D2D version of the third feature on boxing).
My NPR work includes a remembrance I did a year ago and halfway down this page is a vignette I did for the culture desk last month, both aired on ATC.
These are print pieces (here, here, and here) where I worked a beat and was more able to break news.
But before you leave you should listen to my favorite piece of all. This combines my love of boxing and love of jazz in one very fluid sound. It’s really cool to listen to in stereo, so put on some headphones if you can.
Posted by 1000monkeys on July 26, 2004 10:38 PM