COVID-19: Remote Reporting & Broadcast Toolkit

"Not only is it important to amplify community voices, but as Youth Reporters, it is your responsibility to ensure that correct information reaches your community. This toolkit is designed to help you to achieve this safely."

The Children's Radio Foundation (CRF) trains youth reporters at radio stations (68, as of this writing) across 6 African countries (Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia) to produce weekly radio shows and monthly outreach activities covering themes such as climate change, sexual and reproductive health, education, migration, violence and community safety, and others. To ensure the safety of CRF's 750 youth reporters during the COVID-19 crisis, CRF has suspended all in-person reporting and broadcasting activities and replaced them with remote reporting and broadcasting.

Created in that context in partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), this toolkit has 3 main goals: (i) to bring COVID-19 into focus and high on the agenda of youth reporters; (ii) to introduce remote reporting and broadcasting and how it works; and (iii) to equip young reporters with the skills to get other young people and adults in their community to become passionate about and open to share their COVID-19 stories.

The contents include:

1. Introduction [explains how to use this toolkit, outlines goals of the tookit, defines key terms, and explores reporting responsibly on COVID-19]
2. Pre-Production - Preparing for Your Show [covers: assigning team roles and responsibilities, remote production meetings, and finding show guests when reporting remotely]
3. Remote Reporting
   • Definitions: Learning how to use your smartphone as a reporting tool [covers: recording yourself, recording an interview with someone who is not in the room, best practices for use of WhatsApp, do's and don'ts of recording interviews through voice notes, recording guidelines and environments, and logging]
   • Formats [covers: interviews, vox pops, audio profile, audio commentary, on location, audio diaries, did you know formats, and intro and outro]
   • Listener Engagement Using Social Media [covers: quiz, answering questions from show listeners, and sourcing topic angles using social media]
4. Post-Production and Remote Broadcasting [includes radio show kit and archiving]
5. Thank You
6. Resources