11835 kHz

“We’ll be coming to you in just about two minutes, Wil.” The producer’s voice was strong and clear in my headphones,
“Okay,” I said. I spoke slowly and deliberately, in an effort to hide my nerves.
“Hold on,” he said, and clicked off. There was a brief silence, and then I could hear live programming.
I adjusted my headphones, and looked down at my hastily-scrawled notes. I lifted my microphone, and prepared to send my voice out to 150 million people.
One hundred.
Fifty.
Million.
People.
All over the world.
I was about to file a report with the prestigious World Service of the BBC.

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138 thoughts on “11835 kHz”

  1. This isn’t the best-written entry I’ve ever done, but I wanted to get it done before the events are too far from my mind, and my attention is really focused on Just A Geek right now.
    This will eventually get re-written (ala Vega$Pants).

  2. Hey man, really nice job. I am a loyal listener to Boston’s NPR station run out of Boston University, and they pipe in the World Service on their off hours. You should be really, *really* proud of yourself.
    mmmsoap

  3. I’d like to be a reporter, if I knew anything. I doubt the BBC needs a reporter on the quirky world of snowdome collecting, the rise of retro, or a macintosh pundit.
    I used to do college radio and I hate to say it the only way to get past all the news reading is to read it and not think about it. Worry on getting it out and sounding right what it says. Just read it, quick and crisp. No brain overcomes a fussy tongue. Which explains most US tv anchors.

  5. You are, in every decipherable manner, the man.
    I caught myself saying misunderestimate the other day into a headphone going over to a crew of smart-ass studio techs.
    You may have been going out to 150 million people, but at least it wasn’t a bushism. Be nice to you.

  8. I heard your broadcast here on NPR in Colorado. I thought you did a very credible job. You did sound just like a BBC reporter. If I didn’t know better, I would have never known you were a geek. 🙂 Way to go Wil!

  9. Kate hit it on the head. How about getting BBC to give you a tape of your reporting and posting it. I am sure we would love to not only hear you say presupposition, but to hear all the things you said right. Look at the bright side. You could have said presuppository.

  12. Great job, Wil!
    I probably would have been as nervous as you if I was sending my voice to 150 million people. Hell, I get nervous speaking in front of 20+ people. I can only imagine what it was like for you, but seeing as this entry was so well written I actually got anxious reading it. *laughs*
    Well, glad you kept cool under pressure and didn’t end up swearing out loud as I would’ve done ahem. Congrats!

  13. I really enjoy reading your stuff, Wil, and I don’t mean to nitpick, but I’m an editor by trade. So I hope that when you rewrite this, you’ll correct “top-knotch” to “top-notch.” But the entry was very “you are there!” Kudos on a job well done!

  17. There is, in fact, such a word as “presupposition”; Suzette Haden Elgin uses it in her work to describe parts of a statement which are obvious to a native speaker of the language, but contained nowhere within the words of that sentence.
    I have no idea if that will make you feel better. 🙂

  18. Wil, you were doing this from a rooftop parking garage in Culver City…how do you know that their other reporters aren’t doing the same thing (from their respective climates of course). Congrats on a good report. Now us Californians have to cross our fingers.

  21. Uh . . . turns out I had too much coffee and not enough spellcheck, so I fiXx0r3d as many top0ezxors as I could find.
    Thanks to everyone who (kindly) pointed them out 🙂

  23. Wil,
    Well done. You should be proud of yourself.
    As to your comment of ‘I’m under no false impressions about my abilities as a “real” journalist.’ I’d like you to consider this: What makes a ‘real journalist’?
    A journalist is a person that tries to find out the facts and present them in a manner that his public can understand. No one can be completely accurate but a journalist tries anyway. No one can be completely unbiased but a journalist tries anyway.
    Also, remember that there is a big difference between a journalist and a commentator. A journalist discovers and reports; a commentator takes what a journalist does and adds opinion. A good commentator tries to tie a report into a larger picture; a good journalist tries to tie a report to people and human interest.
    I think you are and can be a fine journalist. You’ve already got the commentator part down…
    chris

  24. My cousin David was doing a story for the BBC (a politics show) in Boston recently. You keep going the way you are and he won’t get his free flights to the U.S. anymore!
    keep it up, m8! 🙂

  25. I wonder if Arnold’s victory also doesn’t relate to two other recent American phenomena:
    * the perception that the skills needed to win an election are not the same as the skills needed to govern
    * the reduction of politics from competing philosophies to competing brand names
    Consider – a “brand name” is created and a celebrity does even more than mere endorsement — he acts as the front for the brand by running for office. Two messages are communicated by the celebridate: “I am a political outsider and I can represent you because I am not compromised” and “I know I am a beginner at this so I will have all these top notch advisors to help me”.
    The classic example is Jesse Ventura from my own state. He did use good quality advisors and was a better governor than expected (at least until he got bored) mostly because he let other people do most of the the real work while he golfed and made celebrity appearances.
    (A side note: the biggest benefit of the California election will be to remove Jesse from national exposure and thus spare Minnesota further embarassment. Thank you, California!)

  26. Hey Wil,
    i am soo proud of you! Well done, as we brits say, and keep at it! hope to hear more of you on the BBC!!! and yeah, i like that idea for the t shirt! ha ha
    love rach
    xxx

  27. We’re a lot alike in some ways, Wil. I always beat myself up over the small things, instead of looking at the bigger picture. It sounds like you finally came around, though, and started to realize the great work you did.

  31. hey wil,
    please see if you can post a copy of your report, it’d be great to hear it for those of us who are either in bed or, more likely, in the pub drinkin’ (mmmm) sweet beer!
    My boyf’s a Guiness monkey too!
    Great stuff dude…I mean GEEK!
    🙂

  32. “presupposition” is my new favorite word.
    Any word on if they want you to do more for them now that Ahnold is guvnah and this whole recall is over?

  33. Andrew wrote: Wil, you were doing this from a rooftop parking garage in Culver City…how do you know that their other reporters aren’t doing the same thing
    That’s what they do here in Jerusalem. CNN and BBC get the roof of the “Jerusalem Central Studios”, the poorer guys do it at street level.
    BTW, any news on the MP3s? I love to hear it too.

  38. Radio gets a little easier the more you do it – it has the advantage of being very separated from the audience, much moreso than almost any other media. That said, I was nervous as hell my first few weeks as a radio DJ, and I was only speaking to a few hundred thousand people.
    Good job – hope you get more chances like that one.

  39. I think it’s wonderful. I wish I could’ve heard the broadcast. And it may not be pefectly written, but it tells the story just how it needs to be told. 🙂

  40. ain’t live radio fun!…it gives rise to many new words and phrases…when i was on the air as a 15 year old i read a story about china…which contained a bunch of hard for me to pronounce chinese names…i sailed though every one of those chinese names perfectly…then at the very end when i got to the cause of death of a prominent chinese politician…i reported he died of “pon-ome-ee-ah”…instead of pneumonia…in the huge relief of making it through all those names i crashed at the finish line.

  42. I don’t want to sound like all of your other obsessive fanboys here, but holy fucking shit, Batman! It’s beyond my comprehension to go live before one hundred fifty million people. The numbers are downright staggering. Way to go, you’ve done something that’s usually reserved for heads of state. And you didn’t completely mangle the language like a certain head of state that comes to mind.

  44. Congratulations, Wil! One of my fondest memories is of when i was in elementary school downtown, but living in the suburbs. Every morning, my father would drive us to school, and we’d listen to the BBC-WS feed on CBC Radio. i remember, vividly, always having the utmost respect and admiration for these incredibly professional, intelligent, and calm people ensuring that each part of the world knows what’s going on in the other parts. i don’t doubt that you belong firmly in their ranks.
    Well done.
    -Daniel

  45. Oh Lord, Wil. I totally related to the say-the-wrong-word-when-your-nervous syndrome. I feel like an idiot when that happens. However, the part that you told us you said does sound very well spoken and intelligent. Nah, don’t worry about that small error. No one noticed.
    Thank God for the TV on your knee! Oh holy crap, that would have been awful! Nice save. 🙂

  46. It may not be that bad. You don’t have to look at all 150 million people. Odds are at least one of them will be picking their nose. And you don’t have to worry about what to do with your hands. I tend to see the bright side on everything.
    Keep up the good work.
    Tullman

  47. Dude… this is exactly what you have been saying to yourself about never second-guessing how things can turn out. Most of the personal elevations in life happen out of unusual circumstances. The reason you did that report is because you are good… and they rewarded you for it. So I say… Go for it!
    P.S. Please get the book done first… I’ve dog-eared my signed copy of DB and I need a new victim! Thanks

  49. Congratulations Wil, I didn’t get to hear, but I’m sure it was great. My experience in radio is, the less you remember, the better it means it is.

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