Oral history and the radio documentary/feature: Introducing the 'COHRD' form

Abstract

In an era when audio is increasingly associated with three-minute digital storytelling, the use of crafted oral history in long-form radio narratives deserves to be recognized as a specific genre: the 'COHRD' (Crafted Oral History Radio Documentary), a blend of oral history, art and radio journalism. The author, a long-term practitioner of both disciplines, compares the theory and practice of oral history interviewing and the narrative concerns of the radio documentary/feature producer. The article considers how oral history may be enhanced by imaginative treatment and careful crafting, to yield a hybrid COHRD form. This combines the creative scope of the feature, the editorial gravitas of the documentary and the ground-breaking personal narratives at the heart of oral history. Radio benefits from the in-depth primary research provided by oral history, which often records the experiences of the marginalized and the overlooked. Oral history benefits through broad dissemination and being made more engaging due to the radio documentary/feature aesthetic. The article suggests that the COHRD found a nascent expression in the pioneering work of producers such as Corwin (United States 1947), Mitchell (United Kingdom 1950s) and Terkel (United States 1958) and particularly in the Radio Ballads of MacColl, Parker and Seeger (United Kingdom 1958–64). Podcasting has reinvigorated long-form radio narratives, which can now be sourced online as academic research texts. The COHRD form is exemplified today in programmes such as Hindsight on ABC Radio National (Australia) and Hearing Voices and Radio Diaries on National Public Radio (United States).