Pulse of the Planet Seeking Stories

Hey audio folks. I'm thrilled to tell you that Pulse of the Planet is accepting pitches! Details below.

-mia

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For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Pulse of the Planet is an award-winning daily two-minute radio series independently produced and distributed to over 200 public and commercial stations. The hallmark of the series is its use of ambient sound. Our stories are often seasonal and evergreen. We "track the rhythms of life on earth", including nature, culture and science as our broad subjects.

A typical story might be a seasonal nature event or traditional celebration of some kind. We also air science stories which may not be seasonal, but which have a sound "hook". Check out pulseplanet.com to get a feeling for the program.

The first step would be to pitch your story ideas: Tell us the subject matter, where it would be taking place, what you'd be recording and who you'd be interviewing. If we're not familiar with your work, you'll need to send us a link to hear a sample of it. We'll respond to the stories that interest us.

If we say yes to your story, we'll send you a set of guidelines and you'd be sending us raw sound and interview files, typically from 30 minutes to an hour of interview, plus sounds. How the sounds relate to the interview will depend upon the subject. We like stories which portray science in action, where we're hearing something interesting and its meaning is explained in the context of the story. To be clear – you'll be sending us raw sound, not a produced piece. In summary – an attractive pitch will have a strong sound component, and a compelling, seasonal subject.

We pay $250/story for raw sounds/interviews as described above which meet our standards, plus travel expenses, when necessary. We'll pay an additional $50 for a log of your sound files (not a transcription, a summary log) and another $50 if you send usable photographs to illustrate the story.

Please send your pitch ideas to pulse@igc.org. I'll be glad to respond to generic questions in comments to this post.

All the Best;
Jim Metzner
pulse@igc.org
http://www.pulseplanet.com