The driveway moment: When a report or interview really works, you can tell and we can tell. We can, because the story hits the top of the most emailed list at NPR.org. You can tell, because the story keeps you pinned in your car, in a parking lot, in your driveway, or at the side of the road—as you wait to hear how the story will end. In letters and emails, listeners named these occurrences “driveway moments,” and say they look forward to them, even when it means being late for work or dinner. So that’s your goal: make some driveway moments.

~ Jay Kernis, from Sound Reporting, pg xi

I’m finally heading into NPR’s book, Sound Reporting, and this big of context included by Kernis in the Foreword got me thinking…

What are you doing so that you even know when you’ve put out a “driveway moment?”

It doesn’t matter at all if we feel it’s a driveway moment. It matters if our listeners think so. Are you paying attention to your listeners? Do you have multiple ways for them to connect back to you?

I do think about “driveway moments” when creating episodes. It’s difficult however, given the way that I create my work; They have to simply happen. If one wants to create them, that requires planning, work and editing.

For me, when I encounter a listener (virtually or in real life) the only question I ask them is…

Has any episode grabbed you? …any particular moment or image?

And then I shut up and listen.

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