By Susan Kitchens, Family Oral History
and Jennifer Myronuk, Storyfield

Oral history can take the form of audio, video or multimedia storytelling with sounds and photos. What’s important is that you begin recording the stories of people important to you — family members, loved ones, friends and community members who have done something interesting, or even remarkable. (We all have!)

Here are some resources to get you on your way:

Oral history: Getting started

Oral History Association. With a list of Regional Centers centers and collections worldwide (see who’s doing oral history close to you).

Evaluation Guidelines. The document describing standards and ethics for oral historians. The maxim, Do your work well and treat others with respect is broken down into specific topics, such as responsibiltiies to interviewees, the public, and archival institutions. The Project Guidelines section is a good mental checklist for planning an oral history project.

Family Oral History Using Digital Tools. Family stories: record them, transfer to your computer, create digital archive disks. Discussing how-tos, tools, techniques.

Interviewing

Storycorps Question Generator. Designed for interviews in one of the Storycorps booths, the question generator can be used by anyone to help "think up" good questions to ask someone for an interview. Compose some of your own questions, then select some questions from the ones provided. Questions will appear in a web page for printing and they’ll send them to you in an email.

Family Oral History Using Digital Tools has a category on interviewing. All the resources named here, plus discussion of other aspects about interviewing, book reviews, thoughts, etc.

Baylor University’s Oral History Workshop on the Web. Has several excellent resources, including Principles for Family Oral History, a one-page 10-point plan, and The Heart of Oral History: How to Interview, a short page with a link to a PDF of a chapter, "How To Interview," written by Thomas L. Charlton for his text, Oral History for Texans. Highly recommended no matter where you live.

The Remembering Site, a guide to life story and autobiography, founded by D.G. Fulford, co-author of To Our Children’s Children (see books, below). Emphasis is in written story; site allows for writing, photo uploads, etc. Membership has a one-time $25 fee, and more questions than you could ever think of answering. But there’s a page of sample questions to whet your appetite.

Veterans History Project (WW1, WW2, Korean War, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan/Iraq). Tons of good information and resources. Are you interviewing family members or friends who are vets? Check this out.

The site includes Interview Tips and Resources that are useful to anyone.

Preservation

Long Now Foundation. Because digital lasts forever, or five years … whichever comes first. The 10,000-year clock and other extremely long-term thinking.

Ten-thousand year blog by David Mattison. Digital archiving. Thinking long term. Following current events in museums and archives and digital technology. Serving up information since 2003.

Books

Doing Oral History by Donald Ritchie, Senate Historian.
Definitive. Authoritative. Excellent for group efforts by academic and historical institutions. Some of the book will be overkill for personal use.

To Our Children’s Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come by Bob Greene and D.G. Fulford.
A book of questions and remembering prompts. Designed for personal autobiography, the questions can be adapted for oral history interviews. They’re designed to pull out sensory details in reminiscence. Notable sights, smells. Fulford is founder of The Remembering Site, listed above.

At your local library

These books are out of print but still way useful:

The Tape Recorded Interview by Edward Ives.
The distillation of over two decades of a folklorist and oral historian. Thorough description of all stages of interview, from preparation, the interview itself, and afterwards. Plus equipment how-to: the instructions for the (portable reel-to-reel) tape recorder are anachronistic bliss! Friendly tone; Lots of good advice: "Think of the microphone as a representative of a number of people … who … are extremely interested in what is being talked about."

Talking Your Roots by William Fletcher.
Excellent source for interview questions covering all aspects of life. Friendly hand-holding: "Be easy on yourself." "You can’t do a bad interview." Get thee to the library and check it out!

How to separate good writers and publishers from frauds and con artists online

By Colin Brayton
Online Journalism Review

The ethics of online journalism are, ultimately, no different than the ethics of journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists has articulated a comprehensive policy of journalism ethics that can help guide any consciencious online writer.

That said, here are some basic qualities that any good online writer ought content ought to demonstrate:

No plagiarism

By now, you’ve likely discovered that writing is hard work. You certainly don’t want someone else swiping your effort and presenting it as his or her own.

So don’t steal others’ work.

Such theft is plagiarism. It includes not just cutting and pasting whole articles, but copying photos, graphics, video and even large text excerpts from others and putting them on your web page as well.

If you want to reference something on another website, link it instead.

If you are concerned that the page you’re linking to will disappear, give your readers the name of the publication that published the page, its date of publication and a short summary of its content. Just like news reporters used to reference other content before the Web. (“In a Sept. 20 report, the Wall Street Journal reported….").

When in doubt, do both. There’s no such thing as too much supporting information.

Disclose, disclose, disclose

Tell your readers how you got your information, and what factors influenced your decision to publish it. If you have a personal or professional connection to people or groups you’re writing about, describe it. Your readers deserve to know what has influenced the way you reported or wrote a story.

Don’t hide whom you work for, or where the money to support your site comes from. If your site runs advertising, label the ads as such. Let readers know if you are making money off links elsewhere on your site, as well.

No gifts or money for coverage

One common way journalists avoid conflicts of interest is by refusing gifts or money from sources they cover. Writers who accept gifts, payments or honoraria from the people or groups they cover open themselves up to charges that their work is a paid advertisement for those sources. Or, at the very least, that those writers are too "close" to these sources to cover them honestly. You can avoid controversy by politely declining such offers.

Most major news organizations do allow their writers to accept free admission to events for the purpose of writing a feature or review. But most of those organizations bar their writers from "junkets," where groups provide free travel and hotel rooms in addition to attendance at their event.

Many companies also send items such as books and DVDs to writers who review them. Items of significant value ought to be returned after the review. Less expensive items, such as books, can be donated to a local school or charity.

If you are writing about your employer, obviously you are accepting money from it. But let your readers know that. Identify yourself as an employee, even if you are writing anonymously, so people know enough about your background that they can make their own judgment about your credibility.

As writers should not accept money from sources, they also should not ask for it. If your site runs ads, do not solicit people or groups you cover to buy ads or sponsorships on your site. Find someone else handle your ad sales.

Check it out, then tell the truth

Just because someone else said it, this statement does not make it true. Reward your readers with accurate information that stands up to scrutiny from other writers. Check out your information before you print it.

Find facts, not just others’ opinions, to support your comments. Start with sites such as our guide to reporting to learn how to find real data, not someone else’s spin. Make sure that what you are writing isn’t merely repeating some urban myth, either.

If you are writing about someone else, call or e-mail them for a comment before you publish. If your subject has a blog, link to it. That link will notify the subject that you’ve written about them, and will allow your readers to click-through and read the subject’s side of the story.

If you want to write satire or spoofs, fine. But make sure your audience knows that what you are writing is not literal truth. Tricking readers won’t help you develop the respect, credibility or loyal audience that truthful writers enjoy and rely upon.

Be honest

In summary, be honest with your readers and transparent about your work. If people wonder for a moment about your honesty or your motives, you’ve lost credibility with them. Don’t let them do that. Answer those questions even before readers ask.