“Write for the ear, not the page,” is an old radio maxim – one that challenges print reporters making the transition to radio. That makes sense, of course. Newspaper and magazine reporters have written for the page for so long, it’s often hard to think sonically.

That wasn’t the case for Martine Powers. Martine reported on transportation and infrastructure for The Boston Globe and elsewhere for many years. When she attended the Transom Story Workshop in the fall of 2015, she excelled at putting sound to work in her storytelling. In fact, she says her print background wasn’t a hindrance at all. Rather, it informed her storytelling and writing.

On this episode of HowSound, Martine makes the link between the info-graphics used in newspaper reporting and the sound design in her radio story about the psychology of driving through intersections.

In this outtake from our chat, she says her conversational style of writing came from her print reporting – not news stories, per se, but her column “Starts and Stops.”

Martine now works for Politico where she still writes about transportation. On the side, she’s producing a podcast called about Black women and their experiences in professional and social circles.