I was responsible for this past week’s most popular story on my station’s web site, 11alive.com.
In the piece, I profiled a 4-year-old boy from east Georgia who is battling a rare cancer that cannot be cured; he has been told he may only live for a few more days.
The story has been viewed more than 10,000 times; several of my co-workers told me the following day how much it moved them.
And the most moving moment? Initially I did not know if I liked it.
Let me offer a little background. The previous Friday, I drove down to the 4,000-person town of Lyons, Ga. to meet the young boy, Silas, and his family. In his final days, Silas had started a movement for everyone to paint their nails gold to raise awareness of childhood cancer. The movement had reached 30,000 likes on Facebook, with photos of gold-painted nails pouring into the family’s inbox.
Silas’ family members welcomed me into their home for a brief time. During that time, Silas did not say too much, but he did at one point take part in a moving, heart-breaking exchange with his mother.
“I don’t know what the bad news is,” Silas said about his situation. When his mom asked, “OK, well what’s the good news?” Silas responded by saying this:
“The good news is … is … soon I’m going to heaven.”
I thought about that moment the whole way back to Atlanta. I knew it would be the centerpiece of my story, and indeed I wrote it as such the following week.
When I showed the piece to my news director, she loved it but had one major point of advice:
“You need to play that line again,” she said about Silas’ “going to heaven” line.
Play it twice?
I had never considered that. And to be honest, I did not love the idea. I am a big believer in subtlety and letting stories tell themselves. Repeating a quote and exhorting to the audience to pay attention to it? That seemed to be the opposite of subtle.
But the more my news director explained it, I realized she was right. This one line was, by far, the most moving moment of the story, and someone could have easily missed it the first time or perhaps not quite heard it (Silas said the words very softly).
This was another reality I often did not consider. I always assume I have the audience’s undivided attention when I tell a story, even though I know that is usually not the case. Viewers can be doing any number of things while watching the news, and sometimes we need to command them to pay attention to important moments.
Silas’ statement was one of those moments.
I made the change, and I noticed the difference. Several co-workers and Facebook commenters cited the repetition as their favorite part of the story.
Journalists always talk about catering to our audience, but sometimes we must check our egos in the process. Sometimes we cannot be too proud to call for our audience to listen to us.
If they listened to Silas, they heard a beautiful statement from an inspiring four-year-old boy.
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Matt Pearl is the author of the Telling The Story blog. He can be reached at matt@tellingthestoryblog.com.
Truly touching story. The repetition was appropriate for this story. The words of a dying child… I didn’t feel like you were exploiting anything with the story. But, if it were any other run-of-the-mill news story, i would be wary as you were at first.
Much thanks, Annette. I don’t know that there is a right or wrong answer — so much of storytelling is subjective, of course — but in this case I certainly felt the repetition was appropriate, and I’m glad you agree.