2018 was a year of transition. At least it was for this journalist.
I experienced my first full year overseeing my own segment on WXIA-TV, and I entered my second year as a grad student at the University of Georgia.
Above all, I became a dad.
This greatly influenced my writing and podcasting in this space. I blogged more sporadically but tried to make my posts meaningful. Throughout the year, support came in comments, Tweets, and messages. Whenever I debated pulling back, I received some form of appreciation that motivated me to keep going.
Here are the posts you clicked on the most in 2018, with a passage from each:
PODCAST EPISODE 64: Catherine Steward, photographer, WTVF-TV: I rarely ask a Telling the Story podcast guest to come back for a second episode. I like to spread the audio wealth and interview as many storytellers and journalists as possible to provide a full spectrum of perspectives for my audience.
But when a previous guest wins a National Edward R. Murrow award with one of the most pristine slices of video I’ve ever seen, I can make an exception.
Catherine Steward has captured numerous honors for her work as a photojournalist for WTVF-TV in Nashville. This may be her biggest yet. She took the Large Market TV station Murrow for Excellence in Sound, and the winning piece was a solo effort. I asked Steward to deconstruct her story, scene by scene, nearly shot by shot, to give the rest of us a chance at producing something similar.
5 lessons from the NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism 2017 winners: In the five years that I have captained this blog, I have written this post four times. It remains one of my favorite annual pieces to pen, because it involves one of my favorite annual traditions: watching the winners of the NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism video awards.
Every year I sit down, click on links, and marvel at the winners. And every year I take away new lessons that, I hope, will boost my own work. This year I was named a NPPA finalist for three of my stories, and I won the association’s prize for Solo Video Journalist of the Year. But I found, in the Best of Photojournalism winners, work that inspires me to improve and compels me to keep crafting.
PODCAST EPISODE 59: Eric Mennel, senior producer, Gimlet Media: I have listened to Gimlet Media’s StartUp Podcast on and off since its inception. This past December I rediscovered it thanks to a five-part series called StartupBus. The premise? Per Gimlet’s web site: “This past summer, 20 strangers got on a charter bus headed from New York to New Orleans. For three days they had one goal: Build and launch companies from inside the bus. And then? Compete against each other.”
Sound like a reality show? It did to Eric Mennel. The Gimlet senior producer pitched StartupBus as an episode, got on the bus, and realized after two days he had struck audio gold. He turned it into a five-part series, with one episode for each day of the competition.
Think about the challenge. Mennel faced the curse of few limits; he had plenty of time and roughly two dozen people who could potentially become main characters in his story. He needed to find them, figure out the main stories, remain open to new events, record it all, and then – upon returning – winnow an absurd amount of audio into 150 minutes of content.
Mennel succeeded.
PODCAST EPISODE 60: Ryan Oliveira, photographer, KXAS-TV: Ryan Oliveira is a photojournalist at KXAS-TV, the NBC affiliate in Dallas/Ft. Worth which last year captured four National Edward R. Murrow awards and this week was named a Peabody Awards finalist. The station knows storytelling. This year, amidst a tremendously talented team of journalists, Oliveira stood out.
He did so with sensitivity.
His piece covering the church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Tex. shows the power of staying back and letting people express their emotions. Oliveira and reporter Noelle Walker took their time and succeeded in covering a massive story by acing the fundamentals of storytelling: perfect shot composition, a tender script with themes both specific and universal, and thoughtful, intentional editing.
I’m a new father. And I’m aching to control time: Time moves too slow. A new father sits in the dark, his three-day old daughter in his lap. It’s 2 AM. His daughter cries in minute-long spurts and tries to worm her arms out of her swaddle blanket. Dad counters each move while trying to keep his daughter calm and, more importantly, quiet.
Time moves too fast. Yes, I wanted Olivia to stop crying and start sleeping. But even in a half-open-eyed slumber, I wanted to savor the moment.
Mom is sleeping in their bedroom, he hopes. They spent the previous hour pacing around the apartment, cycling through potential causes of the high-pitched pierce they’re sure has awakened their neighbors. But they don’t both need to stand guard. One can sleep while the other sits. Dad volunteered to sit. He wills his eyelids to stay up.
Everything about parenthood so far has been a fight for control. My wife and I have tried in vain to develop a routine. We have scraped together hours of sleep, first at the hospital and now at home. We have learned on the fly how to feed, clothe, change, and swaddle a tiny human who three days earlier existed only in the womb. We should want to fast-forward through this time and get to the good stuff: walking, talking, eating pizza, playing soccer, going to the prom. But then I look at Olivia, and I want time to freeze. Even when she cries, she seems perfect. She is untouched by the world and cocooned by her parents. At least that’s how it feels.
The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher’s web site.
Matt Pearl is the author of the Telling the Story blog and podcast. Feel free to comment below or e-mail Matt at matt@tellingthestoryblog.com. You can also follow Matt on Facebook and Twitter.