audience

I asked 100 Atlantans what’s missing from local news. Here’s what they said.

I am a big believer in the power of my profession to inform, elevate, and connect communities.

I am also a big believer in the philosophy of “Let’s do it and see what happens.”

But local TV news too often finds too many reasons to keep doing the same old stuff – and thus turning off the people we’re trying to reach. We race around our region producing reports, but we rarely stop and get a sense for the people who will watch them.

Last week we unveiled a segment on WXIA-TV called “Untold Atlanta”. Our goal is to tell the stories we are not telling enough.

But we will never find those stories if we don’t ask … or listen. So that’s what we did.

On two days in late July, we set out to interview 100 Metro Atlantans and ask each person one question: “What are the stories we’re not telling?” I wanted to shake hands, have conversations, and get to know more people than I would otherwise meet in a 48-hour span.

And if it didn’t work out? “Let’s do it and see what happens.”

We mapped out ten locations across the region, all situated in environments we deemed target-rich for productive interaction. We did not want to waste time seeking people out; we wanted to engage in conversations and hear from as many voices – and as many different types of voices – as possible.

(We made sure to attempt this experiment on two of the summer’s most sweltering days. The high temperature averaged 91 degrees, as I was reminded by the beads of sweat that would populate almost immediately after getting out of the car. Maybe next time we’ll try this in October.)

What did people say? We fit as many as we could into this video. I’ll let them speak for themselves.

And if you’d like to know more or submit a story idea, check out the Untold Atlanta page on 11Alive.

We’ll do it. And we’ll see what happens.

I can’t wait.

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The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on AmazonBarnes & 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.

Learning from the audience, and absorbing – not ignoring – criticism

My heart always jumps a bit when I see it in my Inbox.

As a television reporter, I attempt on a daily basis to condense hours’ worth of research, visuals, and interviews into a digestible 90-second story. I rarely put anything on the air until I am entirely confident in every fact and every word.

But, on rare occasions, I get feedback that says I might have missed one.

It arrives in the form of an e-mail or social media comment, and it always fills me with a distinct sense of dread. No matter my previous confidence, I always scramble to see if I have, in fact, made a mistake. For the most part, I find my original research to be correct, and I can then release a giant sigh and resume my day. If not, I feel terrible for the rest of the day.

But every now and then, such a comment leaves me thankful.

Two weeks ago we learned of a freshman at the University of Georgia who had taken part in a student-made music video for Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling”. The young man, we were told, was named Luke Bundrum and was deaf; the video featured a group of students performing the song using sign language. The group had already garnered attention on campus.

We loved the idea. I headed to Athens, Ga., met and interviewed Luke, spoke with his friends from the video, and returned to Atlanta with the makings of an enjoyable story. I wrote a script saying how this young man wanted to “raise awareness for the hearing-impaired”, and we aired the piece that night and posted it online to unanimous praise.

And then I saw a comment that said otherwise.

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