brent cox

3 GREAT STORIES: Starring Twitter, dahlias, and the broadcast clock

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Every week, I shine the spotlight on some of the best storytelling in the business and offer my comments. “3 Great Stories of the Week” will post every Monday at 8 AM.

As I chose the stories for this week’s “3 Great Stories” segment, I was struck by how different they are.

One is a print piece that takes an actual event from last week and spins it into a rich commentary.

One is a broadcast piece that required months of preparation about a seemingly frivolous topic.

One is an audio segment that lifts the curtain on an important — and rarely noted — journalistic tool.

The one common thread? Each piece is an obvious labor of love.

You can tell, in each case, the author has spent a great deal of time — much of it likely outside of work — delving into the topic of his story. In all three cases, I would argue, that extra time made a positive impact.

Twitter and the death of quiet enjoyment (9/13/13, The Awl): Unlike the other stories listed, I don’t believe this one would have succeeded at all without the author’s passion.

Brent Cox (a writer I have mentioned before) makes a difficult argument here; he discusses movie theater etiquette in the age of Twitter, social media, and constant communication, and he does so by introducing terms (“quiet enjoyment”, “the Conversationalists”) and convincingly backing them up with sound reasoning. He does very little research here; he mostly concocts this story from his own experience and, again, his obviously large amount of thought about the topic.

Without any research on which he could fall back, Cox pens a story that holds up and inspires thought. He fills the article with insights and paradoxes, all about our seemingly conflicting desires to be left alone while staying in constant communication. As he describes it:

We want to be alone, but included. Actually, most importantly, we want to be included, and in fact we cannot properly enjoy the viewing of our favorite (broadcast, and not Netflix’d) TV shows unless there is a conversation in which to be included—even if the “conversation” is a tweet left hanging in the wind.

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3 GREAT STORIES OF THE WEEK: Starring blind dogs, disabilities, and the national pastime

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Every week, I will shine the spotlight on some of the best storytelling in the business and offer my comments. “3 Great Stories of the Week” will post every Monday at 8 AM.

Three stories.

Three extremely different examples of storytelling.

One story takes two minutes to watch; the second, roughly ten minutes to read; the third, nearly an hour to hear.

One story is light and heartwarming; the second, informative and mind-expanding; the third, serious and soul-shaking.

One story succeeds through its sweet visuals; the second, through sheer research; the third, through a mix of thorough reporting, detailed interviewing, and personal storytelling.

Each story works, and works well. You may find yourself talking about all of them this week.

Blind Lab Has His Own Guide Dog (3/25/13, NBC’s Today Show): Here’s the thing: I actually did not like a lot of the storytelling in this piece.

Mainly, I could not stand the music, and the story did not need it.

But every time I thought about turning this story off, I was pulled back in by (A) the cuteness of the dogs, or (B) the unfolding of the story. NBC’s Annabel Roberts brings this joyful piece from Wales, U.K., and with the exception of the music, she wisely lets the dogs do the, um, talking.

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