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Logan lives on: the triumph of a heart-warming story

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I just spent most of August covering an event that captivates the world. I worked at the 2016 Summer Olympics for three weeks, produced 36 packages, made dozens of social media posts, and wrote 13 entries for this blog. Many of those packages, posts, and entries spread a great distance and performed very well both on-air and online.

But my most-read blog post from last month? It had nothing to do with the Olympics. It wasn’t in any way new; I had written it ten months earlier. And it was read nine times as much as the second-most popular post.

It was about a young man who has now touched hearts as worldwide as the Olympics.

It was about Logan.

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A soldier’s return: why the story outranks the tool

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I pride myself on using powerful cameras, wireless microphones, and slick digital editors to capture the finest images and sounds – and then using my station’s on-air signal to present them on television.

But I am constantly reminded how none of it matters without compelling content.

The other day I was on a plane to Greensboro, N.C. to do some behind-the-scenes work at one of our affiliates. I spent the entire flight with headphones in my ears, which meant I completely missed when the captain described what was happening under my seat – and would soon occur right outside my window:

Our plane was carrying the remains of a U.S. Army sergeant who served during the Korean War … and who was finally coming home, 65 years later.

I spent the flight entirely unaware of this. But then we landed, and I lifted up my window shade to see, standing outside, nine young men in military uniforms.

I did not know what they were doing, but I immediately pulled out my phone.

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Notes from New Orleans: A personal look at Hurricane Katrina

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Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina rocked the Gulf Coast and became one of the most startling, devastating stories of the decade.

When it happened, I was unemployed … and ready to book a flight to New Orleans.

I wanted to do whatever I could to help, but two factors kept me away. The Red Cross had requested only volunteers with medical training, which would have left me useless. Also, shortly around the time when I would have bought my ticket, I received and accepted a job offer to work in Buffalo, NY and needed to turn most of my attention to that.

But I kept New Orleans on my mind. Three years later, I booked a flight to go down for a week and help rebuild a home … but then cancelled the flight when a different hurricane, Gustav, placed the region on alert.

Finally, in the winter of 2009 — a perfect time to vacate Buffalo for warmer temperatures — I succeeded. I re-booked flights and signed up to volunteer with the St. Bernard Project, which still does tremendous work with residents displaced from their homes. With nothing to stop me, I headed down South.

And I will never forget what followed.

My week in New Orleans filled me with emotions: anger and admiration, frustration and inspiration, horror and humility. I twice almost cried — once out of extreme sadness, once out of immense joy. But I knew I wanted to document these feelings, and not just with my camera.

So I wrote. I used the now-forgotten Facebook feature of Notes to write six daily posts from the Crescent City. They provided my friends with as much of a window as I could provide; they provided me with an outlet to share my experience with those closest to me at home.

It was one of the first times where I truly understood the power of social media to make an impact.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, here are my six notes from New Orleans, edited slightly for content, time, and grammar (I cringe sometimes when I see my old writing). I think you will see how my emotions deepened over the course of the week, all the way until its poignant end. (more…)

Instagram, Vine, Periscope: the trifecta of elusive social media for journalists

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One of my favorite posts on this site — for not the quality of its writing but the entertainment of its content — is an entry from two years ago titled, “10 Turn of the Century Predictions, and 10 Lessons Learned“.

In it, I examine the crystal ball work done by the staff of Entertainment Weekly in 1999, as they spotlight ten “companies and visionaries leading the electronic charge”.  These range from innovations in music (POP.com) to gaming (godgames.com) to interactive television (mixedsignals.com).

Don’t worry if you don’t recognize the three web sites I just mentioned; they no longer exist.

Some of Entertainment Weekly‘s predictions turned out remarkably right, and others proved woefully wrong. My conclusion, upon re-reading the issue? “It should remind us what we thought the media landscape would look like — and how similar yet different it actually appears today.”

I think of the article — and my subsequent post — when I encounter the new forms of media expected to transform my job as a journalist.

***

Many individual journalists I know today still struggle with both how to incorporate social media and which ones to incorporate. Most have invested at least somewhat in Facebook and Twitter, with both providing some return in terms of followers, shares, and conversations. Beyond that, for most in my field, it’s a crap shoot.

None of these options, mind you, existed when I started in the businesses a dozen years ago. But a journalist, already working with a limited time frame and hard deadline, must constantly make choices as to which audience needs to be served. Do I spend a few minutes crafting a Facebook post? Do I take a minute here and there during the day to update Twitter? Do I shoot an iPhone video and send it back for the web site? Or do I eschew all of it and use that time to research and develop my daily story?

That does not even get into a trio of social media options that seem to be beyond most journalists’ reach: Instagram, Vine, and Periscope. (more…)

Down with Periscope? I’m still working on it

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It always comes down to time.

As journalists and storytellers, we are constantly faced with limits to our time: every story has a deadline, every shoot has an end, and — particularly in TV and radio — every word we speak takes up valuable space in our story’s window.

But that says nothing of our limits in dealing with free time. How much do we choose to invest? Do we work a little longer to make a story just right? Do we get up early to call sources?

And do we attempt to master every new wave of technology that comes through the universe?

I have been a journalist for 12 years, and in that seemingly short span, I have already seen the rise of Facebook, Twitter, apps, Instagram, and Vine on social media. In each case, we as a journalism community seemed to go through a similar cycle: early resistance, followed by sweeping infatuation, ending with a happy medium of incorporation. Some outlets have fared better than others; Twitter remains the go-to way to update breaking news in a flash, while Facebook has become the place to build devoted followings and start conversations. Instagram and Vine have seen less success in the journalism community; Vine in particular seems to have fallen spectacularly after such an invigorating start. I possess a Vine account but rarely use it; I know few journalists who remain committed to it.

Now comes Periscope.

And now comes that same cycle. (more…)

5 reasons for hope for journalism’s future

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I realized it the other day: I started the year by highlighting a sobering story for any storyteller.

I linked to a brilliant piece by Andrew Marantz called “The Virologist”, which profiled a web site/content creator who aims for clicks and money without any nod to ethics or storytelling. Sites like this — think Buzzfeed, but even more calculated — drive on the highway of journalism without getting into the lane of journalistic responsibility. Marantz gave an absolutely brutal assessment of the landscape of the Web.

The piece, to be sure, started the year on a low note.

So let’s take it back to a higher one.

Let’s use this space to talk about what excites us for the new year — and the future of journalism and storytelling.

Here are five things that give me hope: (more…)

3 GREAT STORIES: Starring Ferguson, Ferguson, & Ferguson

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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.

Black death in the era of Ferguson (11/24/14, Ebony): I approached the aftermath of the Ferguson verdict wanting to listen, not talk.

I wanted to listen to perspectives that were not my own, backgrounds that I had not experienced.

This week, I offer three great first-person reflections following the verdict, starting with Jamilah Lemieux of Ebony Magazine:

If this isn’t our collective “Black wake-up call,” then it will never come. The whole damn system is guilty as hell, and if we fail to challenge it, then we are too. There is not one more moment for complacency; our silence is consent. The people of St. Louis are roaring; will the rest of us join in? When the only thing standing between imminent death and us is the fear, nervousness and ineptitude of the police, will we continue to act as if we can pray, earn or achieve our way out of struggle?

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3 GREAT STORIES: Starring paint, police cars, & pics

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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.

Young artist not stopped by disease sells $50K painting (10/23/14, KUSA-TV): An on-the-surface slam dunk of a story turns out, indeed, to be just that.

Reporter Kyle Dyer and photographer Andrew Christman of 9News in Denver spin a great yarn here. They tell the story of a young girl who suffers from brittle bone disease — as do her parents. She fights it with a beaming personality and a unexpected ability: painting. Fast forward to a charity event where the young girl, named Anicee, sells two of her canvases for $50,000 each.

It’s a feel-good story that feels better thanks to Dyer and Christman’s storytelling. They weave in some great surprises and genuine moments of joy, and they make it look pretty easy. (more…)

3 GREAT STORIES: On Facebook, journalism, & downtown Atlanta

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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 the year nears its end, so does this segment — at least in a sense.

This entry is the final 2013 edition of “3 Great Stories” that focuses on original content. In the next two weeks, I will publish my favorite stories of the past twelve months, much as I did during the first six months of the year.

So, without further ado, here are three great stories from last week, a strong week in a very strong year for storytelling:

On second thought … (12/13/13, Slate): If you read this blog regularly, you know I am no stranger to using my life experiences — even my Facebook timeline — as inspiration for entries.

Naturally, I enjoy when other journalists do it, too … especially when they, as I try to do, springboard that inspiration into compelling work that affects a wider audience.

Jennifer Golbeck of Slate’s Future Tense blog does that here. She uses a friend’s question on Facebook — about whether the social media service tracks what you write, even if you don’t post it — and researches her way to a provocative think-piece about user privacy. She finds a study in which the authors, both Facebook employees, freely admit to mining our un-posted writing and using it for their own research.

Golbeck articulates, at her entry’s end, why Facebook users should be alarmed by this:

Facebook studies this because the more its engineers understand about self-censorship, the more precisely they can fine-tune their system to minimize self-censorship’s prevalence. This goal — designing Facebook to decrease self-censorship — is explicit in the paper. So Facebook considers your thoughtful discretion about what to post as bad, because it withholds value from Facebook and from other users. Facebook monitors those unposted thoughts to better understand them, in order to build a system that minimizes this deliberate behavior.

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