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Local news rarely covers climate change. Here’s why we did.

Late last month, after the first round of Democratic debates devoted just ten minutes to climate change, former NBC & PBS reporter John Larson posted the following in a Facebook group of his peers:

“Is there a Climate discussion in your newsroom? In Broadcast we excel at Breaking News. We’re poor with huge stories that evolve… slowly. … Will anyone bring it up in your next morning meeting? Or better, explore ways to tell the stories? If not, how about you?”

From my desk, I nodded hard. And I couldn’t wait to share what I had brewing.

A few months earlier, I had shared similar frustrations with my news director. “I want to do a special on climate change,” I told her, but I wanted to maneuver around all the pitfalls that keep us in local news from tackling the topic.

It’s too toxic.

It’s too political.

It’s too daunting.

It’s too depressing.

The challenge was laid: how do we cover this subject – among the most important facing our planet – in a way that breaks through the noise and informs our audience?

Here’s what we came up with:

This past Monday, we launched PLAN G, a 20-minute documentary that will run as a half-hour special in our Friday and evening newscasts. Each night in our newscasts, we tell the story of a different Georgian uniquely affecting – or affected by – the changes to our climate. I shot and edited the entire special myself – with the exception of my opening standup – and worked with a graphic artist and digital specialist to handle the overall look and online rollout, respectively.

Mostly, I spoke often with producers and managers about how to attack this subject. We came up with a few foundations:

Dig deep for background. Before I shot a frame of video, I logged at least a dozen conversations with leaders and experts in our state. I learned of tremendous resources that approached the subject in an objective way. I built a compendium of potential storylines before deciding which to make my focus.

Let people tell their stories. Except for my opening standup – and the occasional questions to my interview subjects – I kept my voice out of it. I spoke with people of different backgrounds, life experiences, and even different views about climate change. I spent days with each. I wanted to allow them to speak for themselves – at least, as much within reason, since I still edited hours of footage per person into roughly 4-5 minutes each.

Don’t try to cover every inch. There are so many fascinating stories about Georgians in the center of the climate conversation. Even with 20 minutes of real estate, I knew I couldn’t possibly cover them all. I focused on four and tried to select people who could provide a wide array of perspectives.

Swing for the fences, but don’t be afraid to fail. In some ways, I’m a glutton for punishment. I find subjects that are taboo, that don’t have the sexiest headlines, that don’t get automatic clicks. I feel a journalistic responsibility to cover stories that matter, and I take on the uphill climb of presenting them in a way that will resonate.

In this case, I’m still not totally sure if it worked.

The night the special launched, it received tepid response. Our rollout began slowly, and we waited to reach out to the communities and groups we thought would gravitate to it. But even as we struggle to amplify its reach, I’m glad we took on the task.

As John Larson said, “We’re poor with huge stories that evolve … slowly.” But we can’t abstain from the responsibility.

We must continue to embrace it.

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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.

JFK, MLK, and the crafting of a Civil Rights documentary

Rarely, as a local TV news reporter, do I get to spend two weeks on one story.

Rarely does that story get to be eight minutes long.

And rarely do those eight minutes contain an arsenal of powerful interviews from iconic figures.

So, when I received the opportunity to work on such a story earlier this month, I knew it would be special.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the “I Have a Dream” speech from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With that anniversary comes a documentary from my station in Atlanta, WXIA-TV, called “50 Years of Change”, which looks back on not just the famous march but the other major civil rights events of 1963:

  • the declaration, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” from Alabama governor George Wallace
  • the child protests in Birmingham
  • the nationally televised speech on civil rights from President Kennedy
  • the murder of Medgar Evers a day later
  • the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham
  • the assassination of President Kennedy

It’s an impressive list. (Last week we screened the documentary for local Atlanta leaders, and roughly three-quarters of the way through, one of the attendees turned around in his chair and remarked, “Man, a lot happened in ’63!”)

I was assigned the final story on the above list: the killing of John F. Kennedy, and what that meant for the civil rights movement. I went down to Dallas for a few days to get footage of the famous spots from the assassination (the book depository building, Dealey Plaza). I also interviewed several people who had been in Dallas that day, one of whom was a radio reporter at the time and stood a half-block away from Kennedy when the assassination occurred. Following that trip, I spent several days simply cobbling together old footage and photos — a difficult task, since most of the footage I wanted came with a price tag that exceeded our budget. Finally, I required two days to edit the whole thing, which included several hours reformatting all the old footage so that it looked consistent.

The process was exhaustive — and absorbing. But of all those arduous tasks, the most important thing I did was seemingly the simplest:

Listening.

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PODCAST EPISODE #1: Jon Shirek, reporter, WXIA-TV

Let the next chapter begin.

Two months after kicking off the Telling the Story blog, I am proud to introduce the Telling the Story podcast. This will continue the discussion about how journalists — and all of us — reach the world. Each episode of the podcast will feature an esteemed storyteller, answering questions and conversing about both the craft of storytelling and its role in the changing media landscape.

I could not be more thrilled to begin the podcast with one of my favorite storytellers: WXIA-TV reporter Jon Shirek.

Jon is a friend and colleague of mine. We have worked together for four years at the NBC affiliate in Atlanta; of course, I arrived just as Jon was beginning his fourth decade at the station. He is, I would say, the most respected and veteran storyteller in a newsroom that houses many great ones.

He also recently made a big change. Five years ago Jon was asked to become a backpack journalist, meaning he would have to shoot and edit his own stories instead of working with a photographer. He warily accepted the challenge, and he continues to crank out terrific work.

This is no small feat. Young journalists today are told in college they will have no choice but to shoot their own stories. Jon had been working with a photographer for several decades before he was asked. To learn the skills while remaining a great storyteller has been an impressive achievement, one that often gets taken for granted in the WXIA newsroom.

“I think it has made me a better reporter in a lot of ways,” Jon told me. “It has helped me economize my approach to stories so that I have a better idea, while I’m talking to somebody, the direction the story needs to go.” That said, he notes, “I am still a work in progress. I cannot pretend to be a photographer after five years.”

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