reveal

This episode of Reply All should teach us all how to tell stories

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I listen to podcasts a lot … too much, let’s go ahead and say.

According to Stitcher Smart Radio, I have listened on that app alone to nearly 3,000 hours of podcasts and more than 14,000 episodes. At the time of this writing, I carry a 54-day listening streak.

I’m a reporter in TV news, but as a consumer I choose podcasts far more. And I often think the two have little in common. Podcasts run way longer, often function as a talk show or long-form interview, and of course lack the video component that is so essential in my work. But some podcasts tell stories. Some episodes seem like extended versions of what a television reporter would produce every day.

And one particular episode – the two-part “Long Distance” by Reply All – kept me so hooked and contains so many storytelling lessons that I felt the need to dissect it, for all our benefits.

“Long Distance” premiered last year and reran as a single episode last month. I learned about it last weekend, when a friend at brunch claimed it as his favorite but wouldn’t reveal anything about it. I clicked on it that night before bed, thinking I’d listen for 15-20 minutes and then resume it the next morning. I listened to the whole thing. And I found it ripe with lessons for any storyteller, regardless of medium. Here’s my view on how the producers and reporters developed such a fascinating episode:

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PODCAST EPISODE #65: Olivia Loomis Merrion, Murrow-winning documentarian

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(Photo credit Cayce Clifford)

One good National Murrow winner deserves another.

On my last Telling the Story podcast, I interviewed WTVF-TV’s Catherine Steward, who won a Large Market TV station National Edward R. Murrow award for Excellence in Sound. She gave an invaluable breakdown of her brilliant production, from her techniques when shooting video to her commitment to gathering audio. Her piece seemed like the pinnacle of a local TV news feature, rooted in traditional storytelling.

My guest for this episode went a different route.

She told a powerful story as well, but she did it with the foundations of documentary: a steady, slow pace; methodically deployed effects, and a soft bed of music. The piece is called “Recovering from Rehab” – a team-up with Reveal and the Center for Investigative Reporting – and its accompanying investigation became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In my earlier post about lessons learned from this year’s Murrow winners, here’s how I described Merrion’s piece:

It’s just as effective, just as gripping, but nowhere near as sensational as its analogues in TV. Producer Olivia Merrion and reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshona Walter triumph here, with a straightforward but thoroughly reported story about a man sentenced to a year in prison but diverted to an alcoholism recovery program (despite no addiction to alcohol) where he mainly worked on a chicken processing plant. The super-tight shots at the start grab attention immediately, and from there Merrion and her team unfold the story with a deliberate confidence in its content.

Merrion is my guest on Episode #65 of the Telling the Story podcast.

I have worked in local TV news for my entire career, and I have received tremendous opportunities and national honors while maintaining a relatively stable salary and work-life balance. But when I speak to someone like Merrion – or recent podcast guest Emily Kassie – I always marvel at the allure and creative freedom of the documentarian route. I admire storytellers like Merrion who pursue stories with purpose, passion, and few restrictions for how to approach a subject. She has worked with major outlets and produced nationally recognized work, and she’s just five years into her career.

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5 lessons from this year’s National Edward R. Murrow Award winners

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Awards season typically crests and winds down as the summer arrives, with one of the highest of honors coming near the cycle’s end.

Last week the RTDNA announced this year’s national recipients of the Edward R. Murrow awards. Whenever the list comes out, I spend hours watching the winners. So often, even working in journalism, we miss the majority of the great work done nationwide. The Murrows gives us another chance to witness the pinnacle of our craft.

Here’s what I learned from pieces that spanned the spectrum of broadcast and digital media:

THE STORY: Recovering from Rehab (Reveal/Center for Investigative Action)
THE LESSON: Slow and steady CAN win the race.

Working in local TV has conditioned me to expect a certain type of investigative story: URGENT voicing from the reporter, DRAMATIC confrontations with a person in power, and WHIZ-BANG graphics to hold the attention of the casual news viewer who’s debating whether to keep watching or head to bed.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. This piece shows how.

Recovering from Rehab took the National Murrow for investigative reporting among Small Digital News Organizations, and it’s easy to see why: it’s just as effective, just as gripping, but nowhere near as sensational as its analogues in TV. Producer Olivia Merrion and reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshona Walter triumph here, with a straightforward but thoroughly reported story about a man sentenced to a year in prison but diverted to an alcoholism recovery program (despite no addiction to alcohol) where he mainly worked on a chicken processing plant. The super-tight shots at the start grab attention immediately, and from there Merrion and her team unfold the story with a deliberate confidence in its content.

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3 GREAT STORIES: Starring #MeToo, mock trades, & Mars

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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.

#MeToo: Rape on the Night Shift (1/20/18, Reveal Podcast): With momentum for the #MeToo movement growing mainly in Washington and Hollywood, credit the producers and reporters at the Reveal podcast for investigating its impact in more hidden venues.

This episode repurposes a report from 2015 about an epidemic of rape and assault among female janitors. The report grips and devastates, and it leads into a follow-up and several strong discussions about the future of #MeToo. This is exactly what journalism should do: inform listeners about an issue, expose them to unheard stories in a compelling way, and expand their overall awareness and understanding moving forward.

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3 GREAT STORIES: Starring the rise of journalism podcasts

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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.

The man inside: four months as a prison guard (6/25/16, Reveal): A few weeks ago, I posted an entry on this blog that recommended three podcasts from which any journalist would benefit.

I already feel like I left that list incomplete.

The recent podcast boom has brought an extraordinary amount of new audio series from reputable journalistic sources, including (and perhaps particularly) the Reveal podcast from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

After a friend recommended it to me, I pressed play on this episode, which profiles Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer as he goes undercover for four months as a private prison guard. (Bauer’s written piece for Mother Jones is also a riveting read.) I recommend listening to the episode uninterrupted, because once it begins, you will quickly be absorbed into the tremendous storytelling and horrifying statistics about the prevalence of private prisons in our country today.

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3 GREAT STORIES: Starring the art of the “reveal”

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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.

Think about a time when you had a big surprise to tell someone.

When you finally saw that person, did you blurt out the surprise right away, or did you make the person wait a little bit?

Chances are, you did the latter. Sometimes, of course, we cannot contain ourselves, but mostly we — consciously or not — try to raise the level of anticipation before we share our big news. Perhaps we ask, “Are you ready?” Perhaps we drag out our words (“Iiiii juuuust waaaanted to tell youuuuuu I’M HAVING A BABY!”). And most likely, perhaps we provide a little prologue or story before our announcement.

At that point, we all become storytellers.

The “reveal” is a time-honored journalistic tradition, to the point that it can often seem lame or stale. (e.g. “What Johnny didn’t know was …”) But the best storytellers know exactly how to tease and build the moment to give their reveals the most punch.

Here are a two examples from last month that do just that (and one stunning photo gallery about fall foliage):

Cut and run (11/1/13, Radiolab): This entire segment from NPR’s Radiolab is tremendous, but I will tell you the moment when I truly appreciated the storytelling here:

I had listened to about five minutes of the story, which is essentially a lesson as to why Kenyan runners always dominate long-distance running. The show’s producers and reporters kept teasing out the answer, providing possible (and then debunked) explanations and expressing their own bewilderment, while keeping their real hypothesis in the distance. I was listening while sitting at my computer, and I realized at that moment that, if I really wanted to learn the answer, I could probably just Google it and be done.

But I didn’t want to Google it. I didn’t want to spoil the big reveal. I wanted to stay on the Radiolab ride, because the story until that point had been so interesting and well-told.

Turned out the reveal was pretty great — and also gruesome. Ladies and specifically gentlemen, please do not listen to the back half of this segment on an empty stomach.

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