roman mars

3 GREAT STORIES: Starring some old favorites

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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.

Having written this weekly column for eight months now, I can safely say I have developed a few favorites.

These are the web sites, podcasts, newspapers, TV stations, writers, broadcasters, reporters, and storytellers that I visit for great content — and usually provide it.

This week, all three of my “3 Great Stories” happen to be penned by repeat offenders.

Inside Israel’s quest for cyberwar supremacy (11/6/13, Worldcrunch.com): I have written about Worldcrunch before, and in this case, I found a fascinating article on the go-to web site for news translation and curation.

The piece comes from Le Nouvel Observateur, France’s most-read weekly magazine, and is translated from the original text of its writer, Hadrien Gosset-Bernheim. It gets behind the walls of the Israeli Defense Force’s cyber-espionage team … or, at least, it tries to.

Gosset-Bernheim does not receive a whole lot of specifics as to how the cyber-espionage team works, but he does shed light into its importance for the IDF. He provides a well-rounded look into a subject that might prove surprising and enlightening to American readers; that would seem to be Worldcrunch’s goal in translating such an article for an English-speaking audience.

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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: Starring frivolity, whimsy, and nostalgia

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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.

I’m back.

After two weeks of vacation and four fill–in–the–gap blog posts, I return with fresh Telling The Story content, starting with three great stories from this past week.

And in the spirit of vacation, I have chosen stories on the opposite side of serious.

Perhaps I am speaking too broadly. After all, the stories in question deal with millions of dollars, ancient traditions, and behind-the-scenes heartache. But mostly, these are not front-page matters. They are in-depth looks at lighter fare.

How Bobby Bonilla landed the luckiest baseball contract ever (7/1/13, Celebrity Net Worth): This is one of those stories that actually ran a full month ago — but that I saw last week for the first time.

Bobby Bonilla is a former Major League Baseball star who these days, despite having long ago ended his career, receives a million-dollar check every July from the New York Mets. Sports aficionados know all about the famous contract, but few people know about how it came to be.

Enter Brian Warner of Celebrity Net Worth.

Warner details the behind-the-scenes details of Bonilla’s deal, including the unlikely role of notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. This is not the best-written article you will ever see, but it is informative and thorough. Sometimes, for matters like this, “informative” and “thorough” are what make the difference.

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“Telling The Story” podcast guests on: changes in journalism

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I am on vacation — and out of commission — for the next two weeks, so I figured I would use my usual Wednesday space to put together some of the stronger exchanges and sound bites from the first six episodes of the “Telling The Story” podcast.

Next week, I will post the highlights on the topic of advice for young journalists and storytellers. This week, here are three segments on the changing landscape of journalism, which is a frequent topic here on the blog:

“We can be those outsiders, telling a story that’s important”: Jon Shirek was my first guest on the “Telling The Story” podcast, and he remains a storyteller and co-worker who I greatly admire. In this segment, Shirek talks about how storytelling has changed in the past three decades — and how, in his words, we are still “outsiders on behalf of outsiders.”

CLICK HERE for the full podcast.

“[The iPhone] does have a role in what we do”: In the aftermath of the Chicago Sun-Times’ decision to fire its photography staff, I called up veteran Indianapolis Star photojournalist Matt Detrich for an honest and insightful discussion of the future of newspaper photography. Detrich spoke mostly of his disappointment in the Sun-Times’ decision, but in this exchange, he did offer some positive words about the potential for the iPhone camera.

CLICK HERE for the full podcast.

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PODCAST EPISODE #6: Roman Mars, 99% Invisible Podcast

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The great thing about the 99% Invisible podcast is that feels like a well-kept secret — even as it has risen the ranks to become one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes.

Seemingly improbably, Roman Mars has created and built a beautiful podcast that discusses the virtues of design and architecture — visual subjects that are tackled in audio form. It is a tricky challenge, but Mars and his team regularly prove worthy of it, captivating their audience with vignettes about subjects like city streets, slot machines, and — most perplexingly, from my vantage point — rebar.

In the process, Mars has developed a reputation as “the Ira Glass of design”, and that reputation is warranted — to a point. As a listener of both, I feel like Mars has developed his own persona, with more asides and unbridled enthusiasm. Both are terrific, and Mars is quickly becoming just as popular as Glass, recently launching the highest-funded journalism project in Kickstarter history.

I was honored to interview Mars for the sixth episode of the “Telling The Story” podcast. We tackle numerous subjects, including:

  • The future of podcasts: “I don’t think we have saturated the podcast market in the slightest. My most popular web page is the web page where I recommend other podcasts.”
  • The difference (if any) between journalism and storytelling: “I like to think of it as, ‘I have a column about design.’ So I have a fact-based opinion column. To me, it’s honest in that way.”
  • How to convey the beauty of design and architecture: “You kind of have to seduce the audience to care about this thing that they have been trained to not notice. Most of the good design in the world is good because you don’t think about it.”

I highly recommend this episode, especially for younger journalists looking for storytelling tips; Mars provides several important ones. I was honored to have him as a guest.

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PODCAST PREVIEW: Roman Mars: “I think of Jon Stewart as a model host”

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If you are a young journalist or storyteller, looking for a career path to emulate, Roman Mars likely is not your guy.

In fact, his path to success — and he has had enormous success in recent years — has been quite rare.

Rare is the person who can study science in college and spend years clawing his way into documentaries and public radio while holding down odd jobs to make money.

Rare is the person who become an independent storytelling entity as a podcaster … and raise gobs of money from fans to expand his vision.

And rare is the person who can turn an upstart radio segment about design and architecture into one of the most popular, respected podcasts on the planet.

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3 GREAT STORIES OF THE WEEK: Starring Jason Collins, an inspiring child, and slot machines

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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.

It’s an all-A/V edition of “3 Great Stories”.

After paying homage to three great print pieces last week, we turn this week to some outstanding storytelling in podcasts and television. Each case benefits from time — the time to allow an interview to breathe, the time to develop a full story of an individual, or the time to give an in-depth look at a subject you never thought deserved one.

Jason Collins interview (4/30/13, The B.S. Report): Jason Collins was all over the news last week, starting with his coming-out announcement on Sports Illustrated’s web site — a wonderfully written and powerful piece in its own right. After it, he did several interviews and was the subject of a slew of articles.

In the process, Collins became an elevated figure. Many of the pieces about him last week talked more about what he represents than who he is.

For me, one interview stood out for going in the opposite direction.

Bill Simmons is, of course, the most popular writer at ESPN and Grantland.com, but he has proven to be a deft and skilled interviewer on his B.S. Report podcast, during which he regularly gets notable subjects to reveal unique insights into themselves. Simmons did a one-hour podcast with Collins Tuesday, and it is a seminar on how to conduct an interview. He keeps things light in many spots, chats basketball — including Collins’ ability to bend the rules and frustrate big-name opponents in the process — and does the seemingly impossible in the process: finds out details about Collins’ experience that had not yet been revealed in the tons of articles and columns written the previous day.

A detail that stunned me? Collins got a congratulatory phone call from Tim Hardaway, the former NBA player who once famously said, “I hate gay people.”

Simmons is a polarizing figure in sports media, but he has always been a terrific storyteller. His best attribute? He knows how to connect with people, whether his massive audience or his interview subjects. Here, while everyone else treated Collins as a hero, Simmons treated him as a human … and obtained the most human coverage of Collins as a result.

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Storytelling podcasts I love … and an announcement!

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Let me start with the announcement first.

Later this month I will debut the Telling the Story podcast. This will add to the content already on the Telling the Story blog, and it will allow me to discuss storytelling in a different fashion.

For each podcast, I plan to interview a respected journalist and storyteller to expound upon many of the subjects I discuss on the blog: storytelling process, the changing role of the journalist, great stories and pieces, et cetera. I have not yet decided how frequently I will record the podcasts, but I will likely determine that over the next few weeks.

As this site enters its third month, I am excited about its current growth and look forward to adding the podcast to its arsenal. I hope you all enjoy it as well.

To celebrate that announcement, I thought I would offer three recommendations for podcasts that provide great storytelling. Give these shows a whirl, and then come back here later this month.

99% Invisible

The 99% Invisible podcast bills itself as “a tiny radio show about design”, which reminds me of when Seinfeld used to call itself “a show about nothing”.

Both assertions are true in a very, very loose sense.

Yes, 99% Invisible has tiny roots — it is a PRX public radio show that has relied on Kickstarter campaigns for financing. And yes, it technically deals with design … but in fascinating ways you would never imagine.

(Oh, and just so we’re clear, the 99% reference has nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street.)

Take last week’s episode: “The Modern Moloch“. We all drive cars and accept them as unavoidable components of modern-day life. But have you ever thought about how they were first received in the 1920s? Have you ever thought about how cars were once derided as death traps because they killed too many pedestrians playing out in the roads? Have you ever thought about the similarities between the automakers’ response to such criticisms and the NRA’s campaign against gun control?

In short, did you ever think a story from nearly 100 years ago could be so relevant today?

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