Did I expect, a month after tornadoes that ravaged towns across four states, everything to have magically recovered? Of course not.
Did I expect, upon arriving in Mayfield, Ky. – the town that suffered the most damage and received the most attention – to see throngs of camera crews and reporters? Not necessarily.
I didn’t expect miracles, nor did I expect the eyes of the world to remain fixed on these few towns. I guess I expected what I ended up seeing: slight progress, continued emotional toll, and few journalists to witness the damage and potentially redirect the spotlight back to communities that could use it.
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.
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.
Somewhere along the back-road highways on the Florida panhandle, sometime during my third day of enduring images of destruction, I realized I needed to talk to someone.
I had been sent down three weeks after Hurricane Michael to produce a series of stories on its aftermath for my station, WXIA-TV in Atlanta. The cameras always evaporate when the attention dissipates, we thought, so we wanted to divert it back. We wanted to show the very real – and very early – stages of recovery. We wanted to remind our viewers how those in the storm’s eye now face a seemingly permanent new reality.
The first few days went as expected. I interviewed pecan farmers and walked through orchards of leveled trees. I spent a day in Georgia’s hardest-hit city, Donalsonville, where the majority of houses featured blue tarp over their roofs. I surveyed the scene in Panama City and Springfield, neighborhoods in Florida where storefronts and home fronts had been peeled off.
And I drove. A lot. 1200 miles in five days. For large swaths of those rides, I scanned a consistent diet of devastation. I saw piles of felled limbs atop sidewalks, gas stations and mom-and-pop restaurants hollowed out, and mile after mile of trees bent backwards like upside-down check marks.
On the morning of Day 3, I witnessed the worst. I never made it to Mexico Beach, the coastal community in Michael’s direct eye that had been all but flattened in a few hours. But I drove within minutes of it and saw the struggle of communities just beginning to reckon with the aftermath of a hundred-year storm. As I headed back to south Georgia, itself speckled with hard-hit towns, I began to realize how a few short days – spent largely by myself – had gradually worn me down. I struggled to envision how these areas would fully recover. I shook my head at the magnitude and spread of the damage. A few times, I held back tears.
That’s when I picked up the phone and called my parents.
Adrienne Broaddus used this phrase early during our interview, and I instantly got it and loved it. She was discussing her approach to covering Hurricane Florence, which she did for a sister station in the Carolinas instead of her home station, KARE-TV in the Twin Cities. The award-winning reporter spoke of the people she met at a homeless shelter and said, “The people who were there, I wanted their voices to be heard. That’s one of the foundations of great journalism.”
She used her time in North Carolina to find individual stories and unique details that weren’t getting covered amidst the macro focus of the storm. It defines her approach in general, and it indicates a reporter who is confident in her voice and how to utilize it.
Broaddus is my guest on Episode 67 of the Telling the Story podcast.
I reached out to her weeks before Florence, intending to discuss different topics. Broaddus had just captured a pair of Salute to Excellence awards from the NABJ. She had also just spoken at the Sound of Life Storytelling Workshop, where we crossed paths on the presenting circuit. We weaved around each other’s busy schedules for weeks – and then postponed the interview further once Florence arrived – before finally getting to chat.
It was more than worth it. I have known Broaddus for several years and have always been a fan of her clarity of purpose. She showed it in our interview. She spoke about how her faith guides her reporting and why she proudly carries the mantle of “hope dealer.” I think it’s a worthy listen for any storytelling trying to find his or her voice.
Typically I use this space to showcase longer stories, in both time and preparation.
Not this story.
Here is an example of where good storytelling techniques can help produce a compelling report in a limited amount of time.
How limited? From start to finish, two hours.
Late last month, the Atlanta area got struck by heavy storms that brought rain, lightning, wind, and hail. Like many April showers, this one — to borrow a metaphor from a different month — came in like a lion, flying through the region and causing traffic back-ups on the highways. It also toppled several trees, and I was sent by my WXIA-TV producers to one such incident in Roswell, Ga., where a tree had fallen on a home.
That was all I knew as I arrived at the house at 3:30 PM, but I soon discovered the rest of the story.
And I learned it from the home’s owner: Yolanda Rossi, age 92.
Despite the fact that a tree had knocked out the corner of her dining room, Rossi seemed undaunted by the whole thing and welcomed me into her home with a smile. As she showed me the damage and provided her perspective on the event, I knew I could potentially put together a poignant piece about her experience that day.
I was supposed to be live at 5 PM, but I called the 11Alive assignment desk and asked if the 6 PM show producer would like this story.
That producer said no. The 5 PM producer said yes. (more…)
The 2014 Winter Olympics are in full swing; events are taking place and leading to dramatic moments; both the mountain and coastal clusters are starting to buzz; and the views remain fully picturesque.
Having said all that, I must say this: the whole thing still seems very isolated.
A colleague and I were talking this morning while watching women’s bobsled practice. We began comparing international trips, and he told me about how, in 1997, he vacationed in Australia. He felt liberated, he said, by his complete anonymity halfway around the world. In a time of few cell phones and extremely limited Internet (he said he brought a pager), he reveled in being completely unchained.
Now in 2014, staying in Russia for a work trip, I carry two cell phones in my hip pocket and plug into an Ethernet connection in the workspace. I submit daily reports for my station in Atlanta and do occasional Olympics wrap-ups for USA Today. I even wear a credential around my neck that has my name, photo, and birthday.
On this trip, I am anything but anonymous.
But the trip itself still feels detached from my regular life.
I know I am in Russia, but I rarely feel like I am seeing its authentic culture. I am living out of a hotel room, in which I spend maybe one hour awake per day. I can name countless ways, many of which I have already documented, in which my life at the Olympics is anything but normal.
At this point, I feel like I have begun to stop worrying and enjoy the ride.
Five days in Sochi have felt like both five minutes and five years.
Days fly along at the speed of a bobsled, with reporters and photojournalists – or, in my case, both jobs in one – churning out content for all forms of media.
And yet, because those workdays are so long, and because they are bombarded with so many new experiences, they make the recent past seem distant. My flights from Atlanta to Sochi seem many moons, and many stories, ago.
Here are ten observations from my first five days:
1. The Olympic sites are, in fact, quite gorgeous. Sochi has a peaceful charm, with the Black Sea on one side and the Caucasus Mountains on the other. The mountains themselves are stunning up-close, specifically around the Olympic village and ski venues.
2. But I’m still waiting for that kick of Russia. I lamented in Thursday’s entry the struggle to find authenticity in any of it. Other than the natural wonders themselves, the entire outfit seems both temporary and out of place. The many beautiful buildings and arenas have been built specifically for the Olympics; they seem ill-fitted for when the Olympics leave. I have a hard time admiring the buildings’ beauty without wondering about their long-term purpose.
