wxia-tv

Sometimes a great story can be as simple as a table and two chairs

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This article can be found in the March/April 2019 issue of News Photographer, published through the NPPA.

I’m big on new.

In the last few years I’ve worked with drones, gimbals, and a mirrorless camera. I’ve created Instagram-first food segments and half-hour documentaries. I’ve done all of this from a newsroom – WXIA-TV in Atlanta – and under a company – TEGNA – that preaches innovation.

But when I wanted to attempt a new approach and story structure for a segment involving person-on-the-street interviews – a format that seems to funnel towards boring and uninformative – I reached back to a far earlier creation.

First, my producer and I bought a wooden fold-out table and two fold-out chairs at IKEA. Then, we asked our promotions team if we could commandeer an easel. Finally, we begged our in-house graphical guru to create a poster we could place on said easel, with a recurring question: “What’s your untold story about __________?” For each story we would do, we felt, we would fill in the blank with a relevant subject.

It worked.

On Thanksgiving week and requested stories about gratitude. On Mother’s Day and Father’s Day we found stories about parents. And this past Valentine’s Day, we learned stories about kind gestures. Each time, we shot in multiple locations that represented different communities in our region. We set up multiple cameras, from a traditional TV news kit to a GoPro and iPhone. We didn’t leave until we had interviewed at least three people.

Most importantly, when we did those interviews, we took our time. I didn’t ask for the quick sound bite and leave. I sat for around ten minutes, conversing and learning more about the person across the table. Often I discovered a more compelling story hidden beneath the initial back-and-forth.

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PODCAST EPISODE #70: Reflecting on ten years at one station in Atlanta

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I began to notice it sometime in the last few years. New reporters or interns would arrive at WXIA-TV in Atlanta, meet me, and ask how long I’d been with the station.

“I’m going on nine years.”

Eyes would widen, followed by a six-letter word that was either being used as a question or a comment: “Really …”

I immediately felt the need to defend myself. These days, having reached ten years, I still occasionally get the impulse. But whenever I do, I come back to a fundamental truism of my outlook about my job:

I just want to keep growing.

Weeks like this one remind me how much. On Tuesday, my work received four Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards. I had won Murrows before but never more than one in a given year. These stories reminded me how much I’ve grown since I arrived in Atlanta ten years ago.

I share similar perspective on Episode #70 of the Telling the Story podcast.

This is a non-traditional episode, featuring the reading of a recent blog post instead of a longform interview with a journalist or storyteller. Those episodes will resume soon, but I wanted to use this one to spotlight the growth we all hope to achieve in this industry. I hope you enjoy.

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I spent a week covering the aftermath of Hurricane Michael. Here’s how I coped.

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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.

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PODCAST EPISODE #66: Persevering as a parent while powering through at work

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Since I began telling people my wife was expecting our first child, I received a familiar piece of advice from acquaintances and colleagues:

“Welp, say goodbye to the next 20 years!”

The implication, of course, is that my priorities will take a back seat to those of my child or children. That’s not wrong. Nearly seven months since becoming a dad, I have happily sacrificed and compromised many other aspects of my life to take better care of my daughter.

But I have also strove to maintain my own ambitions and desires, in a way that fits best my new schedule and responsibilities.

This podcast is one example.

It’s suddenly a challenge to conduct podcast interviews from home. During the day I’m typically at work. In the evenings, I try to keep my voice down so my daughter can sleep. As a result I have interviewed fewer guests for my podcast in the last six months, but I have tried to produce new episodes on a semi-consistent basis.

The solution? These shorter episodes that double as spoken-word recitations of my recent entries.

I did this for Episode 63, sharing my reflections upon my first Father’s Day. I do so again here, on Episode 66, with a behind-the-scenes story of life that intertwined with the launch of a major project at work. I hope you enjoy it … and, parent or not, laugh along with it.

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Sometimes, as a new parent, you just need to bake a peach pie

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Last month I launched a documentary for WXIA-TV that involved a full week of on-air stories, online posts, and off-air promotion. It was a big week. It also came during a wild time at home, which have become more frequent as a new parent. Here’s a glimpse into a particularly moving moment, though not in the traditional sense …

***

I stand under an amber light, over an oven door, preparing to witness perfection.

There’s a pie in there. A peach pie. A Georgia peach pie. The best kind of pie. A pie I’ve made from scratch. A pie I’ve made to surprise my wife. A pie I’ve made in silence and near-darkness to not wake my six-month-old daughter.

No one asked for this. But I need it.

This week I’m a solo parent. My wife is in Los Angeles for work. Olivia is in Atlanta with me. She’s got a cold. That means I’ve got a cold. She’s sleeping through the night. I am not. I woke up at 3:30 AM yesterday and 1:30 AM today. I’ve spent the week launching a massive work project that was months in the making. I’m stressed. I’m sleepless. I feel red veins creasing my eyeballs.

But I take food seriously. And I love Georgia peaches. I inhale the pulp in 30 seconds and suck the pit for ten minutes. I buy two bags a week during their three-month season. Last Saturday marked the last sale this summer. I snagged three bags. When my wife left for L.A., I pledged to make a pie.

It seems selfless. I want my wife to open the front door, smell the scent of baked peaches and crust, and break into a smile. I want her to feel I can handle it all and still find time for a sweet gesture. But I also want to show myself. I bristle at boundaries. I feel them when we scarf dinner in five minutes before Olivia starts crying. I feel them when I fall asleep at 9:15 on the guest bed, trying to seize the Olivia’s-finally-asleep window and eat popcorn with my wife while we watch some stand-up comic on Netflix. The sacrifices seem small compared to the overwhelming gifts of parenthood. But sometimes I need to prove I’ve still got it.

Sometimes I need to bake a freaking pie.

So I did. I put Olivia to bed at 8:15 and strode toward the kitchen. I boiled the peaches, peeled their skins, and scooped their pits. I chopped them into eighths, mixed a batter, and poured it all between two rolled-out layers of would-be flaky crust. I slid the pie in the oven, rotated it after 20 minutes, lowered the temperature to 375, and rotated it one more time as the recipe instructed. Now, at 10:30, I stand over the oven, adrenaline drained, ready to wave a metaphorical middle finger to How It’s Supposed to Be.

I open the door. A steam cloud flies out, carrying the scent of sweetness. All looks golden: the caramelized sugar, the crumbly crust, and the Georgia peaches itching to bust through the slits in the top layer.

Perfection.

Then I slide on my mitts, pull out the pie, lose my grip, and watch perfection fall out of my hands and crash upside-down onto the kitchen tile.

I don’t cry, but I almost do. I don’t scream, because somehow Olivia has stayed asleep. I stand motionless, surrounded by dark, the stove light above me a spotlight of sadness.

I grab a fork. I kneel down, curl myself on the tile, and search for scoops of pie that didn’t hit the ground. Then I eat. It’s gooey, rich, delicious. It’s my middle finger to How It’s Supposed to Be, remixed to show How It Is. I consume the equivalent of a slice, then cobble enough bites to save for a slice for my wife. I call her and confess it all. I know you’re a germaphobe, I say, but perhaps you’ll make an exception for smushed perfection.

To my half-surprise, she accepts.

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The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & 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.

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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I’m a new dad, back at work. And I have already missed a milestone.

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The day my daughter first rolled on her back, I left for work two hours early. I set my alarm for 6 AM, dragged myself out of bed without waking my wife, and tiptoed out of our midnight blue bedroom. Leaving before sunrise is easy … or at least easier. I can kiss Olivia’s cheeks, stand over her crib for a minute, and see only her eyelids. This means I can avoid her open eyes and their enlarged pupils, which beam even in the dark with innocence and – I hope – adoration.

I left before dawn so I could record dawn. I’m a reporter for an Atlanta TV station, and I had scheduled a full day of shoots for a story that would air a day later. I planned to profile a local DACA recipient who paints murals on Buford Highway, our city’s famed 20-mile stretch of international cuisine and culture. I wanted to capture the highway at sunrise, when adults and children spill out from their apartment complexes and await their various buses.

But I was slow to get out of bed, which meant I was slow to leave, which meant I arrived at Buford Highway minutes after the pink and orange blasts of sunrise gave way to blue. I missed the moment, and while I still got many of the shots I wanted, I wasn’t sure how I would fit them into my story. I asked myself, “Why did I leave my wife and daughter to get a few halfway-decent shots that most viewers will barely notice?”

But I know why. And the answer is now its own question I have yet to resolve.

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3 GREAT STORIES: Starring life, death, and the DMZ

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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.

What does it mean to die? (2/5/18, New Yorker): I was sitting at a restaurant at the Mall of America, midway through covering the Super Bowl, when I spied this headline in my Twitter feed. I clicked, began reading, and sat for 20 minutes unable to focus anywhere else.

The case of Jahi McMath, declared brain-dead by a hospital in California, has been covered before. Rachel Aviv tackles it with tenderness, handling extremely weighty subjects with sensitivity and exploration. I had little interest in this story before reading it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards.

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Equal representation in media isn’t just a task for the underrepresented

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Representation is what counts. I hear this all the time from people whose communities lack it in politics, entertainment, and media. And in my field, I support that cause fully.

Newsrooms need voices that represent their communities. We must surround ourselves with people of different backgrounds and encourage those people to raise their voices about issues that affect them. This applies across the spectrum, from race and gender to political party, sexual orientation, and religion. I promote this in my work, from ensuring a diverse guest list on my podcast to encouraging younger journalists to understand their power. In the short and long term, representation matters.

But in preaching this message, I worry that we assign too much responsibility to the underrepresented. Yes, we should prioritize finding a diversity of voices, but we should not absolve journalists in the majority of understanding those voices.

The fact is, if you are a journalist, you will be required to cover people who are not like you. Maybe they don’t look like you. Maybe they don’t follow the same faith as you. Maybe they don’t share any number of beliefs and values that affect perspectives and perceptions. But stories will arise that will place you on unfamiliar ground. You must be willing to take the extra step. Beyond that, you should not only seek stories from those with common backgrounds. You should work to connect and build trust with other communities, especially if their stories too rarely get told.

Journalism is an imperfect science. We must turn unfamiliar assignments into accurate, compelling, relevant stories, often in a matter of hours. We won’t always get it right, and we should forgive ourselves for the occasional slip. But we cannot avoid the responsibility or expectations of our positions. One shoddy, superficial story can inflict massive damage to a reporter’s credibility. Each piece requires the same grind and outreach, no matter the barrier.

This brings me to my latest project, KOREATL.

A manager approached me with the idea in the fall: “There’s this huge Korean community in metro Atlanta that no one knows about, so let’s use the Olympics as a springboard to focus on it.”

It awoke my appetite. I had spent time in the community on an assignment over the summer, and I saw the potential for a powerful segment about identity and integration in immigrant communities.

I came back to my manager with a structure. I pitched a 20-minute mini-documentary that would explore those themes and could be broken down into two Olympic weeks of on-air segments. He loved it, and I got to work.

My first step was to seek out voices. My producer and I met at bakeries, made phone calls, and held a month’s worth of conversations before shooting a single frame. We digested what we heard and discussed how to present it. Then, during my various shoots, I kept my ears open and resisted to impulse to make judgments and blanket statements. I did not want to paint a community with one brush. I wanted the individuals to provide their own perspectives.

I also made an early decision that, in my mind, became crucial to the project: I kept my own voice silent.

For the first time in my career, I produced a long-form story that didn’t include my audio track as a reporter. This made my job much more challenging; in the end, I shot 15 hours of video for a 20-minute clip. But the work paid off in clarity and mission.

I take great pride in the work we produced, mainly because it has received unanimously positive reaction from both inside and outside the Korean community. The mini-doc went live Monday and became one of our most-watched YouTube videos of the week. I hope it will continue to inspire conversations and expand perspectives.

Representation matters most, but it should not simply be outsourced to the underrepresented. All of us in this field must prioritize it, with an empathetic ear, an open mind, and a willingness to not always seek the easiest path.

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The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & 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.

Covering the Super Bowl means staying focused amidst the circus

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I landed last night from the Twin Cities wondering how I would answer a frequently asked question:

“What’s it like covering the Super Bowl?”

I never know how to answer, because a week at the Super Bowl brings experiences that seem so detached from each other.

Covering the Super Bowl means arriving in Minneapolis, stopping at the hotel, and driving immediately to the Mall of America. As a tourist I had never felt compelled to visit this seven-stadium-sized monstrosity. On this trip it hosted the main media workspace, so it became a hub of press conferences, interviews, and live shots. I ate six meals there in eight days.

Covering the Super Bowl means developing on-the-fly routines to keep track of equipment. At home I lean on muscle memory; on the road I quickly formed mental checklists so I didn’t lose any of the cameras, microphones, and accessories that filled two checked bags and a carry-on. (I did lose a pair of a headphones, but I have made peace with that.)

Covering the Super Bowl means using public spaces for critical business. I sought shelter at a nearby Starbucks between sub-zero live shots outside US Bank Stadium. I interviewed a major Atlanta official in the lobby of a Doubletree in Minneapolis. Two days later I used the dining room of a Doubletree in St. Paul. And I wrote and edited several stories from the comfort of my hotel bed.

Covering the Super Bowl means having in-the-room access to company heads, billionaires, and even the NFL commissioner … and noticing the force field of PR reps and media relations workers surrounding each one.

Covering the Super Bowl means attending the press conference for Justin Timberlake’s halftime show and realizing the loose definition of “press”. One entertainment reporter led the room in singing “Happy Birthday”. An ensuing entertainment reporter regretted she couldn’t top such a performance. Timberlake took ten questions, none of which posed controversy and all of which seemed pre-screened to prevent it.

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