Reporting for Storytellers

Reporting for StorytellersBeatrice Motamedi/Newsroom by the Bay 2014

#thewaynorth

Thursday, June 12, 14

As reporters, we’ve always collected lots and lots of information in order to tell stories — everything from interview tapes and notes and maps and primary documents to archival photos, videos and more. Fortunately, new storytelling platforms and apps are giving us a chance to use all of that information. But the pressure to tell stories in new, faster and more visual ways also is raising the bar for how and what we report. A 20-inch story in words is not enough.

Storytellers of the past

How many of these old-school storytellers can you identify? With which ones do YOU identify, as a storyteller? (Answers may vary: Scheherazade had high stakes (lives on the line), Chekhov had command of detail and color, Homer had direct address/appeal to the reader, Hunter Thompson shocked (on purpose), Tom Wolfe had an ear for speech/dialogue, Edward Murrow fought for access and had a sense of historical drama, and Bernstein/Woodward were dogged reporters who stuck with their story (and triple-checked their sources).

Tools of the past

Images of old-school tools, including a page from the 1972 notebook used by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post during Watergate. The TRS-80 was what I used to transmit stories from the field when I was a UPI reporter in the 80s. iPhones have taken the place not only of phones but recording devices.

Tools of the past

Storytelling tools of the future

The explosion of digital technology — from platforms to mobile apps and social media — is creating a revolution in storytelling. Whether it’s capturing sound (SoundNote), oral histories (OneStory), social media (Storify), geographical data (GoogleMaps), videos (Vine), photos (Instagram) or putting them all together on your iPhone (Steller), iPad (Storehouse) or your website (Narrable, Activist), today’s storytellers have a wide array of tools for the job. But you still need to tell a good story, and that means fundamentals.

NYT: The Way North

This series (ongoing) from the NYT has great fundamentals, including a strong premise (Highway 35 from Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota, an immigrant thruway), shoe leather (writer and photographer on the road, not just at a desk), varied platforms (photo, text), crowdsourcing/commentary (where should we go? what did we get right/wrong?), data visualization, and social media (#thewaynorth, Instagram). And, great writing.

• Not “we talk, you listen” — I listen, you talk

• Many platforms (audio, video, text, photos) PLUS social media

• Multiple entry points (no “beginning” or “end”)

• Be a human vacuum cleaner — get the B roll, collect the artifacts

• Visualize the data

• Blow it up/break it out — consider alt story forms (the “listicle”?)

New (old) rules for storytellers

Some of these rules are new, while others (“be a human vacuum cleaner”) are familiar.

I listen, you talk

easy. quick. effective. Why don’t we do this

more often?

Not only submissions poured in — 1,000 of them — actual stories poured in. And that led to a “listicle” of places that readers wanted the NYT to visit, including names, quotes, and information from pre-readers. This story literally began writing itself before it formally began.

Many platforms/social media

The entry point of the story comes even before the story begins. Heisler posts photos as he takes them, not as they’re published; Cave tweets information and reports key quotes as he gets them, not as they’re published. Better to scoop yourself before someone scoops you?

Another “North” story (video)

Oddly, no video in “The Way North” — maybe two guys in a car can’t achieve NYT-level production values? But this video shows how much video adds to a story. Listen for the B-roll — ambient noise, background images, information that provides context/background.

Multiple entry points

Multiple entry points to this story are visualized in a timeline at the bottom of the page. This actually keeps the homepage design very elegant — a big photo, with the nav information at the bottom where it doesn’t distract. Interestingly, the top-right hand corner — the best real-estate on the page, reader-wise — is for a “share” icon. Smart!

Be a human vacuum cleaner: “Made in the USA”

This extraordinary multimedia story includes everything from text, photos and video, to archival materials and primary documents such as personal diaries, drugstore receipts, notes from medical charts, maps, corporate press releases, and more. It was created using a free iPad app called Atavist.

So far, so good (but what are all those tiny icons?). Note the tight writing and strong figurative language: “ramshackle” white house vs. the doors of the big pharmaceutical companies; the rhythm of “this interactive explores ... the world” and “And how Kinkade left it.” Perfect.

Each of the icons literally explodes into image. What we have always seen as reporters now gets captured and placed into the story.

Not unusual for a reporter to gather this information. But, until now, news holes didn’t accommodate this much visual information. Online, the news hole can be much bigger than in print. What we used to file away can now lead readers deeper and deeper into the story.

Remarkable ... a text that is a visual, and again something that most stories in print would not be able to communicate. This is not only dramatic information; it is damning information.

Multimedia writing is tight writing; when you can post the artifact, you can find ways for the story to explain itself (“see below”) instead of paraphrasing or summarizing, which can introduce unintentional bias.

Video of the doctor.

Visualize the data

Visualizing data is a part of reporting for storytelling. Instead of long blocks of expository writing that explain (tell) the data, show the data. Here is a data vis from the first “Way North” story that sets a scene for how America views immigration.

A simple data vis from “Made in the U.S.A.” You could easily do the same (for free) using apps such as infogr.am. You can also make your apps interactive, thereby allowing your reader to have the same power to manipulate data as you do (why not?).

Deeply geeky (and not easy to read, but cool)

This June 6 feature is a masterful telling of a story that could be boring — how the Great Recession of 2001 changed the American economy, including its impact on various industries from media to manufacturing. While it’s not always easy to follow, the story charts new ground in how to use and simplify complex data sets.

Blow it up/break it out: The “listicle”

More and more, multimedia stories are collections of information, not just one long scroll. Here, AP reporters are taking a recent memo to heart by generating “10 interesting things” that Putin said. If you are doing an interview and you notice a list in the making, you may want to focus and ask questions aimed at producing a listicle along with your story.

Ultimately, good reporting = good writing

Above all, remember that reporting lives to serve good writing. If you don’t get good stuff, you can’t write good stuff. This lede is 30 words, with solid observational reporting that results in a clear time element, specific detail and strong verbs. Any storyteller - old school or new school - could be proud of this.

Well-captured quotes, high stakes

framing quote/color

nut graf - why it matters

more framing/color

Well-observed detail continues (hot dogs and tortillas are the literal translation of “Mexican immigrant and Iraq war veteran”) into a nut graf that clearly defines the stakes (a popular destination revived by a new population). This section ends with the use of resonance (“we all come here ... they come to all the movies”). This story sings.

The only thing I have wanted to do in my life—and the only thing I have done somewhat well—is telling stories …. For me, stories are like toys, and making them up is, one way or another, like a game. I believe that if a child were put in front of a group of toys with different characteristics, this child would start by playing with everything but at the end would stick to only one of those toys. This one toy would be the expression of the kid’s skills and vocation. If conditions were given for this talent to be developed throughout a lifetime, we would be on the verge of discovering one of the secrets for happiness and longevity. —Gabriel García Márquez

So, start playing ;-)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, said this at a film scriptwriting workshop in June 2004. He died in April 2014. The quote is from “Journalists as Storytellers,” by Guillermo Franco, at Nieman Reports. I like this quote for its sense of fun and exploration. Which storytelling “toy” will you play with?

Extra links and readings

• The Associated Press annual report

• AP advises journos to stick to word counts, start using alternative story forms

• U.S. Agency for International Development’s “listicle” about “errors” in an AP story

• The AP’s “listicle” about an interview with Vladimir Putin

• Atavist sample story (play with it!)

• “Journalism 2.0” by Mark Briggs (free download)

For more on modern multimedia storytelling. Pinterest’s digital storytelling board also includes more than 50 platforms, apps and story reporting/storytelling tools - worth checking out.

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