Real Feature Writing : Story Shapes and Writing Strategies from the Real World of Journalism [2 ed.] 9781410614070, 1410614077

Table of contents :
Content: Book Cover --
Title --
Copyright --
Contents --
Preface --
About the Author and Contributors --
I Types of Feature Stories --
Chapter 1 The Profile --
Chapter 2 The Trend Story --
Chapter 3 The Focus Story --
Chapter 4 The Pro-and-Con Story --
Chapter 5 The News Peg --
Chapter 6 International Perspectives --
Chapter 7 Advocacy Journalism --
II Writing Features --
Chapter 8 The Lead --
Chapter 9 Interviewing Techniques --
Chapter 10 Best Use of Quotes --
Chapter 11 Literary Journalism --
Chapter 12 Research --
Chapter 13 Content Editing for Features --
Chapter 14 Copy Editing for Features. Chapter 15 Freelancing --
Chapter 16 Ethics 201 --
Author Index --
Subject Index.

Citation preview

Sec o n d E

St o F

ry

Sh

a pes a n d

ro m t h e

A

R

ea l

W

W

braham

d it io n

St r

r it in g

o r ld

o f

Aam

J

a t e g ie s

o u r n a l is m

id o r

Real Feature Writing Story Shapes and W riting Strategies From the Real World o f Journalism SECOND EDITION

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES' (LEA) COMMUNICATION SERIES Jennings B ryant/D olf Zillmann, General Editors Selected titles in Journalism (Maxwell McCombs, Advisory Editor) include: C o n ra d * The Business o f Sports: A Primer fo r Journalists F rie d m a n /D u n w o o d y /R o g e rs • Communicating Uncertainty: Media Coverage o f News and Controversial Science G a rriso n • Professional Feature Writing, Fourth Edition Io rio • Taking It to the Streets: Qualitative Research in Journalism M e rrill/G a d e /B Ie v e n s • Twilight o f Press Freedom: The Rise o f People’s Journalism M e rr itt • Public Journalism and Public Life: W hy Telling the News Is Not Enough, Second Edition R oush • Show Me the Money: W riting Business and Economics Stories fo r Mass Communication T itc h e n e r • Reviewing the Arts, Third Edition For a com plete list of titles in LEA's C om m unication Series, please contact Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, a t w w w .erlbaum .com .

Real Feature Writing Story Shapes and Writing Strategies From the Real World of Journalism SECOND EDITION

Abraham Aamidor With contributions by Susan Fadem Laurie Hertzel Yahya R. Kamalipour Stacey M ann H ank Nuwer Nelson Price Howard Sinker

| i Routledge ft m

Taylor & Francis Croup

N E W YORK A N D L O N D O N

Copyright © 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No p art o f this book m ay be reproduced in an y form , by photostat, m icroform , retrieval system , or an y other m eans, w ith o u t prior w ritten perm ission o f the publisher. First published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue M ahwah, New Jersey 07430 w w w .erlbaum .com This edition published 2013 by Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 711 Third Avenue New York NY 10017

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 27 Church Road Hove East Sussex, BN3 2FA

Cover design by Tomai Muridou

L ib rary o f Congress C a ta lo g in g -in -P u b lic atio n D ata Aamidor, Abraham . Real feature w riting A braham Aamidor ; w ith contributions by Susan Fadem . . . let al.l. p. cm. Iiicludes index. ISBN 0 -8 0 5 8 -5 8 3 1 -8 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0 -8 0 5 8 -5 8 3 2 -6 (pbk.) 1. Feature w riting. I. Fadem, Susan Sherm an. II. Title. PN4784.F3 7A18 2006 0 7 0.4'4—dc22 2005058517 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Preface A bout the A uthor and C ontributors

vii xiii

I: Types of Feature Stories 1

The Profile

3

2

The Trend S tory

18

3

The Focus S tory

30

4

The Pro-and-C on Story

45

5

The News Peg

52

6

International Perspectives Yahya R. Kamalipour

60

7

Advocacy Journalism

68

II: Writing Features 8

The Lead

83

9

Interview ing Techniques Nelson Price

93

10

Best Use of Q uotes

102

11

Literary Journalism Hank Nuwer

107

12

Research Howard Sinker

114

Vi

——

CONTENTS

13

C ontent Editing for Features Laurie Hertzel

122

14 Copy Editing for Features Stacey M ann

133

15

Freelancing Susan Fadem

144

16

Ethics 201

151

A u th o r Index

161

Subject Index

163

Preface

I w anted to call this book Everything I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned on the Features Desk, b u t th a t title, or one p retty close to it, already w as taken. Som ething about learning the lessons of life in kindergarten. Never­ theless, such a claim w ould be quite valid. As a veteran new spaper feature w riter w ith 14 years of experience in Indianapolis, St. Louis, and C ham ­ paign, Illinois, I w as privileged to meet, and learn from the following people: • A young college student born w ith deadly cystic fibrosis w h o became a child chess prodigy, then a m artial arts expert and vigorous cam paigner for the rights of the disabled. • A w om an from th e hollow s of West Virginia w ho w en t on to earn her doctorate a t Purdue U niversity and later w rite a successful m agazine advice colum n. And, a beautiful dance in stru cto r w ho ta u g h t m e to do the lam bada, billed as th e w orld's sexiest dance at the time. • Are you a baseball fan? I rem em ber interview ing Tommy John from his boyhood hom e in Terre H aute, Indiana. The left-handed pitcher w on 288 gam es in a w onderful baseball career th a t spanned 3 decades, m ostly w ith the W hite Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers. Sportsw riters often referred to him as "the m an w ith th e bionic arm " because he had so m an y surger­ ies on his pitching arm during his long career. Tommy John had a repu­ tation for being a fierce com petitor, a m a n on a mission, and for being a tru ly nice guy. He w as all these things, and more. For Tommy John w as nobody's fool. "You know how w hen you get knocked o u t of the box early in a gam e, everybody will p at you on the behind and say, 'Tough luck, Tommy,' o r 'You'll get 'em next tim e, Tom m y,'" he told me during an interview. "But w h a t th e y 're really thinking is, 'I'm glad you got hit hard, Tommy,' and 'I hope you lose every sta rt for the rest of the year, Tommy,' because w h at they really w a n t is y o u r spot in the startin g ro ta ­ tion. The w orse you do, the better it is for them ." I told m yself on the w ay back to the office after this particular interview th a t I b etter n ot tu r n in a w eak story. There w ould alw ays be younger, m ore am bitious w riters w aiting for m e to fail ju s t so they could take m y spot on the features rotation. vii

viii

PREFACE

Features has been defined as "news y o u d o n 't need to know , b u t w a n t to know ." This m a y su rprise you, b u t I disagree w ith such a definition. Fea­ tu re s is th e new s below th e surface; featu res is th e sh ad o w tr u th s w e d o n 't alw ay s recognize b u t th a t affect us all th e sam e; featu res is th e m y steri­ o u s w o rld on th e o th e r side o f th e m o u n ta in an d all th e am azin g people an d places and th in g s th a t w e do need to k n o w ab o u t, even if w e d o n 't k n o w it yet. In addition to w o rk in g fo r several new spapers d u rin g m y career, I also have ta u g h t featu re w ritin g a t Indiana U niversity in B loom ington, Butler U niversity in Indianapolis, S o u th ern Illinois U niversity in C arbondale, and G eorgia S ou th ern U niversity in S tatesboro. I've forced stu d e n ts to read thick, even arcane, textbooks w ith m ore d o 's and d o n 'ts and rules of th e road th a n found in one of those driving m a n u als y o u h ad to m em orize w h e n you w ere 16 years old. And I've used h ig h ly an n o tate d collections of fine w ritin g th a t w ere geared m ore fo r th e professional jo u rn a lis t th a n th e cub reporter. I've even em ployed books th a t prom ised to m ake the reader a successful m agazine w riter, book au th o r, section editor, featu re w riter, a n d beat re p o rte r all in one! T h ey 're like those v ita m in su p p lem en ts yo u can b u y a t th e m all: "Take these pills an d y o u 'll shed w eig h t, im prove y o u r m em ory, an d have a g rea t sex life all in one!" Real Feature W riting follow s th e less-is-m ore p h ilo so p h y co m m o n to the best w ritin g books. I do n o t tr y to teach y o u ev ery th in g a b o u t w ritin g . In fact, n either I n o r m y able team of c o n trib u to rs to th is second edition k n o w s everything a b o u t w ritin g , if tr u th be told. H ere's th e less-is-m ore philosophy in a nutshell. Im agine you w a n t to be a to p p ro ten n is p la y e r— th e next Venus W illiam s or Roger Federer. You'll need lots o f dedication an d h a rd w o rk and practice and challenging m atch es (like tackling diffi­ cu lt sto ry assignm ents). Yet, ultim ately, y o u need o n ly m a ste r a few basic facets o f the g am e— a stro n g forehand, a n accu rate back h an d , an d a p o w ­ erful serve. M aster ju s t those th ree p a rts o f th e gam e an d y o u will w in th e Davis Cup every tim e. So it is w ith sto ry types a n d featu re w ritin g . M aster the easy-to-follow techniques presented here an d y o u 'll be a starter, if n o t a star, o n alm o st a n y p ap e r y o u can nam e. This book focuses on w h a t I believe are th e m o st co m m o n types of fea tu re stories in m ajo r m e tro p o lita n U.S. new spapers. We'll look a t the profile— of a person, place, thing, o r historical ev e n t— first. You m ay already have w ritte n a sim ple p erso n ality profile o r tw o as p a rt o f an in tro d u c to ry new sw ritin g class, b u t this book goes beyond th e v ery basic ty p e o f story. For exam ple, alm o st an y o n e could do a n interesting profile of pop singer an d actress M adonna (if she w o u ld agree to be interview ed, of course). But did y o u realize you could do a profile o f a coal m ining disaster th a t killed dozens, an d w rite th a t sto ry years afte r th e m ine w as closed? I did precisely this w h en I found th e sole su rv iv o r of a terrib le m ine cavein in Sullivan, Indiana. M y p rim a ry source w as n o w v ery aged and still shackled by the terrible m em ories o f it all; a n o th e r source w as a y o u n g er m a n w h o m ade it his life's w o rk to preserve all details an d records o f the calam itous event for fu tu re generations.

PREFACE

ix

We'll also examine the trend story. At its sim plest, a trend sto ry refers to som ething new o r em erging in society, such as the rise of the tw o income fam ily or the appearance of grunge on the m usic scene. It could also present a dow nw ard trend, say, the paucity o f hom e visits by doctors or the disappearance of grunge music. M any business stories are trend stories: U nem ploym ent is up, and inflation is dow n. But I've done successful, fun trend stories on the p o pularity of Super Soaker w ater guns as well as Tfcar Jerkers sour gum . In this book you'll read ab o u t trends in the teaching p ro ­ fession as well as an oddball trend in m ail-order brides in the late 1990s. We'll look at the focus story. Several o ther books use the concept of a focus story, also know n as the m icrocosm /m acrocosm model, and th e y 're right to do it. Im agine y o u 're w riting about the terrible events of Sep­ tem ber 11, 2001. You could include all the num bers, som e snapshots of the victims, perhaps background on the hijackers, and even some political analysis. It w ould be valid. But you could also focus on one person rising early in the m orning on September 11, seeing his children off to school, and perhaps taking the ferry into M an h attan for an o th er day at the office in the World Trade C enter— then the terrorists strike an d all hell breaks loose. You could recreate th a t and follow the im pact of the m an 's death on his fam ily back hom e. T hat w ould tell the sto ry of September 11, too. A focus sto ry helps you avoid getting stuck in the m ud of too m an y facts, too m a n y statistics, too m a n y nam es of too m an y people th a t readers ju s t c an 't follow. Next, w e'll look a t the pro-and-con story. There are tw o sides to every story, or so the saying goes. Perhaps the m ost honorable trad itio n in jo u r­ nalism is th a t of giving b o th sides of a story; this is w h at people refer to w hen they say they w a n t fair and balanced reporting. Plus, pro-and-con stories can m ake for feisty reading, and th e y 're often surprisingly easy to report. There also is a chapter dealing w ith the news peg. Lots of features are generated by sm aller new s stories you see every day in the press. I rem em ­ ber a sto ry in The Savannah Morning News in early 1997 about an escort service em ployee (read: prostitute) w ho w as m urdered in an area motel. It w as y o u r typical, sleazy detective m agazine crime, until the reader discov­ ered the victim w as a housewife, com plete w ith kids, su b u rb an home, and m inivan. She w orked p art-tim e as a prostitute. The S avannah paper fol­ lowed up the initial news w ith solid continuing coverage— a sto ry on the suspect, w h o w as apprehended in Florida; a sto ry on the extradition p ro ­ ceedings; a sto ry on his arraignm ent; and so on. (In general, good crime reporting m irrors the crim inal justice system itself: Each new develop­ m ent, such as ju r y selection or the verdict and sentencing at the end of the trial, if the suspect is convicted, leads to a new story.) But the new spaper also did a backgrounder on escort services th a t operated in Savannah, w hich is a m ajor to u rist destination for Americans and w orld travelers. The sto ry w as sleazy, glossy, and irresistible. It w as an eyew itness report on a p art o f society m ost respectable people know nothing about. It w as a great feature, and the m urder w as the new s peg.

X

PREFACE

Anniversary stories are alw ays a variation of the new s peg. Let's say y o u 're doing a sto ry on the anniversary of the bom bing of Pearl Harbor, w hich m arked the U.S. en try into W orld W ar II, the deadliest w ar in history to date. You m ight find an aged Navy veteran w ho w as there, in Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, during the attack. (Or you m ight find the grandson of a Japanese soldier w ho helped in the attack; perhaps he's w orking at a local, Japanese-ow ned factory in y o u r tow n.) You'll read a story about baseball legends Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese later in this book, a story occasioned by the 5 0 th anniversary of Robinson's appearance in the m ajor leagues b u t is included here as a profile story. There also are chapters on advocacy jo u rn alism and in tern atio n al per­ spectives. Pardon the pun, b u t I advocate neither for n o r against advo­ cacy jou rn alism . The chapter on advocacy jo u rn alism seeks to illustrate an example w here the jo u rn alist is doing everything above board; being a p artisan does not m ean one has to be dishonest in the reporting or telling of a story. The idea of perspective in particular is related to the literary concept of point of view, w hich usually refers to the point of view of the narrator. Perhaps you have read H arper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, ab o u t a little girl grow ing u p in the South and her fa th e r's defense of a Black m an charged w ith a terrible crime. M ost com m entators feel th a t sto ry w as told from the point of view of the little girl, althou g h obviously an ad u lt w rote the book. It's w o rth keeping this notion of p oint of view in m ind w hen you h u n t a good feature story: Maybe you'll tell a cancer sto ry from the point of view of the doctor, the patient, o r the spouse of the patient. Maybe you'll do a w a r sto ry from the point of view of a general, a foot soldier, or a refugee family. In the chapter on international perspective, the guest contributor, Yahya Kamalipour, a native of Iran, sim ply takes the concept one step fu rth e r— w h a t if the perspective is th a t of someone from ano th er co u n try or culture? There also are several chapters in the last p art of the book th a t deal w ith such traditional feature w riting topics as the lead, observation for detail, interview techniques, use of quotes, the jo b of the editor, and so on, plus additional chapters on freelancing, ethics, and research. M ost of these chapters w ere w ritte n by guest co n trib u to rs— w orking jo u rn alists, editors, and au th o rs w ith first-rate credentials— w hom I've b ro u g h t on board for this second edition. T hey're here because th ey could do a better job of w riting certain chapters th a n I could. Laurie Hertzel and H oward Sinker are senior editors at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for example. Susan Fadem is a veteran feature w riter and m agazine editor from St. Louis. H ank N uw er is a veteran m agazine w riter w ho has published several books on college hazing; he teaches jo u rn alism at Franklin College in Indiana. Nelson Price is a m ultiple-aw ard w inning feature w riter w ho w rote for The Indi­ anapolis Star for m any years. Stacey M ann is an accom plished w riter and form er copy editor w ho teaches at Mississippi State University. Profes­ sor Kamalipour, cited earlier, is a media scholar at Purdue UniversityCalumet.

PREFACE

—

Xi

I've decided to p u t the specific skills chapters at the end of the book, n o t the front, because it's the w ay I th in k — sta rt large, w o rry ab o u t the details later. If th a t sounds foolish, th in k of how a sculptor w orks. He or she starts w ith a blob, som etim es a really huge blob of clay, or w ax, or stone, and then starts w hittling aw ay. Plus, I k n o w — I know —from years of jo u rn alism teaching th a t m an y students ju s t h ate having to do little exercises and "pretend w riting" exercises before th e y 're allowed to tackle real stories. In an y case, real w riters sta rt w ith the n ub or concept of a story, then expand on it. It is a m istake to assum e th a t good w riters sim ply piece together a sto ry like a quilt from separate, distinct p arts called quotes or adverbs or sum m aries. Books th a t em phasize the parts m ore th a n the w hole are misleading. Of course, you should w o rry ab o u t engaging leads, crisp sentences, and keen visual observations in your w riting, b u t all this is w h a t Pulitzer Prize-w inning jo u rn alist and teacher Jon Franklin calls the polish stage of w riting, as in applying the polish to a solidly built piece of fu rn itu re (Franklin, Jon. 1994. "W riting for Story," New York: Plum e/Penguin). If y ou haven't told a good sto ry to begin w ith, and y o u r reporting has m ore holes in it th a n Swiss cheese, no am o u n t of polish will m ake it good. This book is organized along proven lines. In each chapter on story shapes you'll find an introduction to the topic, including advice on stru c­ tu rin g and outlining your ow n stories. This book is big on stru ctu re. (You w o u ld n 't build a house w ith o u t p u ttin g up a fram e first, w ould you? So w h y w ould you w rite a story w ith o u t having a solid stru ctu re or fram e to pin everything on?) The introduction in each chapter is followed by one or tw o actual new spaper feature stories th a t illustrate the point of the chapter. Next, you'll find a detailed analysis of the sto ry or stories. This latter section is im p o rta n t because it's w here w e p u t the sto ry under the microscope. We'll analyze w h y certain things w ere included in the sto ry and perhaps question w h a t could have been added or om itted as well. H om ew ork and w riting assignm ents as such have been eliminated from this edition, however. Feedback from college in stru cto rs w ho used the first edition indicated th a t alm ost all instru cto rs like to develop their ow n assignm ents. One last note on fine w riting: W hat if y o u 're n o t a gifted w riter? W hat if you w a n t to be a feature w riter because you like the variety of topics and challenges you'll encounter, n o t because y o u 're in love w ith w h a t has been called the w rite r's life? It's not the problem y ou m ig h t think. I have spoken w ith successful editors, w riting coaches, and jo u rn alism teachers around the country, and every one of them p u ts reporting skills ahead of p ure w riting skills in term s of w h at m akes a w inning story. Some of the stories featured in the chapters on sto ry shape are mine; m ost come from other w riters. I've included som e of m ine because I believe th em to be good stories b u t also because I know w h a t I w as thinking w hen I w rote them : You'll get m ore o u t of the analyses. I've selected stories from o ther sources w hen I th in k they illustrate th e chapter topics well. M any of the stories included in this book have been read a t one tim e or an o th er by

xii

PREFACE

students in m y classes. These stories passed the m o st difficult test of all in th a t they actually held th e interest of students ju s t like yourself! So w hether y o u 're using this book as required reading for a college class, or y o u 're a beat reporter on a sm all daily try in g to m ove up, or even if y o u 're a layperson w ho ju s t w an ts to u n d erstan d w h a t constitutes a good new spaper feature story, get ready for a nice ride across th e lives and tim es of some w onderful and strange and astonishing people an d events in the contem porary U nited States.

About the Author and Contributors

A b ra h a m A am id o r is au th o r of Chuck Taylor, A ll Star: The True Story o f the M an Behind the Most Famous Athletic Shoe in History (Indiana U niversity Press, 2006) and is a feature w riter a t The Indianapolis Star.

S u sa n F adem is the m anaging editor of St. Louis Woman Magazine, a contributor to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and an active freelancer. She's w ritten four books.

L au rie H e rtz e l is the projects editor at the Star TYibune in M inneapolis. She has w ritten for a num ber of m agazines and new spapers and is the au th o r of tw o books. She is the recipient of the Thom as Wolfe Fiction Award.

8

Y ahya R. K am a lip o u r, PhD, is professor of m a ss/in te rn a ­ tional com m unication and head of the D epartm ent of Com­ m unication and Creative Arts at Purdue U niversity Calum et, H am m ond, Indiana. Dr. Kam alipour has 10 published books, including Bring 'Em On (2005); War, Media, and Propaganda: A Global Perspective (2004); and Global Communication (Wads­ w o rth , 2002). xiii

xiv

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

S tacey M a n n is an instructo r in the D epartm ent of C om m u­ nication a t Mississippi State University. She obtained a BS in Mass C om m unication from Middle Tennessee State Uni­ versity and a n MA in C orporate and Public C om m unication from th e U niversity of South Alabama.

H a n k N u w er is the a u th o r of Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite o f Hazing (Longstreet, 1990).

N elson Price is an Indianapolis-based author, jo u rn alist, and historian. A form er feature w riter/co lu m n ist for The India­ napolis Star and News, he teaches interview ing techniques and feature w riting at Indiana U niversity-Purdue U niver­ sity a t Indianapolis.

H o w a rd S in k er is state/enterp rise editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a lecturer a t M acalester College in St. Paul and M innesota Public Radio's sports com m entator.

I Types of Feature Stories

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter

1

The Profile

Did y o u ever m eet a celebrity? The Reverend Jesse Jackson o r Peyton M an­ ning or N ancy Grace o r Mel Gibson or H illary Rodham Clinton? W h a t's the first question a friend w o u ld ask you if yo u had m et a n y o f these celebrities? I g u a ra n te e y o u it w o u ld be, "W h at's he or she like?" This is inevitable. M agazines like People, TV Digest, an d Rolling Stone an d n ew sp a­ per feature sections from P ortland, Maine, to Portland, O regon, are filled w ith stories every d ay th a t basically an sw er th e question, "W h at's he or she like?" M a rth a S tew art is fam o u s for her hom e decorating an d gardening tips, her ow n m agazine a n d successful line of pro d u cts a t a m ajo r d ep artm en t store chain, a n d h er 20 0 4 conviction for lying ab o u t insider stock trading. Some stories on S tew art sim ply are new s stories, b u t every profile I've seen on her calls her am b itio u s to a fault, a contro l freak w h o can be h a rd to get along w ith . T h a t's w h a t she's like. The late baseball player Jackie Robinson w as the first Black person to break th e color line in the m ajor leagues. He w as chosen for th e ta sk at han d by executives o f the B rooklyn Dodgers because he w as a g entlem an w h o m ade as good a n im pression off the field as on. But he w as also a fierce com petitor w h o resented th a t som e people m ig h t th in k he w as a lackey, o r w h a t used to be called a "p lan ta tio n Black." T h a t's w h a t he w as like. A nd it's n o t ju s t people w e're talking a b o u t w h en w e use th e w o rd profile. T hink o f th e last travel sto ry you read, p erh ap s as p a rt of y o u r research in to vacation destinations for yourself. Did y o u ever w a n t to travel to London? T im buktu, perhaps? Before y o u w o u ld co m m it to a n y place, th o u g h , y o u 'd have to kn o w w h a t to expect or w h a t it's like! You could say th e sam e for an autom obile review, w hich is a kind o f profile, too. "Hey, m an , w h a t's it like to drive a Dodge Viper a t m ore th a n 140 miles per hour?" Im agine y o u 'v e interview ed som eone w h o spent the last 2 years in a biodom e, herm etically sealed off fro m th e rest o f the w orld an d confined to a sm all space w ith ju s t a few o th e r people. You w o u ld have to ask th e person, "W hat w as it like?" Som etim es w h a t y o u find may' n o t be v ery

3

4

CHAPTER 1

agreeable, o f course. Too o ften profiles really are n o th in g b u t p u ff pieces— little m o re th a n public relations jobs m ean t to enhance th e im age of th e profile subject. T h at m a y n o t be su rp risin g because people w ith so m eth in g to hide typically w o n 't agree to a profile. 1 w ro te a profile several years ago o f Jack C raw ford, th e first director o f th e Indiana lottery. Jack w as a N otre Dam e g ra d u a te — first in his class, as I recall— an d w as a to p p rosecutor in Lake County, th a t crim e-riddled p a rt of n o rth w est Indiana th a t borders Chicago. Jack w as a y o u n g , h an d ­ som e, highly com petent, and am bitio u s politico w hose fu tu re in Indiana politics seemed assured. But he w as b ro u g h t d o w n by a sex scandal w hile in office, an d he resigned in disgrace. M any repo rters in Indiana recall th e press confer­ ence in w hich C raw ford bow ed his head and began sobbing u n c o n tro l­ lably, th e n an nounced his resignation . I w ro te ab o u t Jack afte r th e fall. I had a b etter-th an -av e ra g e profile going in because th ere h ad been som e real new s here. This w a s n 't ju s t an o th er p re tty face, afte r all. Plus, th ere w as th e titillatio n factor. People w o u ld read ab o u t th is g u y if for n o o th e r reaso n th a n th e h u m iliatin g n a tu re of his p a rtic u la r sex scandal. Jack d id n 't have to speak to me. But th ere w a s n 't m u ch m o re he could hide fro m th e public, either, so he agreed. His w ife h ad left him , he w as driving a second-hand C hevrolet Cavalier because he w a s broke, a n d he sh ared office space w ith a n o th e r a tto rn e y in a sm all sh o p p in g center u p aro u n d 62 n d a n d Keystone Streets in Indianapolis, m o st definitely n o t a place w here th e rich an d pow erfu l gathered. Talk ab o u t h o w th e m ig h ty had fallen! This m a n w as dow n, b u t he w as n o t o u t. M y sto ry tu rn e d o u t to be a profile of th e indom itable h u m a n spirit. Jack held his head h ig h a n d w as determ ined to rebuild his career— an d his n a m e — as b est he could. He w as doing crim inal defense w o rk a t th e tim e I m et him , w h ich w a s ironic because he had been one of the sta te 's to u g h e st an d m o st successful p ro se­ cu to rs in his heyday. I spent som e tim e w ith Jack in c o u rt a n d follow ed his style closely: He w as a g rea t defense atto rn ey . I rem em ber telling friends th is w as th e g u y I'd hire if I ever got in tro u b le w ith th e law. N aturally, he knew all th e tricks and w eaknesses o f th e lesser p ro secu to rs he con­ fronted daily. I tried to speak w ith Jack 's fo rm e r w ife an d som e of his fo rm e r asso ­ ciates as well. The w ife said no, and som e of his old friends tu rn e d o u t to be proverbial fair w ea th er friends. T h at w as all p a rt of th e trag ed y an d p a rt of th e sto ry I reported. But I g u ara n tee y o u this: M y profile w as no p u ff piece. It h ad som e real g rit and su b stan ce to it. A nd it proved th ere is indeed life a fte r death, in a m a n n er of speaking. The basic stra te g y in rep o rtin g an d w ritin g a profile is to spend tim e w ith th e subject— as m u c h as possible. Do n o t do a p h o n e in terv iew an d expect to k n o w w h a t a person is like. If it's a p erso n ality profile of, say, the first w o m a n m a y o r in y o u r to w n , visit h er at h er office, sure. But also visit her a t h er hom e, w ith her h u sb a n d a n d children (if applicable), or p erh a p s a t her favorite retrea t. M aybe she likes to sing in th e ch u rc h choir,

THE PROFILE

— —

5

or perhaps she's on a bow ling team . Then by all m eans visit w ith her at these venues, too, and talk to people w ho know ab o u t this other side in her life. As p art of y o u r background research, y o u 'd read other stories th a t m ay have been w ritte n ab o u t her, or y o u 'd look for her nam e in an y previous stories about local governm ent and developm ent issues. You'd also look at applicable cam paign financial statem ents and talk to people w h o worked w ith her in the p ast b u t w ho have no stake in her career at present. (This latter point is im p o rtan t because form er associates m ay speak m ore can­ didly th a n current associates.) And w hen y o u r research and interview ing are over, tell the reader the facts b u t also tell ab o u t the m a y o r's smile and moods, her passions and peeves, and the w ay she likes to dress and act w hen she's o u t of the lime­ light; tell the reader w h a t the m ayor is like in her m ost private m om ents as well as w hen she's on center stage. Tell the reader enough so th a t he or she can decide w h a t the m ay o r is really like. The following sto ry is a profile of a trailer park. First, you have m y per­ m ission to laugh and giggle, chortle and snicker and do w hatever it is you have to do. But leave all y o u r preconceptions and stereotypes of life in a trailer park a t the door. (My Gawd, he's w ritin ' about a dang trailer park!) Finished laughing? OK. Now, let me tell you first th a t it is real people w ho live in trailer parks. T hat w as th e one unalterable tr u th 1 carried w ith me, along w ith m y pen and re p o rte r's notebook, w hen 1 w en t looking for this story, w hich overtly is a profile. W ho are these people w ho live in trailers? W hat's it like to live in a trailer and w hy? W hy w ould anyone live in a trailer in the first place? This should sound like I w as w orking off the tim e-honored inverted pyram id, th a t reporting and w riting model th a t alw ays calls for answ ering the 5 W 's and H. If tr u th be told, every sto ry m u st answ er the 5 W 's and H (who, w hat, w hen, w here, w hy, and how) a t some point, alth o u g h not necessarily a t the top of the story. The sto ry y o u 're ab o u t to read is set in Johnson County, Indiana, ju s t sou th of Indianapolis. Indiana has one of the highest concentrations of trailer park housing in the country, and the state is a leading m an u factu rer of mobile homes an d trailers, so it w as a good sto ry to do for The Indianap­ olis Star. We had featured life in sm all tow ns, hippy com m unes, religious com m unities, inner city neighborhoods, trendy d ow ntow n redevelop­ m ents, and more, b u t am azingly, we had alm ost com pletely ignored people w ho lived in trailer parks (except for the occasional to rn ad o or fire story). Because there w ere so m an y trailer parks in central Indiana— m y new s­ p a p e r's circulation a re a — 1 felt it w as impossible to report on all of them , or even very m any, in an adequate way. I w ould have to focus on one com m unity. (Note th a t y o u 're going to see a later chapter devoted to focus stories, b u t none of these distinctions or sto ry types are m u tu ally exclu­ sive. A sto ry can be a profile and a focus sto ry and an expanded inverted pyram id, all a t the sam e tim e. The ultim ate question will be, "Was it a good story?")

6

—

chapter i

C onsequently, I w e n t sta lk in g th e p erfect tra ile r p a rk . 1 p erso n a lly visited five o r six d ifferen t m obile h o m e co m m u n itie s a n d m ad e o b se rv a tio n s a n d to o k h otes befofe 1 co m m itted to w ritin g a sto ry . I u ltim a te ly chose a place called Friendly Village because it w a s n e ith e r th e p o o rest n o r th e m o st splendiferous; it w a s n e ith e r th e la rg e st n o r th e sm allest, b u t it w a s re p re ­ se n tativ e of m d n y p ark s. (Plus, I really loved th e n am e.) It w a s q u ite p h o to ­ genic, too: Friendly V illage h a s a nice sw im m in g pool a n d a larg e, w elc o m ­ ing g ate in fro n t, j u s t like a v a c a tio n o r cam p site, as w ell as its o w n sm all fishing hole a n d o th e r little touches. T his w a s im p o rta n t b ecause I k n ew ah e ad o f tim e th a t w e 'd r u n a b u n c h o f color p h o to s w ith th e sto ry . T here w a s a n o th e r factor. I spoke to m a n a g e m e n t a t Friendly Village, a n d th e y seem ed v e ry cooperative; th e y h a d n o objections to m e a n d a p h o to g ra p h e r co m in g o n to th e ir p ro p e rty a n d in te rv iew in g folks. Friendly V illage is o n p riv a te p ro p erty , a n d tre sp a ssin g w a s a n issue. Go ah e ad a n d rea d th e s to ry now . Upward Mobility by Abe Aamidor Harry Wagner was mad; he wasn't going to take it anymore. A longtime resident of the Friendly Village trailer park in northwestern Johnson County, he had se^n enough break-ins, street-comer fights and speeding cars to be disgusted with it all. In 1984 he banded together with other residents of the sprawling, 500-unit mobile home community and formed one of the very first Crime Watch programs in a trailer park in the country. ‘‘We never went in to get someone ourselves, but there'd be 15 or 20 of us standing around a trailer until the police showed up," the 50-year-old commercial refrigeration technician said almost gleefully. “Would you want to come out and face all those angry people if you were a burglar?" Imagine those Friendly Village residents— retirees and late-shift workers who needed their sleep, and countless single mothers—with their citizens band radios in hand, all ready to bolt from their long, narrow steel homes the instant their scanners alerted them to a robbery in progress. And it worked. Crime dropped and remains down in Friendly Village, which then was Shady Brook Heights, according to Maj. Steve Byerly of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, who helped Wagner start the program. The 1,600 people who live in Friendly Village are part of a nation within a nation that's tucked away at the edges of the American Dream, out of sight of the mainstream and out of the news except for an occasional scare story during tornado season. They are people often plagued by stereotypes. About 10 million Americans live in 4 million manufactured homes in 25,000 communities, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute in Arlington, Va. In Indiana an estimated 460,000 people reside in all types of manufactured homes, including what are traditionally called trailers. That's nearly 10 percent of the state’s population. “Hot everybody can live in $200,000 homes in Carmel,” said Thomas Corson, chairman of Coachman Industries in Elkhart, until recently a major manufacturer of mobile homes. "It’s an important segment of housing.”

T H E P R O F IL E

—

Paradise Lost and Found Harry Wagner, a heavy-set, Buddha-like presence known throughout Friendly Village for his mutton-chop sideburns and the radio-controlled car club he helps run, has built a private Eden on his small lot. He and his wife Barbara have a flower garden alongside the metal skirt of their trailer, a cozy wood deck by their front door and a small picnic table in the shade of the poplar and dogwood trees in their front yard. Nearby, in one of the other looping courts within the 68-acre park, Billy Parker is bent over an old Chrysler he bought for $80, troubleshooting some engine problems under the hood. Parker recently bought his “fixer-upper” trailer for $1,000. “It definitely was not in move-in condition, but it’s a start," says the 29-year-old concrete mjxer truck driver. A divorced father of two, Parker lives in the trailer alone except on the week­ ends when he cares for his daughters, ages 3 and 5. In the five months he’s been in his home, he has replaced some of the water pipes, repaired the roof and fixed seam s in the sheet metal exterior walls that literally were coming apart. But it’s home to him. "Oh, yeah, it was definitely the money,” said Parker, explaining why he chose to live in a trailer. “I could spend $400 to $500 (a month) on an apartment, plus the utilities, or I could move in here for a lot less money, and I’ve got three bedrooms for my girls." Like the other residents in Friendly Village, Parker must abide by several man­ agement-imposed “stipulations." They include no privacy fence; no wading pool for the kids (this one is widely ignored); no satellite TV dishes (you m ust buy your cable TV service from the park management); and no major auto repairs on the street, such as “dropping” a transmission or overhauling an engine (this one also is ignored on occasion). Still, Parker figures he is saving money compared to renting an apartment elsewhere in Johnson County, where he grew up. Besides, there is a countrylike charm to the narrow, winding lanes that branch out everywhere in Friendly Village, and to the little, unnamed creek that flows just behind the park. Other amenities include a convenience store that operates outside the main entrance and small swimming pool on the grounds that is open in warm weather. A meeting room is available to residents in the main office building, and the m anagem ent even tosses seasonal parties for the residents, including an annual summer cookout and a community-wide garage sale. Compared to traditional single-family homes built on a foundation, trailers, mobile homes or manufactured housing— all three terms are used— are con­ sidered questionable investments by some. Larger, top-of-the-line mobile homes can cost as much as $35,000 set up and skirted; barely adequate used homes in the area cost $3,500 and up, though “fixer-uppers" are cheaper. Many banks will make loans on mobile homes, but they are financed like cars. When the home is paid off, you get a title, not a deed. Worse, mobile homes depreciate in value, just like a car. But worst of all, to some people’s thinking, is the "lot rent" you must pay for the privilege of setting your trailer down in someone else's trailer court. Lot rental at Friendly Village, for example, is $213 a month.

7

8

— -

CHAPTER 1

No matter. For many mobile home owners, the purchase price represents not so much an investment as a stepping stone to true home ownership. As the World Turns By the front entrance, on County Line Road, a large painted sign beckons passersby, as if the trailer park is a campground or tourist attraction. Bertha Upton, whose trailer is near the front, says she has the best seat in the house for the parade of humanity that passes her rectangular steel home every day. She’s lived at Friendly Village for 12 years. (Jpton is retired, but every day she says she watches the yellow school buses pick up the children who assemble at the stop near her home; and in the after­ noons she waves to her neighbors who pull up to the mailboxes, which are almost at her doorstep. “I started (living in trailers) when my child’s daughter was born," recalled Upton, 70, who still drives a full-size pickup truck she parks on a concrete slab beside her trailer. “I had six rooms of furniture and she lived in a trailer, and she said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to bring up my children in a trailer,' so I traded her the six rooms of furniture for her trailer. I was renting an apartment at the time.” Now, Upton's children and grown grandchildren regularly come by to mow the grass or resurface the trailer roof. The latter is a particularly thankless but nec­ essary chore for all trailer owners. It involves spreading a thick, watertight goop across the entire top with a heavy brush, preferably when the weather is as hot as can be so the stuff will seal better. At the other end of Friendly Village’s generational spectrum are kids. Lots of kids. The park’s narrow streets are so packed with schoolchildren in the after­ noon that, for safety reasons, the buses won’t go inside to drop off their charges. Instead, they are let out at the entrance. Nearly 200 children from Friendly Village and two smaller mobile home com ­ munities attend Pleasant Grove Elementary School in Johnson County. That's about a fourth of the school's enrollment of 742. Principal Roger Micnerski typically greets his schoolchildren as they amble in to classes every morning. Standing just inside the front doors, thrown wide for another morning’s arrivals, Micnerski challenged a visitor to tell which children were from the trailer parks and which from the pricey new homes so prominent in booming White River Township, one of the fastest-growing areas in central Indiana. It wasn’t easy: Virtually all the children were white, and printed T-shirts and name-brand athletic shoes look pretty much the sam e on all kids. Yet some children went one way— into the nearby cafeteria for their break­ fasts, where those who receive free and reduced-price meals always go — while the others went straight down the antiseptic hallways to their classrooms. Almost without exception, the children clamoring for food every morning are from the trailer parks. According to Micnerski, 134 children receive free meals, and 20 get reduced-price meals at the school. Micnerski said staff do not discriminate against the less-well-to-do. About 75 percent of his teachers already have signed up for a special program to begin in the spring that will focus on bringing out the best in all children. Still, many of the poorer parents are defensive about their social status, he says. " ‘Are you going to look at me as an equal? Are you going to work with me?’ they'll ask,” Micnerski said. “That’s one of our jobs, to break down that defen­ siveness."

TH E PRO FILE

— —

9

Home school adviser Patti Duckworth says one of the problems families from the trailer parks have to endure is the attitude of others. “I’ve had parents sitting around the Little League games and they’ll say, 'Oh, I hear they’re starting another program for those kids,"’ she said. Some of the trailer park children have been and are in the school's gifted-andtalented program. But the numbers are disproportionately small. At the high school level, it is hard to discern graduation and high school drop­ out rates. Center Grove High School does not keep statistics by residency. Brandon Fox, 21, a longtime Friendly Village resident, dropped out of Center Grove High School and says he completed his education at Emmerich Manual High School in Indianapolis. He hates Center Grove High. "The school gave us a bad reputation,” claimed Fox, who's lived at Friendly Village for 17 years and frequently has been unemployed. “They don’t like us because we’re low-income." His evidence? "All my friends that were from the trailer park, if they missed school for even a day, (the school) would make the call," Fox said. “But if you weren't from the trailer park, they wouldn't call on you.” A teen-ager who is still in high school says there is no problem with teachers or administration. But there is a social stigma attached to being from the “trailer park,” she claims. Jennifer Frambes is a 16-year-old sophomore at Center Grove High. "Some people don’t talk to people from here, " Frambes said. “They have more money than us.” Close Quarters Whatever the case, life goes on in Friendly Village. Neighbors talk about recent mobile home sale prices like stock brokers watch Wall Street quotations: They cast fishing lines from the small bridge over the creek and hope to get lucky; they bounce basketballs along the blacktop on weekends, looking for a pick-up game; they stop by Harry Wagner's place to look at his RC car collection. Tim Mason, 34, has lived at the park for nearly two years. He lives with his 3year-old son, David, girlfriend Cindy King and her two children in an older trailer he bought for $3,500. Currently unemployed, Mason has been building a large deck in front of his trailer from scrap wood he’s found at nearby construction sites. The deck will feature a long ramp for his wheelchair-bound son, a stroke victim who has cerebral palsy. Mason likes it at Friendly Village. He’s been to the creek many times with neighborhood children, who helped him build a rock garden at one end of his trailer, and some of the older park teens—even the ones who look rough, he says— stop by to poke and tickle his son, which the boy loves. Mason and his girlfriend live in Friendly Village because it’s the cheapest option available. "I feel there’s a comfortable atmosphere here," Mason said. "They’re not all new trailers here. They’re not all run-down, either." "The people here are all easy to get along with, too. I guess they're all common people." ‘ Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1995, The Indianapolis Star. I say th a t th is s to ry is a profile o f a place (m ay b e o f a lifestyle, p e rh a p s o f a situ a tio n t h a t th e residents fo u n d th em selv es in). B ut trailers d o n 't

10

—

CHAPTER 1

talk, and although leaves on trees m a y w hisper in the breeze, th ey d o n 't talk, either. At least, n o t literally. W hen y ou are doing a profile of a place or a thing, you still m ust interview people— the people w ho are associated w ith the place or thing. You also m u st be observ an t— you, the observer, are a legitim ate source for y o u r ow n story. D on't let an y editor tell y o u th a t y o u ca n 't insert yourself into a feature story. On the contrary, yo u m u st report w h a t yo u see, th o u g h include only details th a t are striking, m ake a point or other­ wise advance the story. I'm rem inded of the old sto ry in the Bible of the p atriarch A braham (or prophet Ibrihim, as he w ould be know n in Islam). A braham com plained th a t the idols of his day had eyes, b u t did not see, and ears, b u t did not hear. T h at's right: Idols d o n 't really use their eyes and ears and other senses, b u t you do. You are an observer; one of y o u r key reporting tools is obser­ vation. You are the eyes and ears o f the reader; you are the read er's agent and advocate; you are getting the sto ry on behalf of y o u r reader, w ho u n fo rtu n a te ly could n o t be on assignm ent w ith you. So include little sw atches and tidbits o f w h a t y ou saw and heard and felt and observed during y o u r visit or visits to the site of y o u r story, even if some of these observations go beyond facts o r quotes. The thick goop being spread on the trailer rooftops, th e school buses trundling up to the fro n t gates in the afternoon, and kids looking for a basketball gam e or fishing in the little creek th a t ru n s th ro u g h the park: Include it all. I w ould say you could even include m ore physical descrip­ tion th a n I did here, b u t this is som ew hat arguable. Note th a t the original sto ry included m a n y photographs of people quoted, and some editors and reporters feel it is redundant to include too m u ch physical description in the text for this reason. Note how I began the story by w ritin g about a m an nam ed Ila rry Wagner. For all you know, I could be w riting a profile of I larry, except th a t it quickly becomes clear th a t H arry is one of the folks w h o makes Friendly Village a real place. I have em ployed an anecdotal lead, a little sto ry at the beginning th a t is em blem atic of w h a t is yet to come. Telling ab o u t resi­ dents banding together to fight crim e also m akes the p ark a real place. I also provide plenty of facts and figures in this s to ry — how m an y trailers, how m an y residents, how m uch money, and so on. I believe the reader needs to know th a t a w hopping 10 m illion A m ericans live in trail­ ers, and th a t 10% of Indiana residents do. A profile cannot be entirely im ­ pressionistic. Identifying expert sources of inform atio n for this sto ry w as fairly straightforw ard, too. I looked in the Encyclopedia o f Associations, available in alm ost all libraries and th ro u g h some online com puter services as well. I checked th a t encyclopedia's keyw ord index, using term s like mobile home, trailer, and the like to identify suitable sources. The Encyclopedia o f Associ­ ations is one of the greatest sources o f in fo rm atio n o n nearly 10,000 dif­ ferent activities, associations, and special interest groups; listings alm ost

THE PROFILE

—

11

alw ays include a contact person an d phone num ber. People and organiza­ tions th a t list in th e Encyclopedia o f Associations are alm ost alw ays eager to talk to people doing stories, including students doing papers and articles for class. (Most libraries will have this encyclopedia online.) So 1 dutifully included facts and figures in m y profile of a trailer park. But m ostly I stuck w ith real people interview s. G randm otherly Bertha U pton traded fu rn itu re for her d au g h ter's trailer: Bertha d id n 't need a big place and her daughter w anted to m ove into a real house one day. Single dad Billy Parker d id n 't have m uch money, so he bou g h t a th o ro u g h ly trashed trailer for $1,000 and fixed it up himself. It's hom e to him and his tw o children. I'm clearly sym pathetic to the m odest lives these trailer p ark residents lead, b u t I d o n 't cover up the problem s, either. I included the teenage angst of one young high school drop o u t w ho says teachers a t the local high school d o n 't like kids from the trailer park. Of course, the school offi­ cials get a chance to express their point of view th a t the poor are defensive about their situation. The story is not perfect. I'm now convinced th a t I p u t too m an y num bers and figures too high u p in the story, for one thing. You'll see a sto ry from a M iami Herald reporter later in this book th a t deals w ith the h ealth in su r­ ance crisis in the United States. He includes three tim es as m an y num bers in his sto ry as I did in mine, b u t he handles them better, parceling o u t the data th ro u g h o u t the sto ry and alw ays in the context of supporting some greater point he w an ts to m ake. Look for "Stayin' Alive" by Jo h n Dorschner in the chapter on focus stories. Still, I like the sto ry ab o u t Friendly Village. I liked m ost of the people I met; m ore th a n th a t, I learned to respect m an y of them . I could im agine myself grow ing up in such a place (I grew up in rental ap artm en ts in M emphis and Chicago). Several weeks after the sto ry ran I w as driving by C ounty Line Road, w hich separates Johnson C ounty from Indianapolis's M arion County, and I decided to pull in to Friendly Village for a follow -up visit. I saw Tim M ason playing w ith his disabled son in the late aftern o o n sun. Tim w as the unem ployed m an w ho built a ram p for the w heelchair-bound boy o u t of scrap w ood he found a t a nearby construction site. "I d id n 't know if I really w anted to talk to you or not," Tim told me during th a t follow -up visit. "I d id n 't know if you w ere going to m ake us look bad or not. But I w as real pleased w ith how the sto ry came out." In some stories, w ith some sources, I guess w e reporters make people look bad. It's w h at the public thinks, anyw ay. But in this story, at least, I th in k I got it ju s t right. W ithout a doubt, th e first feature sto ry you ever w rote w as a personal­ ity profile. T hat's w h y this book begins w ith the profile. Such stories can be easy to do, and if the person has had an interesting life, or cu rren tly has an interesting job or lifestyle, people w ill read the story. The next sto ry is, on the face of it, a profile of baseball legend Jackie Rob­ inson. No m atter th a t he's dead: Biographical texts typically are w ritten

12

— —

CHAPTER 1

about dead people. There are plenty of sources around who would remem­ ber Robinson, and there are plenty of published quotes and facts from his life you could use in your story, as long as you give proper attribution and don't lift from other published sources. But as you read about Jackie Robinson, you'll see the story is also about shortstop Pee Wee Reese, the captain of the Brooklyn Dodgers who had to overcome his own prejudices to help integrate his baseball team. And the most perceptive among you will find that this is a profile of neither Robinson nor Reese, but really it's a quite simple and honest story whose only mission is to tell us the way it was all those years ago. “At Robinson’s side, Reese helped change baseball” (March 1996, p. 1) by Ira Berkow

The white boy was 13 or 14, and his brother was about 16, when, with dusk descending on that summer day in Louisville, Ky., in the early 1930s, the older boy shouted a racial slur at six black kids, telling them, “Get off this street!" With that, the six black kids took chase after the white boys, and the two white kids ran with everything they had and made it safely home. How did he feel about his older brother's action, the now 78-year-old man named Harold (Pee Wee) Reese was asked recently. Reese, recuperating from surgery for lung cancer a few weeks ago, rubbed a graying eyebrow in the living room of his winter home here as he thought about the incident involving him and his brother Carl Jr. “I thought it was stupid,” he said. “I mean, to throw out a threat like that when we re six against two!" Reese, the former star shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame, smiled, for of course there was much more to it than the numerical equation. Some 15 years after that childhood incident, Pee Wee Reese became a pivotal figure in the acceptance and support of a rookie teammate, Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in the major leagues in 1947. Looking back now, 50 years after Robinson’s historic breakthrough into the socalled national pastime, two moments in particular stand out between Reese and Robinson. Reese, in cream-colored short-sleeve shirt, green pants and tan buck shoes, his arms creased with age and the flesh not as tight as in his Dodger days, and a slightly tired look in his eyes from a radiation treatment in the morning, thought back upon those years. The first of the two incidents occurred at the beginning of spring training in 1947, when Robinson had been called up to the Dodgers from Montreal, Brook­ lyn’s top minor league team, on which Robinson had starred during the 1946 season. A petition was drawn up by a group of mostly Southern Dodgers players that stated they would not take the field with a black man. “I’m not signing that,” Reese told the ringleaders, who included Dixie Walker, Kirby Higbe and Bobby Bragan. “Mo way." Reese, the soft-spoken but respected team captain, with a Southern upbring­ ing, perhaps surprised the petition-carriers. "I wasn’t thinking of myself as the Great White Father,” Reese says now. "I just wanted to play baseball. I’d just come back from serving in the South Pacific with the Navy during the Second World War, and I had a wife and daughter to support. I needed the money. I just wanted to get on with it.” But there was more to it than the money.

T H E P R O F IL E

13

And Reese’s refusal to sign the petition, many believe, m eant the end of the matter. Robinson played, and endured vicious abuse from opposing teams, from beanballs and spikings to racial epithets and spitting. Robinson had promised Branch Rickey, the owner and general manager of the Dodgers, that for at least his first two years in the major leagues, he would hold his tongue and his fists, no matter the provocation. And one day— it was probably in Cincinnati, Reese recalled, in 1947 or 1948—the attack was so nasty that Reese walked over to Rob­ inson and put his hand on the black man’s shoulder. "Pee Wee kind of sensed the sort of hopeless, dead feeling in me and came over and stood beside me for a while,” Robinson recalled, as quoted in the forth­ coming biography, Jackie Robinson, by Arnold Rampersad (Alfred A. Knopf). “He didn't say a word but he looked over at the chaps who were yelling at me through him and just stared. He was standing by me, I could tell you that.” The hecklers ceased their attack. “I will never forget it," Robinson said. Over the years, Reese becam e perhaps Robinson’s best friend on the Dodgers, though there were others who were reasonably close to him as well, including the white players Carl Erskine, Gil Hodges and Ralph Branca, and, of his black team ­ mates, Junior Gilliam in particular. But Reese’s attitude, including that defining gesture of solidarity on the field that they were, in the end, team m ates and broth­ ers under the skin, did not come from a save-the-world mentality. “Something in my gut reacted to the moment," Reese said. "Something about— what?— the unfairness of it? The injustice of it? I don’t know.” Reese's son, Mark, a 40-year-old documentary film maker, has wondered where that gut reaction from a man brought up in Southern mores cam e from. “I think it might have something to do with that hanging tree in the middle of the town of Brandenburg, Ky.,” Mark Reese said. Brandenburg is about 35 miles south of Louisville, and a few miles from Ekron, where the Reese family lived on a farm and where Reese’s father, Carl Sr., became a railroad detective. "When my dad was a boy of about 9 or 10 years old," Mark Reese said, “he remembers his father pointing out a tree in Brandenburg with a long branch extending out. It was there, his father told him, that black men had been lynched. 1 believe it was an important thing for my dad, because many times when we visited relatives in Brandenburg, he would point out that tree to me, and tell me about the lynchings. He never made a big point about the significance, but there was definitely an emotion in his voice, an emotion that said to me, anyway, that it was a terrible thing that human beings did to another human being, and only because of the color of their skin. And I imagine that when his dad told him the story, there was a similar emotion." Still modest about his role Pee Wee Reese shrugged his shoulders at this inter­ pretation. It is his innate manner to play down himself, and, apparently, his contri­ bution, particularly in the area of Jackie Robinson, where, he feels, he might only be a deflection from the limelight that Robinson deserves. In the book, Baseball's Great Experiment, a thorough study of the black entry into baseball, the author Jules Tygiel quotes Reese telling Robinson sometime before Robinson’s death at 53 in 1972, “You know I didn’t go out of my way to be nice to you." And Robinson replied, “Pee Wee, maybe that’s what I appreciated most.” “I seem to remember a conversation along those lines,” Reese recalled in his hom e here. “Sounds right.” He laughed. He recalled the first time he learned about Robinson. "I was on a ship coming back to the States from Guam, in the middle of the ocean, and was playing cards. Someone hollered to me: 'Hey, Pee Wee, did you hear? The Dodgers signed a

14

CHAPTER 1

nigger.' It didn’t mean that much to me and i kept playing cards. Then the guy said, And he plays shortstop!' My God, just my luck, Robinson has to play my position! But I had confidence in my abilities, and I thought, well, if he can beat me out, more power to him. That's exactly how I felt." From Rivals to Partners It turned out that Robinson, in his first year as a Dodger, would play first base, then for the next several years move to second base and team with Reese for one of the brightest double-play combinations in baseball, as the Dodgers won pennant after pennant. Just as Reese does not give himself undue credit, he seem s clear-eyed about others. And while Robinson has been raised in some circles to a near deity, Reese saw the man within. 'Jackie was a great player, a great competitor, and pretty fearless,” Reese recalled. “He had only a fair arm, but made up for it at second base by never backing down when a runner came barrelling in. And he’d do some things that I wondered about. He would actually taunt some pitchers. He’d shout at them from the batter’s box to just try to throw at his head! I told him: 'Jackie, quiet down. They might take you up on it. And if they’re still mad, they might throw at me, too!’" Reese laughed. “And after the two years were up in which he had promised Mr. Rickey that he’d turn the other cheek, he became a guy who would stand up for himself. And he could be a tough bench jockey, and he might plow into a guy who was in his way.” One time, after Robinson had been in the league for a few years, he groused to Reese that the pitchers were throwing at him because they were racists. “No,” Reese replied. “They aren't throwing at you because you're black, Jackie. They’re throwing at you because they just don’t like you." Robinson smirked, and then smiled. Reese could-say such things to Robinson because of their friendship, and because Robinson knew where Reese's heart— and mind— were. After all, it was Reese who was the first Dodger in Robinson’s first spring train­ ing camp to walk across the field and shake his hand. “It was the first time I’d ever shaken the hand of a black man," Reese said. “But I was the captain of the team. It was my job, I believe, to greet the new players." But greeting, and associating with, a black man was something different, to be sure. “When I was growing up, we never played ball with blacks because they weren’t allowed in the parks. And the schools were segregated, so we didn’t go to school with them. And there'd be some mischief between blacks and whites, but, as I remember, it was just mischief. It wasn’t hatred, at least not from me. Challenging Bias in Small Moments And it was Reese who first sat down in the clubhouse to play cards with Robinson. When Dixie Walker later took Reese aside and said, “How can you be playing cards with him?” Reese recalls that he replied, “Look, Dixie, you and Stell”—Walker’s wife— "travel with a black woman who takes care of your kids, who cooks your food, who you trust— isn’t that even more than playing cards with a black?” And Walker said, “But this is different." But not to Reese. Today, Reese, at 5 feet 10 inches, weighs 165 pounds, after losing nearly 15 pounds in a week's stay in the hospital after the surgery for lung cancer (he quit smoking cigarettes about 10 years ago). A third of his lung was removed. Doctors

TH E PROFILE

— —

15

believe they have cut out the cancer, but Reese must continue to undergo radi­ ation treatments. He is strong enough, however, to be back playing golf and on Saturday celebrated his 55th wedding anniversary with his wife, Dotty. After his playing days, he coached with the Dodgers for one year, in 1959, then broadcast ball games for CBS and NBC and was a representative of the Louisville bat company. But for Reese, now a great-grandfather, there remain some painful physical reminders of ah athletic career. He has an arthritic thumb, perhaps the result of his youth as a marbles champion, from which he derived his nickname. And Reese walks with A slight tilt because of trouble with his knees—he has had one knee replacement and may need a second. The injuries are a result, probably, of a major league career in which he made eight All-Star teams and batted .269 over 16 seasons, 10 of those seasons with Robinson. Reese was considered one of the smartest players in the game (remember when he took the cut-off throw from Sandy Amoros and wheeled in short left field as though having eyes in the back of his head and fired the ball to first base to double off the Yankees’ Gil McDougald to help preserve for Brooklyn the seventh and deciding game of the 1955 World Series?). At Robinson’s funeral, in New York City on Oct. 27, 1972, Harold (Pee Wee) Reese, a son Of the South, was one of the pall bearers. “1took it," Reese said, “as art honor." *Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1996, The New York Times Co. This is a w o n d erfu l, m oving, insightful, an d evenhanded story. We get a different perspective o f Jackie Robinson an d learn a lot a b o u t Pee Wee Reese, including ab o u t his y o u th , career, an d m anner. But, m ostly, I th in k w e le arn th e w a y it w as, so m u c h so th a t this is m ore a profile o f a tim e in A m erica th a n o f one person o r another. The s to ry h as a nice anecdotal lead d ra w n fro m Reese's y o u th a n d w o n ­ d erful anecdotes fro m a life w ith th e Dodgers th a t are w o v en in to th e rest o f th e sto ry as w ell. Notice th e choice use o f verbs in th is story, too: T here's th e one line Where Robinson "groused" th a t opposing players w ere racists. A lesser w rite r w o u ld have sim ply w ritte n "com plained." I scanned several dozen stories dealing w ith Jackie Robinson an d read a few all th e w a y th ro u g h before including the p resen t one. W h a t I like a b o u t Ira B erkow 's sto ry is th a t it does n o t tak e an obvious tack. The w rite r certain ly recapitulates th e sto ry of Robinson a n d o f th e historic change in baseball he w ro u g h t. But m o stly Berkow tells th is w ell-k n o w n sto ry th ro u g h th e eyes o f a n o th e r im p o rta n t p lay er w h o is th ere w ith him ; it w as a n altern ativ e perspective. Here are som e p articu la rly pleasing th in g s ab o u t B erkow 's sto ry : Reese's m odest p erso n ality is cap tu red b y his repeated refusal to tak e m u ch credit fo r helping Robinson in th e early days. The h a rd segregationist sen tim en ts o f th e era com e th ro u g h loud an d clear w h en w e le arn o f Dixie W alk­ e r 's petitio n to keep Robinson off the field. Serious racial problem s in the U nited S tates' p a st reverberate in the reference to th e h an g in g tree in B ran­ d enburg, Kentucky. We le arn h o w carefully B ranch Rickey h a d to c h a rt th is p la n to in te­ g ra te M ajor League Baseball, yet w e never feel as if w e are beitig given a dry, stern , politically correct lecture.

16

——

CHAPTER 1

We feel Robinson's pride and forceful personality, as well as his aggres­ sive playing style and his consum m ate self-discipline in tu rn in g th e o th er cheek during his first 2 years in "the bigs." We learn how Reese looks and dresses and ab o u t his medical m aladies in some detail; w e even tu r n up Reese's baseball statistics, b u t only a t the end of a story. (These baseball stats could be considered optional in a feature sto ry th a t clearly w as aimed a t a general audience.) I also like Berkow 's w riting style. It's never pandering or florid, m eaning too p retty or flowery. It show s a sensitivity to the tim es an d the subject at hand. Note also how he handles a lot of his attrib u tio n . Students often ask me, "Do w e have to say 'said' all the time?" T hat w ord probably is the best for attrib u tin g a quote. But som etim es a person can "recall." Berkow uses th a t w ord in his story. Sometimes th ey "reply." Berkow uses th a t form of attrib u tio n effectively, too. And som etim es people "note," "speculate," "reaffirm," or th ey "say w ith a sigh." So y o u have lots of choices in term s of attrib u tin g quotes. Now, im agine you are ab o u t to do a profile, yet yo u still w o rry th a t y ou d o n 't know an y fam ous people w h o are w o rth profiling. W ouldn't it be nice if there w ere a person on y o u r college cam pus w h o has w o n a Nobel Prize? Or published 23 novels? No? Well, there probably are people of note ju s t aro u n d th e bend. M aybe y o u 'll find som eone w h o h as the c ity 's largest collection of Barbie dolls and costum es stuffed into a spare room a t hom e? T h at's good enough for a little profile. Perhaps there's a quadriplegic w h o 's doing well in g rad u ate school: You'll have a sto ry of the indefatigable h u m an spirit. (You'll also have a sto ry dealing w ith disability issues, w hich is very timely.) The first profile piece I ever sold, to the Chicago 'IYibune Magazine, w as ab o u t an Irish barber o n Chicago's Lincoln Avenue. He w as su rro u n d ed by trendy bars and counterculture hang o u ts and w as under pressure to move his old-fashioned business, even th o u g h he had been a t the sam e location for years. I w as charm ed by the porcelain w ate r basins in the middle o f the shop's black and w hite ceram ic tile floor; the high, pressed tin ceiling; and the genuine brass trim on the leather-upholstered barber chairs. Mostly, though, I w as stru ck by the tapers. Tapers are long candles, and this Irish-born barber, w h o had em igrated to the U nited States after W orld W ar II, used the tapers to singe custom ers' hair. Singeing w as a medieval practice in w hich a barber w ould take the lit taper and hold it to the ends of the cu sto m er's hair, singeing it. The idea w as th a t hair bleeds w hen you cut it, and singeing seals the hair. There w as no scientific basis for this practice, b u t some custom ers still requested it, even in the 1970s, w hen I did th e story. The point is th a t lots of interesting people are n o t fam ous people. How did I find th e g u y w ith the tapers in the first place? Well, he w as m y barber. You ju s t have to keep y o u r eyes open o r read the sm aller stories in y o u r h om etow n new spaper. Jo n Franklin likes to say he found the subject of his Pulitzer Prize-w inning profile, "The Ballad of Old M an Peters," in a sim ple new s sto ry ab o u t a m ultilingual Black m an w h o h ad been gran ted

THE PROFILE

17

a com m unity service aw a rd (Franklin, 1994). It w as ju s t a sm all m agazine item th a t Franklin saw, b u t it m ade him think: W h at kind of octogenarian Black m an in a poor neighborhood in Baltimore speaks Italian, anyw ay? Franklin chides the original w riter for not know ing he had a great sto ry on his hands. The com plete sto ry is reprinted in Franklin's (1994) ow n text, "W riting for Story," New York: Plum e/Penguin. The following is n o t an assignm ent, b u t it will help y ou find an interest­ ing person, place, o r thing to profile. Let's say it will be a person. Identify one or tw o o u tstanding things ab o u t this person th a t yo u th in k w ould make people w an t to read y o u r story. Then call the person and suggest setting up an interview. Remember, you do not w a n t to do a phone inter­ view. You w a n t to m eet the person on his o r her tu rf, and y ou m ay w an t to visit w ith the person tw o or three times, ju s t to get to know the person better. Let's say the person is a form er nurse w ho w en t back to medical school and now is a w ell-know n physician in the com m unity. M aybe she's a h eart specialist, cancer specialist, or advocate for early breast cancer detec­ tion. W h at's interesting about her story, beyond the fact th a t she's a suc­ cessful physician, is th a t she fits a t least one ideal of the m odern w om en's m ovem ent, nam ely th a t w om en can break th ro u g h traditional roles and raise their expectations for them selves, even if it m eans a midlife career change. You w ould w a n t to to u ch on the following elements in y o u r inter­ view: • Her early years • Her job satisfaction and dissatisfaction as a nurse • A ny u n u su a l hardships o r discrim ination she faced in becoming a doctor and her acceptance • W hether she considers herself a role model • A ny advice she w ould give to oth er w om en • Her nonprofessional life (w hat she does for recreation— m aybe she's an am ate u r artist or avid golfer, m aybe she sings in an inform al classic rock group, OK, I know this is a bit of a stretch!) You'll have to talk to friends and professional associates as well. "W hat's she like," you'll ask them . But you'll also get w onderful little anecdotes and details from her life th a t she m ight n o t have b ro u g h t u p herself. You m ight also learn about problem s th a t she w as em barrassed to reveal: This kind of sto ry is likely to be positive overall, b u t d o n 't be afraid to report w arts and all. W h at's next for th e doctor? Your sto ry w ill likely end w ith a look to the future. Is she looking for an y new challenges? W hen does she plan on retiring?

Chapter

The Trend Story

"Trendy." It's a m ore controversial an d am b ig u o u s w o rd th a n y o u th in k . We m a y w a n t to dress in tren d y fashions ourselves, yet w e p u t d o w n people w h o are to o trendy. Trendy people are shallow a n d insincere, w e feel. Trend pieces are am o n g th e m ost p o p u la r stories y o u 'll see in the papers, th o u g h . By definition, a trend is som eth in g th a t's new, an d w h a t's n ew is new s. Plus, th e m ere fact th a t certain th in g s — h y b rid cars, for ex am p le— are gro w in g in p o p u la rity is p ro o f en o u g h th a t o th er people w ill read ab o u t these things. I feel th a t a tren d sto ry can be described b y a sim ple line d ra w n in chalk o n a ch a lk b o a rd — if th e line curves up, th a t's a tren d (just like th ey w ould tell y o u in business school). If the line sta rts cu rv in g dow n, th a t's also a trend. H ere's a good tren d sto ry from th e respected Boston Globe. It's w ell researched a n d com petently w ritten. M ost im p o rta n t, it follow s precisely th e fo rm a t I w a n t you to follow in doing y o u r o w n tre n d stories: anec­ dotal lead th a t is really a clear exam ple of th e tre n d y o u 're rep o rtin g , fol­ low ed by a them e sta te m e n t (know n in th e trad e as a n ut g r a f) th a t su m s u p th e tre n d succinctly, follow ed b y ad d itio n al exam ples of th e tre n d an d quotes fro m au th o rita tiv e sources explaining w h y th e tre n d exists. Typ­ ically, Y ou'll finish w ith th e sam e perso n o r exam ple m entioned in the anecdotal lead. The Boston Globe m u st have th o u g h t th is w as a fine story, o th erw ise th ey w ould n o t have ru n it on a S u n d ay fro n t section. It w as w ritte n b y a p art-tim er. I've included it because m o st o f yoti reading th is book could have produced a sim ilar story: You could have identified th e trend, found th e subjects to interview , an d w ritte n th e sto ry co m p eten tly yourselves. T here's a n old saying th a t those w h o can, do, a n d th o se w h o c a n 't, teach. The saying is an in su lt to the teaching profession, o f course. But The Boston Globe tells o f successful people fro m o th e r professions w h o chose to give it all up, r e tu rn to college for additional train in g an d credentialing, an d becom e schoolteachers. It's n o t a h uge tren d in U.S. society, b u t th e w riter, M arie Franklin, did spot it on th e ra d a r screen, an d th e sto ry

18

T H E T R E N D ST O R Y

19

is successful. The story also is a good example of a partial focus struc­ ture, which we'll talk about more in a later chapter. For now, let's ju st say that the author could not write about all teachers who come from other careers, so she focuses on just a few, and on one person more than any other. Let's read. The Lure of the Classroom by Marie C. Franklin It was just before midcareer that Elizabeth Meyer took stock. A senior vice-president of an international real estate firm, she was 37, well paid, with offices and apartments in Boston and Mew York. Pulling down “in excess of $75,000 per year,” Meyer said her job was to build and sell condominiums, adding that she was "on the road a lot." Over time, the restlessness grew. "Then it started happening more often that I would com e home from work after a 14-hour day and say ‘so what,"’ she recalled during a recent phone interview from the Dever School in Dorchester where, today, Meyer is a student teacher in a second-grade classroom. Studying for a master’s degree in education at Lesley College, Meyer said she planned her change from corporate to academic life. "About two years ago, 1 started to put money away, scale down my life and get ready for the change," she said. “A lot of people told me I was crazy. But people really close to me said, This is where you should be,"’ said Meyer. The "this” is the classroom, where a growing number of adult career chang­ ers are showing up in school as Johnny's student teacher. Call them non-traditional learners, older teachers, corporate drop-outs or victims of downsizing, and the tag would probably stick. But what they really are, are adults, who— after one or more careers in the business world— gave it all up or took a job loss as a sign it was time for change, and returned to school to become teachers. “Oh yes, there is definitely a trend, though no hard numbers,” said William Dandridge, dean of the Education School at Lesley. “The students entering our program are more mature and have lots of life experiences. Many transfer in from other careers, like law banking and others," he said. “These aren’t people having midlife crises,” Dandridge said. “They are people who have made deliberate choices and who are very serious about wanting to teach.” And nonplussed about the challenges that may be ahead. “I know I'll never make the kind of money in teaching I used to make in real estate," Meyer said, “but the quality of life matters more to me now.” “Feeling like I am doing something worthwhile, that I’m making a difference, is important, too,” she said. Meyer is not alone. Across the river at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, Colleen Connor, 36, is completing a master’s degree in special edu­ cation. Michael Mahoney, 39, is finishing his master's in elementary education. Mahoney left a career as a public relations director with a major Massachusetts supermarket chain. “Something important was missing,” he said. Connor, who taught for five years after graduating from the University of Con­ necticut in 1981, had left teaching to find a better paying job. "My father died and I had family obligations," said Connor. "Leaving teaching was the hardest thing I ever had to do."

20

CHAPTER 2

Last September, Connor, who had spent the previous 10 years working as a paralegal, returned to education as a special-needs teacher at John Carver Ele­ mentary School in Carver. "1 took a 50 percent pay cut," she said. “At the law firm, I was paid a lot of money to push paper,-' she said. “But teach­ ing is a job that matters, being with children, affecting their lives, that's what’s important.” At the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where 278 graduate students in education make up the largest graduate program at the school, 75 percent of the students are adults. “They range from age 22 to 60 years old," said Denise Patmon, program director for the master's in teaching at UMass-Boston. Patmon said there are many reasons for the surge in adults preparing to teach: corporate downsizing, education reforms, job prospects. "Mergers in the '90s, slowing down of the high-tech industry, and other vari­ ables mean people are beginning to take a good look at their values, and making a deliberate choice to leave corporate positions to go into teaching or social service work," she said. Patmon said education reform is also drawing newcomers to teaching. "Edu­ cation is elevated as a career when legislators and the public focus on improving working and learning conditions in the nation’s schools,” she said. But Patmon said job prospects may be the most compelling lure. “The projections are that we are facing the largest turnover of teachers at the turn of the century” than at any time in history, she said. Already, California is experiencing a teacher shortage, she said. “I get regular calls from recruiters in California and also in Kansas City." Even in Massachusetts, which has had a tight teaching job market for many years, "The situation is opening,” according to Patmon, who predicts “a strong demand for teachers by the year 2000' in Massachusetts. “We've been told informally that in Boston, they’re expecting a sizable turnover the next five years," according to Dandridge of Lesley College. Eighty percent of the recent master's in education graduates at UMass-Boston have found jobs teaching the last few years, “and many of them are in Massachu­ setts," according to Patmon. Fred Andelman is a little less optimistic. He directs professional development at the Massachusetts Teachers Association and said that while there are spot shortages of teachers in the state due to population shifts, “On the whole, we don’t see a looming demand for teachers over the next few years." The shortages, he said, are in smaller, older towns such as Franklin, where there has been a building boom the last decade, or in small towns on Cape Cod and in south Worcester County “where housing is more affordable.” Another is the small South Shore town of Carver, where Colleen Connor found a teaching job this year. "There was a pretty large class of new teachers who joined Carver this year," Connor said. “The town is growing because the train is coming here.” Like Carver, other towns in and near the Sliver Lake Regional School District, such as Kingston and Plymouth, are expecting growth during the next decade because the Old Colony Commuter Rail to Boston is expected by September. “I papered Massachusetts looking for a job,” Connor said of her mail campaign to target 55 school systems. “I was asked to interview with five school systems," she said. Connor's age and work experience outside education worked both ways while she was interviewing, she said.

THE TREND STORY

—

21

"Some people were afraid that I'd been out of the field too long and that I wouldn’t be up on the latest trends," Connor said, while others valued her newly acquired master's degree and her training in mediation. "When I come to the table with parents, students or colleagues, I know how to resolve conflicts, and am a better listener, and I think that made me very attractive to school systems,” she said. Andelman noted two other trends affecting teacher job openings in the state: education reform and an aging teacher population. He said many districts in Massachusetts have used state funds allotted under reform to restore teaching positions lost during the 1980s and Proposition 2Vz. “Some of the teacher demand the last few years is related to reform." When asked about speculation that an aging teacher population will result in widespread shortages during the next few years, Andelman said it hasn’t yet. "The teaching force is getting older, but the average age for teachers in Mas­ sachusetts is only around 50," he said. “It’s true, there is a large percentage of teachers either eligible for retirement now or in the near future, but the kind of pensions teachers are eligible for means many can’t yet afford to retire," he said. Ending her teaching career is the last thing on Elizabeth Meyer's mind. Right now, she’s itching for a job in the classroom. “1want to work in the Boston schools, but I’m willing to relocate. I’ll go to Bal­ timore, Philly, California, anywhere they need teachers,” Meyer said. “I’ve got a long life ahead of me,” she said, "and I want to do something I feel really good about.” *Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1997, The Boston Globe. Well, w e know th e ph en o m en o n o f business persons m oving fro m the board ro o m to th e classroom is a tren d because W illiam D andridge, dean of th e E ducation School at Lesley College, calls it a tre n d in th e sixth p a ra ­ graph. P aragraph 6 is a veritable nut g ra f because th e subject of th e sto ry has been sum m ed u p in a nutshell. (You could also arg u e th e p a ra g ra p h before th e D andridge q uote is a n u t graf, too, because th a t is w h ere the a u th o r tells us in h er o w n w ords th a t professionals fro m different back­ g rounds are tu rn in g to teaching careers.) The n u t g ra f is im p o rta n t in an y story, b u t it is especially so in a tren d story. W hereas th e anecdotal lead, w hich in this case is th e little story' o f Elizabeth M ey er's experiences w ith a m idlife career change, h in ts a t th e b road er p ictu re of o th e r people w ith sim ilar tales to tell, th e n u t g rap h ab so lu te ly positively tells the reader the th r u s t of th e story. Fairly high in y'our s to r y — typically' ju s t after y o u r anecdotal lead— y o u hit th e reader w ith y'our n u t g rap h . Franklin does it correctly here, rig h t after in tro d u cin g us to Elizabeth Meyer. The im por­ tance of establishing th e tren d ca n n o t be overem phasized. You, the w riter, m u st prove th a t it's a trend involving m a n y people! O therw ise, yo u have a profile story' o f Ms. Mey'er, o r a profile o f th e teaching profession, b u t n o t a tren d story. A tren d em erges w h en y'ou sh o w any' o f th e follow ing: • M ore people are doing this or th a t th a n ever before: M ore people are changing careers and becom ing teachers th a n in th e past, m ore

22

——

C H AP TER 2

people are living longer after a diagnosis of AIDS th a n previously w as the case, m ore people are getting divorced these days, and so on. • Fewer people are doing this or th a t th a n ever before: Fewer people are driving sport u tility vehicles (SUVs) now th a n in th e 1990s, w hen sales were a t a peak and gasoline prices still w ere low; few er people report having m ultiple sex p artn ers th a n in the heyday of the sexual revolution; fewer people are saving for their retirem ent; and so on. Typical trend stories include m ost of the stories you see in the daily busi­ ness section (sales of SUVs are up, profits a t Coca-Cola are dow n, and so on); fashion stories (every spring and fall, like clockwork, y o u 're going to read w h a t's new in the fashion world); and plenty of m usic stories, too. Lots of medical new s is essentially trend reporting, as well. 1 recently w rote ab o u t a popular, new kind of laser eye surgery to correct nearsig h t­ edness, som ething I've lived w ith since I w as 7 or 8 years old. Lots o f people are having laser eye surgery these days. It's a new surgical technique origi­ nally perfected by a Russian doctor. Do yo u see how this adds up to being a trend story? Let's re tu rn to Franklin's teacher story. Note how she repeatedly answ ers the "w hy" question. M any of the quotes explain w h y people w ould change careers an d take up teaching. Again, this helps prove th a t there is a trend. One "expert source," Denise Patm on of UMass-Boston, lists several objec­ tive reasons for the trend. This is all quite correct. If th ere's a trend, there m u st be a reason or reasons behind it, right? Now, look a t the line, "Meyer is not alone," ab o u t one fo u rth of the w ay th ro u g h the story. This one, simple sentence is w h a t's k now n as the transition. It's im p o rtan t in an y sto ry to keep the reader m oving from one section of the sto ry to another (think of the old line, "M eanwhile, back a t the ranch"). But transitions are extrem ely im p o rtan t in trend stories. It's w here you show the reader th a t y o u r sto ry is n o t a mere profile; it's n o t ab o u t one person or an isolated case. It's ab o u t a trend: "M eyer is n ot alone." The author, Franklin, could also have w ritten, "M eyer is one of th o u ­ sands" or 'Across the country, m idcareer professionals like Meyer are chucking their corporate suits for a crack at the chalkboard." It w ould be the sam e thing: M eyer is representative of a trend; she's n o t alone. O ther transitions exist in the story, to m ove you from one section to an o th er or to introduce an alternate point of view. Look a t the line th a t begins, "Fred A ndelm an is a little less optim istic" ab o u t jo b prospects for m idcareer teachers. T hat one line is a tran sitio n , m ean t to show th a t n ot everyone agrees w ith the rosy picture the au th o r has been presenting so fa r an d to introduce an opposing point of view. Transitions are a bit like the them e sentences you w ere ta u g h t to w rite at th e sta rt of each p a ra ­ g rap h w hen you w ere in public school. M ost im p o rtan t, tran sitio n s bridge one section of a sto ry w ith the next.

THE TREND STORY

23

Now, look m ore deeply into th e story. There's the claim th a t 75% of 278 graduate students in education a t one M assachusetts college are "adults." This statistic, albeit a little cum bersom e, is offered as p roof th a t a trend really exists here. The a u th o r reinforces the no tion of a tren d near the end of the story as well. This is w here she quotes a source w h o speaks of "tw o other trends affecting teacher job openings in the state: education reform and an aging teacher population." The sto ry goes on to prove, or at least argue credibly, th a t these related trends also are authentic. One special feature of an y trend sto ry is indeed to prove to the reader th a t the trend is authentic. Imagine you w ere w riting a sto ry about the upsurge in teen sm oking. You'd need some credible statistics com paring latest sm oking d ata w ith older data to show the change, w o u ld n 't you? "The Lure of the Classroom" is a fundam entally sound sto ry in ano th er regard. Note the first person quoted in this story, and the last. It's one and the sam e person. Elizabeth Meyer, the jet-set real estate w iz w ith hom es in Boston and New York, w ho gave up $75,000 a year to become a teacher, is quoted in both places. This is a com m on jo u rn alistic technique: You end a sto ry w here you began. This provides a nice feeling o f u n ity and sum m ing up of y o u r them e, and it reinforces th e focus aspect of y o u r story. I've seen this tech­ nique of beginning and ending w ith the sam e person in a sto ry called by a t least tw o different nam es. One is the sandwich technique, as if yo u are w rapping y o u r sto ry betw een tw o pieces of bread. As in a sandwich, the m eat of the sto ry goes in the middle. Your lead and the ending are pieces of the sam e bread. This technique also is closely related to the 0. shape of a story. Imagine the letter Q as if it w ere a circle, b u t w ith th a t little squiggle exiting in the bottom right quadrant. Now, im agine you begin y o u r sto ry by th a t little squiggle or line, go all the w ay aro u n d until y ou end up a t exactly the point w here you began, and th en exit the sto ry at th a t point. T h at's the Q. shape, and it's often used for historical tales, w here you have to go back in tim e to fill in a lot o f m issing o r background inform ation, and y o u finally come back to w here you started a story. Think of alm ost an y sto ry you've read on ad u lt survivors of child sexual abuse, as an example. The sto ry begins w ith a happy, w ell-adjusted adult or perhaps w ith the ad u lt in therapy. Then the sto ry goes back in tim e to the terrible events th a t befuddled the subject's life in the first place, is fol­ lowed by years of unhappiness and possibly efforts a t therapy, and th en goes to the confrontations betw een adult child an d accused parent. Finally, the sto ry ends right w here it began, w ith the very same scene in w hich the subject w as first introduced to th e reader. W h at we call this technique is n o t im portan t, though; it's the technique itself I w an t you to understand. "The Lure of the Classroom" is n o t beyond reproach. The a u th o r is alm ost faw ning over her subjects, for one thing. W hereas you can be sy m ­ pathetic and well disposed to w ard y o u r subjects, the line should be d raw n

24

—

CHAPTER 2

sh o rt of sim ply packaging an d p ro m o tin g th em , as if y o u w ere p a rt of a m ark etin g schem e. F ranklin com m its no egregious sin in th is regard, an d she does acknow ledge th a t a t least som e career-change teachers w ere forced in to it b y the labor m arket, b u t overall she goes fu rth e r in cele­ bratin g her subjects th a n 1 w o u ld have. You can see th is in th e p leth o ra of high-m inded quotes she a ttrib u tes to h er teach er sources in th e story. And th e sto ry is a bit w eak in te rm s o f "color" o r v isu alizatio n . The a u th o r tries to set a scene and p ain t a p ictu re in the lead— w e do have a t least a m en tal picture o f w h a t Elizabeth M ey er's life w as like before she becam e a te ac h er— b u t th e re 's n o t a w hole lot o f color beyond this. The a u th o r d id n 't do en ough observing, in o th e r w ords, w h ich w o u ld have provided those all-im p o rta n t visual details. In fact, th e a u th o r violates one of m y pet rules by doing a ph one in terv iew w ith Elizabeth Meyer, her p rim a ry subject, instead o f visiting h er a t th e Dever School w h ere she w as teaching. As y o u w ill read later in th is book in dealing w ith specific w ritin g techniques, y o u m u st be th e eyes an d ears o f th e reader. You are th e re a d e r's agent and advocate an d serv an t. Give th e reader a good ride for his or her m oney, if y o u can. But th is is all m ild criticism . F ranklin has w ritte n a clear, valid, an d useful tren d sto ry th a t follow s th e fo rm a t I w a n t y o u to learn. H ere's a n o th e r tre n d story, one th a t's based on th e old, old n o tio n of m a il-o rd e r brides. One day several years ago I received a call fro m Bob M alcom b, a g u y w h o lived n ea r Louisville, Kentucky. M alcom b said he h ad ju s t been to Russia to m eet th e w o m an he m ig h t m a rr y one day. She'd be com ing to th e U nited States soon an d w ould I like to m eet her, he w on d ered aloud. H m m , I th o u g h t. We h ad fun w ith th is one in th e office, especially th e w om en: W h at kind o f p erson w o u ld trav el to a foreign c o u n try to find a bride, th e y all asked. A ctually, several o f us w ere aw a re of th is trend. There had been a steady strea m of Korean, Filipino, an d Taiwanese w o m en into th e U nited States, w om en w h o p robably could be called m ail­ order brides. W h a t w as new here w as th a t th e w o m en o f Russia and o th er fo rm e r Soviet bloc countries w ere n o w p a rt o f th e mix. N orm ally, w e do n o t do stories o n people w h o call an d ask us to do stories a b o u t th em o r th eir fam ily m em bers. Typically these are m o m s p ro m o tin g a teenager w h o ju s t w o n a b e a u ty p ag e an t d o w n a t th e m all o r som e g u y w h o w a n ts to show us his restored 396SS Chevelle. (Well, I'd ac tu a lly look a t a car like th a t, b u t I'm n o t su re I'd do a sto ry o n it.) But Russian brides? H m m , I th o u g h t again. M y editor, Ruth, gave m e th e green light. I decided to w rite ab o u t Bob M alcom b a fte r ev ery th in g he told u s checked ou t, th a t is, afte r I called som e agencies th a t deal w ith foreign brides and confirm ed all th e details he related to me. We also discovered th a t M alcom b w as a h om eow ner w ith a good jo b in engineering, w h ich added som e credibility. In tr u th , I w ro te th is sto ry m o stly because it prom ised to be fun. As far as trends go, th is w a s n o t a big one. B ut I organized th is sto ry in v ery

T H E T R E N D ST O R Y

— —

25

much the same way Franklin structured her teacher story—and Marie Franklin and I had never met! My trend story included the following ele­ ments: • A focus or prim ary subject, especially in the lead and ending • A nut graf and transition that tells the reader, "The individual cited above is part of a trend" • Other examples of the trend • Expert sources, which are used to provide reasons why the trend exists (other trend stories might have more numbers and statistics to back up the trend; 1just have a couple of statistics) • Observation, which provides a few visual details to dress up the story • An ending, which simply goes back to the focus in the beginning of the story I included this story, in part, because I like it. But it's yet another story that anyone reading this book could have produced. The subjects are not famous; the trend is not something limited to trendy people in New York or San Francisco; you would not have needed a hefty expense account to do your research. Russian to the Altar: American Men Extend Hands Across the Sea, Seeking Hands in Marriage by Abe Aamidor Meet Bob Malcomb, lonely guy. An engineer by trade, he says all the guys he works with are just that— guys. And though he belongs to a singles group at church, he’s seen the same three or four women there since Ronald Reagan was president. So, how’s a lonely guy supposed to find a wife? For Malcomb, 39, the solution lay in traveling 8,000 miles to the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow, Russia, for his most recent date. There, he met dozens of eligible young women at a "social” arranged by a Russian-American introduction service. Today? Malcomb is engaged to Olga Nickolaevna Sorokina, a 28-year-old nurse from a small town outside of Moscow. She arrived in early March. Sorokina and her five-year-old daughter, Dasha, live in a room addition Malcomb built behind the house he shares with his mother. While everybody gets to know each other better, Sorokina has her own microwave oven, washing machine and loft bed. “She’s got 90 days," said Malcomb, who lives in tiny Deputy, Ind., a town so small it doesn’t appear on most maps. “Then she’s got to go back to Russia if we don’t get married." Increasingly, American men are turning to Russian-American introduction ser­ vices to find wives, say people who run such agencies. Many men who use foreign introduction services live in small towns or iso­ lated areas. The white American men who use the Russian services say they prefer women of the sam e race. David Besuden, a Kentucky insurance agent who met his Russian wife, Elena, through such a service, liked the results so much he started his own company.

26

CHAPTER 2

Now, the Besudens run Anastasia Internationa! out of a Winchester, Ky., office. Anastasia, named for the legendary lost daughter of the last Russian czar, pub­ lishes magazines with photographs of Russian women, sells their addresses to interested men at about $10 a head, and leads tours to Russia to meet the women in person. "The women come from all over,” Besuden said. “We’ve had women come from as far as Siberia to meet American and Canadian men." Besuden is taking 26 men to Russia in June. He says that on his most recent trip more than 30 women were waiting outside the hotel for the tour bus to arrive on a Thursday afternoon, even though the big “social" wasn’t scheduled until the following evening. Russian-American introductory services are promoted in a host of publications and through various matchmaker services. The Russian women generally can advertise for free and typically supply their own photographs, a few biographical details, sometimes including physical measurements, and a quote or statement. A few describe themselves as "Christian," which is what Malcomb says attracted him to Sorokina as much as her youth and good looks. The magazines look like a cross between a high school yearbook and a holiday gift catalog. Most of the women indicate they're marriage-minded; many say older men are no problem (most of the women are in their 20s), but many others impose a minimum height requirement: Rve-foot-eight is about as low as they'll go. Some of the ads seem inexplicable. "I am calm, modest, trusting, shy,” writes 21-year-old Julia, but her picture shows her leaning over the edge of a powerboat on the Black Sea, wearing a tiny bikini. Nearly Half Got Engaged Malcomb went to Russia for several days in September, then returned in Novem­ ber. He says women outnumbered men eight to one at the “social" he attended. He and Sorokina, with whom he had corresponded for several months before agreeing to meet her in person, went off to a nearby coffee shop and spoke through an interpreter for several hours. He ultimately met her parents, her younger brother and her daughter from a previous marriage; the Sorokinas all lived together in a smallish apartment about 40 miles from Moscow. Nine of the 20 men on his September tour came back engaged, says Malcomb. But some inevitably committed a faux pas or two. “Some of the guys brought photos of their houses to impress the women, but they weren’t impressed. The Russian women wanted to know if their wives all left them because they were tired of cleaning house.” Why do so many Russian women want to become American wives? “The prime motivation for 90 percent of the women is that they do not want to marry a Russian man, or a (Jkranian, or anyone from the former USSR,” said Lawrence Holmes, a La Jolla, Calif., immigration attorney. "The reason is that the Russian men have three things against them — they’re alcoholic, at least by our standards; they’re lazy; and they're very rough on their women physically. But these are all generalizations." Galena Alger, a 27-year-old Russian national who met her husband while working as a tour guide on a ship, says some women com e to the West for eco­ nomic and educational opportunity, but that m ost are looking for a better mate than they think they can find at home. “There are different men in Russia, but they are getting worse,” said Alger, who now works for Scanna International, an Atlanta-based introduction service with customers worldwide.

T H E T R E N D ST O R Y

—

27

The American men who employ these services fit a narrow profile, agency operators suggest. Often in their late 30s or early 40s, they somewhat dispropor­ tionately com e from small rural communities. "We have lots of cowboys,” said Barbara Lauter Holt, operations manager for Scanna International. The male customers claim to have trouble meeting eligible women at home, though Malcomb candidly admits there’s another reason behind the move. “They haven’t heard of women's liberation in Russia," he said with a chuckle. 90 Days of Grace Immigration lawyer Holmes says he's helped 500 Russian and former Soviet Bloc women obtain K-l "fiance visas" and com e to America in the last five years. U.S. law requires that the women be engaged to an American and provide evidence that they actually know the man they’re coming over to marry, such as a photo­ graph shot within the last two years showing the two together, though there are exceptions. And the marriage has to take place within 90 days of arrival or the visa expires. Men who try to find a Russian bride this way should expect to pay at least $7,000 in travel and legal costs to bring the woman to these shores. Malcomb says he’s paid more than $8,000 so far, including his two trips to Russia, bringing Sorokina and her daughter over, and legal fees. Move Angered Some Olga Nicolaevna Sorokina has been in America about two weeks now. She does not speak English well, but indicated that Malcomb’s family and friends have been kind to a fault: She, Dasha and Malcomb have been guests for dinner virtually every evening since she’s arrived, and neighbors recently took her and her daugh­ ter horseback riding. Malcomb’s mother, Lelia, at first opposed the idea of importing a wife from Russia, but now says she's fond of Olga and Dasha. Yet there are those in Jennings County and elsewhere in southern Indiana who are up in arms at what Malcomb’s done, he says. “The postmaster out here was really angry when she heard I was bringing in Olga. Aren't there enough women here?’ she asked." “And over at the church I go to in Louisville a woman asked if she could see my book (of potential brides); then she locked it up in her car and wouldn’t give it back." Malcomb and Sorokina have not set a date for the wedding. It may be the engineer in his personality coming through, but the marriage is in the develop­ mental stage and Malcomb wants to get the bugs out before committing to full production. In the meantime, playful little Dasha watches Walt Disney videos and her mother tap dances with her fingers across the computerized Russian-English dic­ tionary she employs. But Malcomb is happy so far. “I got into this because I was playing a joke on my brother, who has a barber shop nearby,” he says. “I was reading a Christian singles magazine and they had all these ads for 'Meet Korean women’ and ‘Meet Filipino women’ and Meet Russian women.’ I saw Olga’s picture and she was so pretty. I decided to write away myself." ‘ Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1996, The Indianapolis Star.

28

—

CHAPTER 2

The focus of the sto ry is Malcomb, or Malcomb and Sorokina. The experts are the agents and law yers w ho m ake all the arrangem ents. The proof of the existence of the trend in p a rt comes from statem ents by the experts b u t also from im m igration num bers (recall the law yer w ho says he's processed 500 "fiance visas" him self in the last 5 years). Can you spot the n u t g raf and tran sitio n in "Russian to the A ltar"? It's in the eighth paragraph: "Increasingly, American m en are tu rn in g to Russian-American introduction services to find wives, say people w ho ru n such agencies." T hat is w h a t the sto ry is about, and the w ord increasingly clearly puts M alcomb in a pool of people w h o are doing the same thing as he. Here's w h y this is a trend story: M alcomb is n ot alone (to b o rro w a phrase from The Boston Globe teacher story). M alcomb is one of h u n ­ dreds of m en w ho sought a Russian bride. Increasingly, American m en are tu rn in g to m ail order brides. This story has a num ber of quotes as well, b u t n ot too m any. I alw ays go for punchy, colorful, or ju s t plain fu n n y quotes in m y features. If I'm m erely citing facts and figures or basic in fo rm atio n — "M ost m en w ho do this are in their 30s o r 40s and live in Rural America," or M alcom b and Sorokina corresponded for several m o n th s before m eeting— there is no reason to use an actual quote. You m ight as well p araphrase, sum m arize, condense. Remember: You, n o t the persons y o u ’re interview ing, are the w riter. The basic rule on quoting people is this: If a source can say som e­ thing m ore colorfully o r cleverly o r cogently th a n y ou can, th en by all m eans quote him or her. If the person's personality' comes th ro u g h in a quote, th en quote aw ay. In all o ther cases, do n 't. By the w ay, can I give you a preview of the use of p oint of view in feature w riting, albeit in a nonpolitical vein? Look again at the p arag rap h w here I w rite about 2 1 -year-old Julia, the "shy, m odest, tru stin g " young lady w ho ju s t happens to knock 'em dead in her itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, little bikini on the Black Sea. I'm clearly im pugning her by describing her su ltry photograph; I'm clearly telling the reader, "I d o n 't believe it." A ny objections? Changing lifestyles are good sources of trend stories. Look at high school or college students today: Are there an y abstinence clubs in y o u r area? They m ay n o t go by this nam e, b u t increasingly y oung people are saying no to the sexual revolution and are adhering to abstinence because of concerns about u nw anted pregnancies and abortion o r fear of sexu­ ally tran sm itted diseases, including AIDS. And some m u st be m otivated by old-fashioned m orality issues. Get some num bers, talk to people w ho adopted abstinence— w ho are they, w h y are they doing this, and so o n — and you'll have a trend story. By the sam e token, you m ay find senior citizens w h o are m oving in together. This w as called "shacking up" w h en th ey w ere y o u th s in the 1940s or 1950s, b u t there is very little stigm a left concerning u n m a r­ ried adults becom ing sexually intim ate or living together. Talk ab o u t role reversals! Anyw ay, this is another tren d story.

THE TREND STORY

——

29

How about retirees w ho sell their hom es— those four-bedroom splitlevels w here they raised their kids— and travel y ear-ro u n d across the co u n try in 40-foot-long W innebago m o to r hom es? M any such people have no p erm anent hom e address anym ore. Are th ey 70-year-old hippies? Not really, b u t th ey do collectively constitute a trend. Phone some cam p­ sites, RV clubs, or m o to r hom e m anufacturers in y o u r area for leads on people to interview. The following trend m ay be passe by the tim e you read this book, b u t today there are plenty of young people w ith rings th ro u g h their noses, tongues, navels a n d — so I've been to ld — oth er fairly intim ate body parts. Trend story! Here's a question about a trend th a t affects millions o f college students and anyone w h o 's paying their bills a t school: W hy does it now take m an y students 5 years or longer to finish u n d ergrad u ate school? Call y o u r local registrar and some national associations of colleges to establish th a t this trend really exists; then sta rt interview ing students and adm inistrators as to w h y this is happening. W hat hardships is this trend creating (such as crowded or filled classrooms)? W hat can be done to stop it? (Some state scholarships at state schools now are limited to 4 years, so students better graduate in tim e.) Answ er these questions and get some num bers to back up w h a t y o u 're claim ing, and you'll have a rich trend story.

Chapter

The Focus Story

The continued p o p u la rity o f The Diary o f Anne Frank can be attrib u ted , at least in p art, to the successful w a y in w h ich it identifies the m u rd er o f six m illion Jew ish civilians in W orld W ar II w ith the experiences o f one fairly interesting b u t u ltim ately o rd in ary y o u n g w o m a n w h o w as fated to die along w ith so m a n y o f h er people. You can certain ly find books a b o u t W orld W ar II a n d all th e y o u n g soldiers and civilians on b o th sides o f the conllict w h o died, o r ab o u t the H olocaust itself, w h ich w as b u t one ch a p te r in W orld W ar II, th a t are filled w ith m ore facts and figures an d n am es a n d dates a n d places an d go v ern m en t docum en ts and statistics and speeches an d expert sources an d so on, b u t because the focus w as on a person n o t so v ery different fro m y o u o r me, it m akes it easier for u s to relate to w h a t happened in history. T h a t's th e th e o ry behind the focus stru c tu re . You tak e a com plex issu e— y o u 'll be reading a M iam i Herald sto ry a b o u t th e h ea lth care crisis later in th is c h a p te r— a n d reduce it in scope or scale to a m anageable level, largely b y rep o rtin g th e story' from th e perspective of one person (or one family' or one com m unity', as th e case may' be). This technique can also be called th e m icro co sm /m acro co sm approach, in w hich y o u highlight th e m icrocosm , or little picture, in an effort to b etter explain th e m acrocosm , or big picture. You p ro b ab ly k n o w th e origins o f th is technique best from th e ap p ro ach y o u learned in English class in m iddle school: J u s t give an exam ple o f w h a t y o u m ean to b etter illu strate y o u r larger point. Let's say y o u 're doing a sto ry on "living w ith AIDS." A ccording to th e Jo in t U nited N ations P rogram m e on AIDS/HIV, m ore th a n 40 m illion people w orldw ide w ere living either w ith the fu ll-b lo w n AIDS o r th e v iru s th a t causes th e disease as o f July/ 2005 (up fro m an estim ate o f 22 m illion ju s t 7 years earlier). These victim s all have a certain life expectancy; m o st have co ntracted th e deadly' AIDS viru s in certain w ell-k n o w n w ay s, dif­ ferent therapies have had v ary in g a m o u n ts o f success, and th e y all cost so m a n y dollars a m o n th to adm inister, and so on. You could w rite a sto ry

30

THE FOCUS STORY

——

31

th a t largely deals w ith all these facts an d n u m b ers, b u t w h o w o u ld read it? It w ould be a rep o rt, n o t a feature story. Obviously, y o u 're n o t going to focus on 4 0 m illion people, o r even a fractio n o f th a t num ber. B ut y o u could focus on a n individual, o n one tre a tm e n t center o r g ro u p facility, o r on th e race fo r a cure a t a single laboratory. This does n o t m ean y o u ignore the larg er story. Rather, you w eave som e of th e basic facts (w hen AIDS w as identified, h o w it g a th ­ ered steam in th e U nited States o r elsew here, h o w effective early efforts w ere to control its spread, and so on) and figures (the 4 0 m illion victim s, life expectancy fro m th e tim e of diagnosis, th e cost o f different anti-AIDS drugs, an d so on) th ro u g h o u t y o u r story. The big p ictu re becomes a back­ drop for th e h u m a n d ra m a y o u are revealing th ro u g h y o u r focus. Look back in ch ap ter 2 a t either th e sto ry on m idcareer teachers or the one a b o u t Russian brides. To a certain extent, m o st tren d stories can also be viewed as focus stories (or as m icroco sm /m acro co sm stories, if you prefer th a t label). W hy? Because th e big picture is th e tren d itself, and the little picture is th a t p erson y o u choose to focus on, a t least in y o u r lead an d ending, to illu strate th e trend. The sto ry y o u 're going to read here is, in spite of its irrev eren t title, a serious look a t one of the g reatest ongoing econom ic an d social crises facing th e U nited States today. The sto ry is a t least 15 years old, b u t th a t d o esn 't m a tte r because n o th in g has changed. It's a topic y o u 'v e heard a b o u t b u t prob ab ly never really u n dersto o d before. T h a t's because the debate on h ealth care reform has been controlled by econom ists, hospi­ ta l ad m in istra to rs, politicians, a n d insuran ce executives, none o f w h o m know s h o w to speak plain English o r tell a sto ry intelligibly. Stayin' Alive: Ed Van Houten and America’s Health-Care Dilemma

by John Dorschner At most, Ed Van Houten should have survived four years. How it has been 10 and counting. The reason he’s still alive is his wife, Marilyn. Everyone agrees on that. Marilyn Van Houten is a nurse who works as a medical case manager; her spe­ cialty is dealing with hospitals and doctors on behalf of insurance organizations. She knows precisely how to fight the system, and she does—ferociously. In her battles with the medical establishment, she has persuaded a half-dozen attorneys to help her out—at no cost to her. She has enlisted the support of social workers, government employees, the media, even congressmen. She wants her husband to have the very best care—regardless of the cost or who ultimately pays for it. So far, hospitals have been footing most of the bills. For the past two years, Ed Van Houten has not spent a night at home. His room at Miami’s Baptist Hospital is $354 a day. His high-tech air bed, to protect against bed sores, costs an addi­ tional $ 155 a day. His Pampers diapers cost $3.75 each. Every time he gets fever­ ish and needs a bag of ice, it's $15. He has a $20,000 artificial hand he hasn't used in months. He has excellent insurance: He’s covered by both Medicare and private insur­ ance. But his medical bills are so enormous that he is doing something many people consider impossible—running out of Medicare coverage. And even though

32

CHAPTER 3

he is obviously catastrophically ill, his insurers have frequently refused to pay for his treatment, claiming it is not medically necessary for him to be in a hospital. In his nine months at Baptist, the hospital has yet to receive a cent on his outstand­ ing bill: $350,000 at last count. That’s obviously tough on the hospital. But it is also hard on people who use hospitals and on those who buy insurance to pay for hospitalization. Ed is part of the reason that his bag of ice costs $15. Cases like his have helped push hospital costs and health insurance premiums into the stratosphere. Several times, hospitals have tried to get rid of him. One hospital notified him he was trespassing; a uniformed officer walked into his room and formally evicted him. His nine months at Baptist means he has been there far longer than any other patient in the 500-bed facility. Several times, Baptist has tried to get him to leave. Marilyn has adamantly objected. Taking Ed out of the hospital, she believes, would kill him. "His quality of life is terrible," she says. “I think it stinks. But he wants to stay alive, and I support him in that. How do you let a 45-year-old person just die? So I’m doing all I can." Of course, no matter how many thousands of dollars of care are lavished on her husband, his is a hopeless case. Many people would prefer death to the myriad ills that steadily consume what is left of Ed's life. “On a scale of 1 to 10," Ed says, "the quality of my life is about point 5." When he is alert, his one pastime is watching television. His favorite show is “Highway to Heaven," a midafternoon series of reruns about an angel who. to make up for the sins of his corporeal existence, returns to Earth to do good deeds for com mon folk. Ed is often grumpy. Nasty, even. Frequently, he explodes in anger at nurses and doctors. He often refuses medication or tests. Nurses tend to dislike him. His doctors describe him with words like "difficult” and “manipulative." Much of the time, he lies in bed with the curtains drawn, the television off, wearing only an adult-size paper diaper. He is missing his left hand. He is blind in one eye, deaf in one ear. His kidneys don’t work. He suffers from heart disease and a rare lung disease that is usually found only in black women. He is a diabetic. His bones are so brittle that a recent coughing fit broke his hip. He has high blood pressure. His gallbladder has been removed. So has his parathyroid gland. He suffers from horrendous acne— black spots littering his back, which cause intense itching that he can't scratch. He has calcium deposits that cause odd lumps on his hands, arms and back. He suffers from a brain disorder of uncer­ tain origin. Often, he is in a "fog," and weeks go by without his being conscious of anything. He suffers from depression and sometimes contemplates suicide, though his wife says he doesn't want to die. Dying would be easy: All he would need do is demand that nurses stop hooking him up to the dialysis machine that three times a week cleans the wastes from his blood— the machine that has kept him alive for the past 10 years. Some would say that's long enough. A brutal question: Should Ed Van Houten be allowed to live? Health-care experts are beginning to wonder: Is it time to put strict limits on medical care? Is it worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to keep someone like Ed Van Houten alive? While Ed soaks up enormous am ounts of medical services, millions of poor people can't afford even basic medical treatment. Is it worth it to keep Ed alive

THE FO C U S STO RY

——

33

when, say, a hundred destitute women with breast cancer could be treated for the sam e am ount of money? Or perhaps a thousand impoverished pregnant women could be given crucial prenatal care? “This is a very important case," says Dr. Raul De Valasco, Ed's primary phy­ sician, "because it deals with the main issues: The question is, who decides and who pays?" He means who decides who can receive lifesaving technology. In our society, that's the easy part. Theoretically, in the United States— at least for now— every­ one is entitled to have his or her life saved by medicine. The dying man with a bullet in his brain will get tens of thousands of dollars in treatment in an emergency room— even though there's not a l-in-10,000 chance he will survive. A prema­ ture baby weighing a few ounces will receive equally expensive care, even though chances are that, if the baby does survive, he or she will be brain-damaged. The question of who pays is much more difficult, for no one really wants to pay for the care of people like Ed Van Houten. Stephen Sapp, a specialist in medical ethics at the University of Miami: “How much is a human life worth? Can we put a dollar value on human life, and if we do, who’s going to pay for it? How much right does the individual have to demand from society unlimited health-care resources, when there is such a crying need in so many other areas if society?" Ed Van Houten was born and reared in Homestead, Fla. His father was an internal auditor for the county. His mother was a telephone operator and a dia­ betic. When he was 15, he learned he had juvenile diabetes. He didn’t think much about it at the time, but he hated the rigid diet restrictions that limited his intake of anything sugary— from ice cream to beer. Like many juvenile diabetics, he occa­ sionally rebelled and went off the diet. In 1969, when his mother was 45, her kidneys began failing. At the time, scien­ tists were working on an artificial kidney machine, and a few units were scattered around the country, including one at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Tens of thousands were clamoring for the $600-a-week treatment. Hospitals set up what became known as “God committees"— panels that would decide who would live by going on dialysis, and who would die. Ed’s mother didn’t make the cut. As a diabetic, she had too many complica­ tions. A few days after her kidneys failed, she slipped into a com a and died. Dr. J. Phillip Pennell, a dialysis expert, was a member of these early “God com­ mittees.” Hot coincidentally, he now teaches ethics to medical students at the Uni­ versity of Miami. “They were tough decisions. I’ve sent home 28-year-old mothers of three to die,” he says. In her case, there just weren't any machines available. Nobody in the United States wanted to make such nasty decisions. Ho one wanted to send people home to die. But no one wanted to pay to keep them alive either. "Dialysis is expensive treatment," says De Velasco, an affluent doctor. “Hot even someone like me could afford to pay for it out of my own pocket." Only one entity had a deep enough pocket: The federal government. In the early ’70s the medical establishment— and desperate patients with failing kidneys— persuaded Congress to expand Medicare, which had been intended for the elderly, to include dialysis patients, regardless of their ages. Today 116,000 Americans are kept alive by dialysis, costing Medicare $2.7 billion a year for just the basic, thrice-weekly treatments. At the time of the legislation, Ed Van Houten wasn’t paying much attention. His kidneys were working fine. He attended Miami-Dade Community College for two years, then bounced around the country as a jack of all trades. He returned

34

— -

CHAPTER 3

to south Florida and went to work for a fence company. In 1974 he was sent to a home to give an estimate to a young divorced nurse, Marilyn Goonen, who had a 2-year-old child. He asked her out. They dated for several years before getting married. In 1981, while working in Metro-Dade’s Building and Zoning Department, Ed suffered a mild heart attack. The hospital ran tests. “I have bad news for you," his doctor said. Because of his diabetes, his kidneys were failing. Before he could feel much panic, his doctor assured him that dialysis machines could keep him alive for a long time. For the first year, Ed's insurance paid about 80 percent of the cost. That still left the Van Houtens owing thousands. Doctor bills were mounting. The Van Houtens watched the bills roll in. They couldn't afford to pay them. Some people might have made at least token payments— a few dollars a m onth— but Marilyn didn’t see any point to that. "They were getting thousands, probably tens of thousands, from the insurance, and I don't think they were expecting us to pay anything.” Ed hoped for a kidney transplant, but doctors preferred more stable, healthier candidates. Ed had "brittle diabetes," an uncommonly severe form of the disease: His blood-sugar levels fluctuated wildly, sometimes soaring up, threatening heart attacks, and sometimes plummeting, threatening comas. He was particularly vul­ nerable to infections and broken bones. His history of dialysis-related transfusions had left his blood filled with antibodies that, surgeons felt, were likely to reject a new organ. In 1982, after two years of dialysis, Ed began having trouble walking. He fre­ quently felt weak and dizzy. At age 37, he retired. His pension was $415 a month, but virtually all of it— about $405— went to maintain a work-related health insur­ ance policy with Metropolitan. Marilyn was convinced they were going to need all the insurance they could get. For several years, Ed did quite well. He went on fishing trips with his stepson and once even traveled to Jamaica. Then, in August 1988, leaving a poker gam e at a friend's house, he stumbled on a step and scraped his legs. The wounds becam e infected, and that threw his m etabo­ lism out of whack. His blood sugar plummeted, his calcium level soared. He went into a coma. Following standard procedures, nurses used loose restraints to tie his hands to the bed railings so he wouldn't accidentally disconnect the IVs and monitor wires. Marilyn worried about what the restraints would do to his poor circulation, but Ed was so ill that the nurses considered it an irrelevant side issue. After a week, to the surprise of his doctors, Ed emerged from the coma. A few days later, he returned home, Marilyn noticed that the little finger on his left hand was darken­ ing almost to black: It was dying. A month later, at Doctors' Hospital, the finger was amputated. “It was painless,” said Ed. “So I went home. At the end of a week, I started to get pain again in my hand. I pushed down and an infection came out of the bandage." He was admitted immediately to Jackson. The hand had to come off. “I didn't have general anesthesia,” Ed said. “It was a local. 1could hear the saw. And 1could feel it. They said I couldn’t feel anything, but I could. They make you a little woozy, that's all.” After the operation, he went into another coma. It was sometime during Ed’s stay at Jackson that a resident physician asked Marilyn: “You want me to write a no code' for you?” Marilyn understood: "Ho code” meant that no extraordinary measures would be used to keep Ed alive.

T H E F O C U S ST O R Y

35

"Obviously," the resident told her, “he has nothing to live for.” Marilyn had been one of the first staff members of Miami Hospice back in the 70s. She had spent several years helping terminally ill patients die peacefully, with dignity, without all the high-tech machines of modern medicine that can prolong life— and pain. But now, hearing this opinion from the resident, she rebelled. She simply couldn't stand the thought of her husband slipping off during a medical crisis. Ed wasn't terminal. He didn’t want to die. He had been through too many painful experiences to give up now. Once again, Ed pulled out of the coma. Jackson doctors announced he was fit to be discharged. Marilyn knew she couldn't take him home. He was too sick for that, and his insurers didn't pay for home-care nurses. Panicked, Marilyn decided perhaps "rehab” was the answer. In a rehabilitation unit of a hospital, Ed could get physical therapy. Without therapy, the muscles of his limbs would atrophy. With therapy, he might be able to climb from a bed into a wheelchair. But rehab was also a way to keep Ed in the hospital and circumvent Medicare restrictions. Under Medicare, hospitals and doctors for years had arranged treatments and charged prices that the federal government had paid for without question. Medi­ care costs soared. In the early ’80s, when Medicare costs were zooming up by 19 percent a year— almost five times the rate of inflation— the federal government decided it had enough. Medicare fixed reimbursements. Removing a gallbladder, mending a broken hip— each procedure had a price tag. No more blank checks. There was one exception: rehabilitation. Because the amount of time required for rehab varied greatly among patients, Medicare basically still paid what the hos­ pitals charged. To medical economists, this was a loophole. To Marilyn, it was an opportunity. Using the contacts she knew from her work as a case manager, she found a place that was willing to accept her husband. On Sept. 9, 1989, Ed entered the rehab unit at South Miami Hospital. The therapy began, but much of the time, Ed was too exhausted to do the exercises. Sometimes, he blew up at the therapists and told them to go away. To justify the Medicare charges, the hospital had to show Ed was making progress. But Ed was not progressing. The hospital insisted he leave. Marilyn began calling her contacts. Palmetto Health Center, a nursing home, agreed to take him. Marilyn didn't trust nursing homes. She saw them as places for people to linger for a bit before they died— warehouses for the elderly. Most nursing-home care was handled by aides who weren’t skilled nurses: Marilyn didn't believe they could deal with Ed’s blood-sugar crises— any one of which could lead to com a and death. But she took him to the Palmetto nursing home anyway. She felt she had no choice. On Dec. 12, 1989, Marilyn was almost relieved when a severe ear infection got Ed readmitted to South Miami Hospital. The ear infection proved resistant to anti­ biotics. For a while, doctors wondered if the infection had spread to his brain. “This,” said Ed, “is where the real fun begins." If a patient is stoic and sadly adorable, nurses flock to his care. A 9-year-old poster child can be irresistible. But in real life, sick people are often grumpy and spiteful— angry at their illness, angry at their dependence on machines and care­ givers. At South Miami, Ed was an exceptionally angry, argumentative and hostile patient. Sometimes he refused to take insulin. Sometimes he refused to allow his blood pressure to be taken. He yelled at nurses. He yelled at doctors. He got angry at the

36

CHAPTER 3

incessant “finger sticks," pricks of blood they used to measure his blood sugar, because he had only one hand it was constantly sore from the pricks. He was, concedes Marilyn, “a nightmare patient." Dr. Ray Lopez, a neurologist, was called in. He decided that Ed was suffer­ ing from metabolic encephalopathy, a brain disorder probably caused by chem ­ ical imbalances in the blood. The effects could be anything from mild confu­ sion— the "fog" that Ed often found himself in— to a coma, if Ed was alert, Lopez reported, the encephalopathy could reduce natural inhibitions, causing him to lash out in anger. Of course, Ed was more than unpopular. He was a major financial liabil­ ity. Many hospital administrators claim Medicare now pays only about half the average patient’s bill. For unusually complicated cases, it pays even less. Medi­ care has provisions for complications, but they’re not huge. Ed's case has extraor­ dinary complications because he usually is fighting many ailments at the same time. At South Miami Hospital, Ed's bill ran up to $180,000. Out of this, his insur­ ance paid only $44,500. On Jan. 12, 1990, a South Miami Hospital committee reviewed Ed's case and notified him that his stay there was no longer medically necessary. This news was communicated in a formal document that also stated Medicare was denying a further payment for his stay. Ed s doctors agreed he was stable enough to leave the hospital. Marilyn appealed the decision to an outside Medicare arbitrator, but the arbitrator ruled in the hospital's favor, at which point, Marilyn developed a simple strategy: She and Ed refused to leave. The hospital responded with social workers who recommended nursing homes, particularly a facility in nearby Kendall, Fla., called Green Briar, which described itself as a "rehabilitation and comprehensive care center." Green Briar costs roughly $360 a day— about 40 percent of what a hospital costs. To Medicare, that's a big savings. Marilyn’s attitude is you get what you pay for. To her, Green Briar was just another nursing home. She was convinced Ed wouldn't survive it. In early February 1990, after considerable debate, South Miami Hospital took an extraordinary step: It moved to evict Ed Van Houten. Marilyn was astounded. “1 didn’t believe a hospital would do such a thing,” she said. Marilyn called all the television stations, hoping that publicity would force the hospital to change its mind. When eviction day came, only one TV crew showed up, but that was enough to get the hospital to back down. Two days later, however, a hospital security guard and an ambulance crew entered Ed's hospital room and, within minutes, slid Ed onto a gurney and wheeled him out. When told their destination was Green Briar, Marilyn insisted on being taken to the nearest hospital emergency room. The ambulance delivered Ed to Baptist Hospital, where officials decided that if he was medically stable enough to leave South Miami Hospital, there was no reason he should be admitted to Baptist. But Marilyn and Ed refused to leave the emergency room. Shortly after dawn, a hospital social worker showed up and once again tried to persuade Marilyn to take Ed to Green Briar. Exhausted after the long night, Ed in a fog beside her, Marilyn gave in. An ambulance took them to the nursing home. During Ed’s first three weeks at Green Briar, Marilyn was terrified something would happen. It did. It began with Ed’s complaining of chest pain.

T H E FOCCiS ST O R Y

— —

37

After several hours of uncertainty, Marilyn finally got him taken back to the Baptist emergency room. His blood sugar was more than five times higher than normal. “A doctor told me, ‘My God, I've never seen a blood sugar that high.'” Marilyn says, "A little later, his tongue started protruding. I yelled for the nurse. He was in V-Tac." This means his heart was fluttering out of control. Ed was rushed into the coronary care unit. Marilyn believes this incident proves she is right about the differences between nursing homes and hospitals: The nursing home staff hadn't been able to keep up with Ed's condition. "His potassium was way up. His blood sugar was way up. None of that need have happened.” Russell Silverman, the administrator at Green Briar, thinks Green Briar did a fine job. "Altogether, he was with us for three months, and only once did he need to be hospitalized. This was a patient with unstable conditions, and yet almost all the time, we were able to handle him. I think that proves Green Briar was the right facility for him." In fact, Ed’s blood sugars have sometimes gotten wildly out of control even when he’s been in a hospital. The difference is that, in a hospital, the emergency­ intensive care equipment is right there, for immediate use. For Marilyn, Silver­ man’s “only once" is a gross oversimplification: “Only once" could mean Ed's death. After Ed had been in Baptist six days, Marilyn dropped by his room after work to find him gone. A nurse told her he had been transferred back to Green Briar. He had been in a “fog” and hadn’t objected. Marilyn suspected that Baptist had shipped Ed out while she wasn’t around so it could unload a very expensive patient: Ed had run up $165,000 in bills in his Baptist stays up to that point. Insurance paid for only a tenth of that. Ed spent two more months at the nursing home without a crisis. Finally, Marilyn persuaded Sunrise Rehabilitation Hospital in neighboring Broward County to take him. It was 40 miles from home, and it wasn’t a full-care hospital, but as far as Marilyn was concerned, it was better than a nursing home. Sunrise was expensive, even by hospital standards— $325 a day for the room, $299 a day for a bed similar to the one he’d had for half that am ount at Baptist (a bed he could have bought for $6,000 wholesale, $10,000 retail), plus miscella­ neous expenses. Altogether, Sunrise’s charges were running more than $2,100 a day. What's more, Medicare refused to pay the Sunrise bill: Once again, the feds said that Ed's stay at the hospital was medically unnecessary. On July 20 Sunrise told Ed he should leave. He was given a letter, stating that he was personally responsible for the bill. It is a fascinating document: “The total am ount due, charges plus deposit, is $211,347.50. Please make your check payable to Sunrise Rehabilitation Hospital and remit immediately.” Marilyn saw the bill and laughed. Collection agencies called her at all hours at home; some even had her beeper number. They sent earnest letters. “Is there any reason for further delay? As you know, Mr. Van Houten, a good payment record is important. Consequently, you should make immediate efforts for settlement.” Marilyn hated to iron, so she used the ironing board as the table for medical bills. It was covered with stacks of paper. Even now, she has no idea how much money they owe. The total indebtedness has become irrelevant: If any of the hos­ pitals or doctors took them to court, the Van Houtens would be forced into bank­ ruptcy. “These figures,” she says, “are so far beyond my comprehension, I don’t even think about them .”

38

—

CHAPTER 3

Marilyn doesn't have time to think about much of anything. She earns $29,000 a year from her main job, doing medical liaison work for a group of self-insured construction companies. She scrambles to make ends meet by having two parttime jobs. The jobs require considerable travel, and she rushes from appointment to appointment throughout southern Florida. Her car is a 1988 Chrysler LeBaron with 66,000 miles on it. She recently spent $400 for repairs on it and wonders how long she can keep it going. When she can, she tries to spend a little time with her son, who's now 18. Her routine she describes in a single word: “chaotic." For a month, Ed refused to leave Sunrise. Then he developed a severe infec­ tion: an irrefutable medical reason for hospitalization. Sunrise, which specialized in rehab, wasn’t equipped to handle the infection. On Thursday, Aug. 16, 1990, an ambulance carried Ed once again to Baptist, where he was admitted. He has gone through a dozen serious infections. Several times, he has been in intensive care. After his 10th visit to the operating room, the nurses joked he was a “regular commuter." But between crises, there have been times when the hospital staff thought he was well enough to be discharged. Of the first 180 days he was at Baptist, administrators estimate that only 55 were defined in Medicare terms as being “medically necessary.” “They'd tell me," Marilyn says, “‘He's going to Green Briar.’ For most people, that’d be the end of it. They don’t understand the system. I’d say, 'No, he’s not.' And that really stops them. They’re not used to people disagreeing with them .” Still, Marilyn was running out of options. Medicare allows only 90 hospital days and 100 nursing home days “per benefit period." That means per illness. The only way a patient can start a new "benefit period" is to spend 60 consecutive days at home. The regulations had been written to limit huge costs of caring for patients like Ed Van Houten. What Marilyn and Ed really wanted was to work out a deal so the insurers would pay for his care at home, with round-the-clock aides. Ed felt he would be com ­ fortable there, and he wouldn't be forgotten like he might be in a nursing home. What’s more, the care wouldn't be nearly as expensive as it would in a hospital. The problem was that neither Medicare nor Metropolitan, the secondary policy, had provisions for home care. Still, Marilyn occasionally met with an attorney, hoping that some legal muscle might do some good. She had a vague idea that if Ed's Medicare benefits were exhausted, Metropolitan would become the primary insurer. Medicare never alters its rules, but perhaps Metropolitan executives would go “out of policy” and realize home care would be the best solution. "It’s one of those things," Marilyn said one day when she was exhausted, "that makes so much sense that no one wants to do it." In December Baptist's administrators met with Marilyn and Ed’s doctors. To overcome her objections to Green Briar, the hospital volunteered to do his blood work so he could have quick, accurate readings. It said it would also provide for three ambulance trips a week to the dialysis center. But even that didn’t reassure Marilyn. Ed had only about two weeks of nursing home days left under Medicare. After that, the only alternative would be to go on Medicaid, the federally supported program for the poor. Medicaid pays no more than $95 a day for nursing-home care, and a facility like Green Briar—which can receive more than $400 a day from Medicare for its complicated patients such as Ed— refuses to accept Medicaid patients. So even if Ed had wanted to go there, he couldn’t afford to. At the meeting, Green Briar officials insisted that Marilyn sign papers promis­ ing that she personally would be responsible for his bills. She refused.

T H E F O C U S ST O R Y

—

-

39

Minor crises— each of which would be a rare and major event for most other people— came and went. In late January Ed started suffering such excruciating pain that he decided he wanted to die. He told Marilyn of his decision by phone. She was calm. “If that's how you feel, I'll understand," she said. But as soon as she hung up, she called A! and Chris Horton, two charismatic Catholics who often pray with Ed at the hospital. Crying, Marilyn told them what Ed was proposing. A1 Horton raced over to the hospital. He told Ed that such a momentous decision should be left in God’s hands, not man's. "Al's and Chris' argument is He keeps saving me, so there must be a reason," Ed says. “They keep telling me what an example I am for other people. Only God knows the pain I have been through— mentally and physically. And I’m sure He doesn't want me to suffer, but He keeps bringing me back, so there has to be a reason. A! kept at me and kept at me. Marilyn broke down and cried. So I kind of gave in.” Ed went to dialysis. Later, X-rays discovered the reason for his pain: He had a broken hip. His bones had become so brittle that a coughing fit had caused the fracture. In some European countries, such as Britain, faceless government commit­ tees have set stringent requirements for patients applying for dialysis. They're much more likely to reject applications or set arbitrary cutoffs. In some places, anyone over 55 can't begin dialysis. You are 56, your kidneys fail, you die. Sorry. In the United States, such excruciating decisions are avoided. The only excep­ tion is in Oregon, where the legislature had created state health insurance that would include all those who are not now insured, including 120,000 not covered by Medicaid, plus employees of small companies and high-risk patients. But there's a catch. The state will cover more people by covering fewer ail­ ments. A committee of health experts has developed a 714-item list of medical problems. Treatment for ailments at the top of the list— tuberculosis, pneum o­ nia, appendicitis— can yield great medical benefit at relatively little cost. Treat­ ment for those at the bottom of the list— AIDS cases in which patients are likely to die within five years, terminal cancer cases, premature babies born weighing under 1.3 pounds— is unlikely to produce significant medical improvement and costs a great deal. So the extreme preemies and the AIDS patients will be allowed to die. Mark Gibson, a legislative aide, says that did not mean these patients would be abandoned: “They will get comfort care, with pain medications, at home or in a hospice. But we won't be spending huge amounts on them." Marilyn understands the Oregon theory, but she's nervous about its execution: “I know there has to be some sort of restraint put on spending. I know there are indigents who need health care, and I feel real bad for them, but I don't see why Ed shouldn't get care just because there are indigents. How can you decide that someone shouldn’t have health care? I can't see someone saying, 'He can’t have dialysis because he doesn't have an arm and he’s not a useful member of society.’ That’s the kind of thing the Nazis used to do. Who knows what kind of criteria might be used?” Ed: "I basically believe each individual has the right to preserve his life if he should wish to continue. I know my care has been expensive, but then you look around at all the waste. The Air Force spends $2,500 for a hammer. The Defense Department spends billions of dollars for weapons that don't get used. So you talk about a $300,000 medical bill, that's like a drop in the bucket. I don't feel like I'm ripping anybody off."

40

CHAPTER 3

Medicare generally refuses to pay any bills until a patient is discharged from the hospital. The federal bureaucracy’s requirements— and Ed’s complications— are so extraordinary that even Baptist’s experts can’t figure out if Medicare will pay anything at all. It’s possible that Medicare will decide Ed has exhausted his benefits. If it does, Baptist hopes to collect from Metropolitan, Ed’s second insurer. Again, the hos­ pital’s experts are in uncharted territory. One inkling of how complex the situation is: Metropolitan has demanded to see copies of Ed's medical records for the past eight months. These records are so voluminous that Baptist is asking Metropoli­ tan to pay for photocopying them. The price: $5,000. Pennell, the medical ethics specialist at the University of Miami, says Ed’s $350,000-plus bill at Baptist is somewhat misleading. The only real cost to the hospital, Pennell points out, is for the services and supplies he consumes. Once the hospital has bought a high-tech air bed, it doesn't really cost hundreds a day to use it. Of the hundreds of thousands Ed was charged, only a small portion was an actual cash expense. “It's a paper loss," says Pennell, “a potential loss of income.” But that doesn't mean Baptist is padding the bill. The non-profit hospital’s charges are relatively cheap compared with those of other area hospitals. Baptist really needs hundreds of thousands of dollars from patients like Ed to keep the hospital running, and if it can't get the money from Ed, then it needs to get it from other patients. One recent afternoon, Ed turned off the TV and did a little talking. “I'm feeling pretty good,” he said. "For the moment. Of course," he said, chuckling weakly, “for me, good is with an asterisk." Epilogue After a year and a day in Miami’s Baptist Hospital, after running up a bill of $470,000 that no one wanted to pay, after heated battles with administrators who wished to ship him off to a nursing home, Ed Van Houten decided he should leave in style. In August, on his last night there, he gave a party in his hospital room for nurses and friends. Everyone was ecstatic: Ed Van Houten was getting what he had always wanted: round-the-clock care in his own home. Later that night, as ambulance attendants wheeled him into his suburban Miami home, he shouted: “Thank you, God.” Two weeks earlier, the Van Houtens were informed that, despite what insur­ ers had steadfastly claimed, home care was now possible. In early August, MetroDade, the county government that had been Ed’s employer, entered the picture. Metro-Dade had been self-insured, with Metropolitan administering the policy. Metro-Dade administrators decided that eventually they would be paying Ed’s bill at Baptist Hospital because his Medicare funding had run out. "When we figured out it was our baby," a Metro-Dade official said, “we decided to take a very aggres­ sive posture." A special case manager determined it would cost $13,000 a month to treat Ed at home compared to $39,000 a month in the hospital. Although home care was not covered by Ed's insurance policy, Metro-Dade decided it was the best solution. On his first full day home, surrounded by his friends and his dogs, Ed was filled with hope. He even was planning to start a job, using the telephone to organize sales that would bring contributions to the Catholic Archdiocese of Miami.

THE FO CUS STORY

41

“It’s really amazing,” he said, "how things can turn out.” Still, Marilyn worries. She figures within a year or two, they will have used up Ed's $ 1 million lifetime reserve with Metropolitan. “It will be interesting to see,” she says thoughtfully, “what happens next.” ♦Reprinted by permission. Copyright The Miami Herald. H ere's a challenge: Add u p ail the dollar a m o u n ts q uoted for v ario u s expenses a n d services in th is story. I th in k it's safe to say y o u h ave never read a sto ry a b o u t a n y econom ic issue w ith as m a n y n u m b ers as sn o w ­ flakes in a N orth D akota blizzard. Yet "S tayin' Alive" w as a com pelling read, an d th e n u m b ers do n o t get in th e w a y The doggedness of M arilyn Van H outen w as ap p aren t. Ed's p erso n ality w as p re tty clear, too, and no t alw ay s likable. And those n um bers, th e deadening w eigh t an d sheer m ag n itu d e o f the costs and expenses an d com plications w ith w h o w o u ld p ay fo r w h a t, w as b ro u g h t hom e brillian tly b y th e w riter. The execution o f this story, like th a t of a successful m ilita ry cam paign, w as b rillian t, an d Jo h n D orschn er m ade the perfect call w h en he decided to use a focus s tru c tu re for this story. I th in k everyone w h o reads th is sto ry can u n d ersta n d th e h ealth care crisis in th e U nited States because it w as sh o w n via one case stu d y in so u th Florida. Now, before I go into a m ore detailed an aly sis o f th is story, n o te the overall stru c tu re o r o rganization: • The Lead. The sad predicam ent o f Ed Van H outen an d his em battled wife, M arilyn, follow ed b y w h a t is a really a synopsis o r ab stra ct of m o st o f th e sto ry to com e. It's n o t really a n "anecdotal" lead, a lth o u g h o ften th a t's ju s t w h a t y o u 'll w a n t in a focus story. • The N u t G raf and Transition. The a u th o r su m s u p th e dilem m a of rising health care costs in th e p a ra g ra p h th a t sta rts, "H ealth-care experts are beginning to w onder: Is it tim e to p u t strict lim its on m edical care?" N ote also th e line in th e 2 2 n d p a ra g ra p h th a t reads, "for no one really w a n ts to p ay for th e care o f people like Ed Van H outen." T h at one line is the tran sitio n ; it tells y o u th e sto ry is going to be as m uch a b o u t "people in th e sam e pred icam en t as Ed Van H outen" as a b o u t Ed himself. • The Body. W here th e a u th o r details chronologically th e process by w hich Ed Van H outen w as bum ped fro m one facility to a n o th e r as his w ife fo u g h t to save him , an d also w h ere w e learn som e nice biographical back g ro u n d a b o u t b o th Van H outens. • Ending. N ot h a rd to find in this story. D orschner relies o n one o f th e oldest lite ra ry devices in th e book: He gives u s an epilogue, o r the sto ry afte r the story. It's really a clim ax to th e sto ry of Ed Van H outen (for now , a t least), a n d th e a u th o r is follow ing a sto ry tellin g technique by delivering th e clim ax a t th e end o f th e article, w h ere it belongs.

42

——

CHAPTER 3

Now for the details. If you made a list of sources fo r this sto ry it w ould look like a list from alm ost any health care crisis story: a medical ethicist, a nursing hom e adm inistrator, an insurance spokesm an, the p atien t's p rim ary physician. There is nothing surprising ab o u t including an y of these sources in this story. But the sources d o n 't predom inate. The n a rra ­ to r in this sto ry alw ays is John Dorschner; w e are n ot plagued by a bunch of talking heads w hom we do not know. You m ay have been ta u g h t th a t the a u th o r's or w rite r's voice should n ot be ap p aren t in a news story. Well, forget th a t here. I'm not speaking of voice so m uch in term s of the w rite r's personality or em otion as in term s of his or her pow er and intel­ ligence. There has to be someone in control of a long sto ry like this at all tim es, someone in control of all the pieces of this puzzle, and th a t someone is Dorschner. There is a fine use of quotes here, as well. Remember, if the source can say it better th a n you, or the quote reveals some of the source's personal­ ity, then by all m eans quote the source. D orschner does this effectively in the unflattering quote attrib u ted to M arilyn Van H outen ignoring her h u s­ band's doctor, hospital, and nursing hom e bills: "They w ere getting th o u ­ sands, probably tens of thousands, from the insurance, an d I d o n 't think they w ere expecting us to pay anything." She is com m itted to helping her husband, w hich is w onderful, b u t I learned from th a t one quote th a t I w o u ld n 't w a n t to take a personal check from the lady! Q uoting M arilyn is m uch m ore effective th a n sim ply stating th a t she doesn't think she has an obligation to p ay for her h u s­ band's health care. Consider, too, the sto ry 's "pull th e plug" issue, the issue of letting som eone die because it's too im plausible or expensive to keep him or her alive: The a u th o r doesn't begin the parag rap h by saying, "One of the g reat­ est challenges facing M arilyn Van H outen in her heroic struggle to keep her desperately ill husband alive w as w hen she w as confronted w ith the issue of choosing to let her husband die rath e r th a n insisting th a t every w eapon in the high-tech medical arsenal be em ployed to save him." D orschner could have w ritten that, b u t he uses a simple quote (part of a dialogue betw een tw o sources in the story, n ot a quote in the form of an answ er to one of D orschner's questions) instead. It's w hen we read of the tim e a doctor said to M arilyn: "You w a n t me to w rite a 'no code' for you?" We get the message. So, quotes are used very effectively in this story. T hey're used spar­ ingly, too. You d o n 't find th a t m any quotes in this long story. (Try adding them up.) A bout the dollar am o u n ts and other figures: Obviously, we need to know w h a t Ed's total bill ran to, and w h a t the lim its of Medicare benefits are, as well as w h y a bag of ice costs S15. Any w riter could have included these details in his or her story, b u t m ost w ould have bogged dow n under the sheer volum e of num bers. D orschner succeeds in presenting the com plicated m a th because he never forgets th a t he's telling a "story" first. W hy is Medicare nearly b an k ru p t?

THE FOCCJS STORY

43

D orschner could have given us a treatise on th is subject, b u t instead w e are in troduced to one key re a so n — expensive dialysis tre a tm e n ts — in the context o f Ed's reliance on dialysis m achines. The pro b lem is th a t Medi­ care h as to p ay for so m a n y people like Ed, an d it adds u p. It is also a t this p o in t in th e sto ry th a t w e learn h o w in England, fo r exam ple, th e g o v ern ­ m en t ju s t w o n 't p ay fo r elderly people w ho need th e tre a tm e n t, m eaning th e y 're allow ed to die. You see th e h u m a n d ram a, th e ac c o u n ta n t's red ink, and th e ethical issues all in one. W hy does an air bed cost $299 a day, especially w h en y o u could buy' the d a rn th in g for $6,000? D orschner also p u ts those n u m b ers in context. As w ith all tho se num b ers, expert sources in tru d e in th e sto ry o nly w h en th ey are relevant to th e developm ent of the n arrativ e. Ed alm o st dies at G reen Briar. Then, and only then, w ill w e h ear fro m a spokesm an for G reen Briar. Ed is suffering fro m m etabolic encephalopathy, am o n g o th e r terrible conditions. You are not going to read a n article ab o u t m etabolic enceph­ alo p ath y unless y o u 're a 4 th -y e a r prem ed stu d en t. But w e'v e read ab o u t th is co n sta n t "fog" th a t Ed is in, and it is in th e co n tex t of try in g to u n d er­ sta n d th e fog, w hich seems b oth interesting an d depressing, th a t w e are w illing to read a b o u t a plausible m edical ex planation for it. Try this in fo rm al exercise: D raw a tim eline o f Ed Van H o u ten 's illness an d stay s a t different h ealth care facilities. "S tayin' Alive" is essentially chronological in developm ent, so this should be easy. Now, fill in places w here expert sources are quoted on som e of th e real issues in th is story, as w ell as places w here som e of th e stu n n in g costs an d n u m b ers are revealed. In alm o st all cases th e w riter p u ts the d ra m a an d sto ry ah ead of the n u m b ers an d talking head experts. H ere's a n o th e r little experim ent: Com b th ro u g h th e sto ry an d see if y o u can find m a n y obscure, h ig h -falo o tin ' w ord s o r v o cab u lary th a t w o u ld show off w h a t an educated an d fine w riter Jo h n D orschner is. There are a few m edical a n d accounting te rm s th a t he defines for us (defining com plex te rm s is alw ays an excellent idea), b u t o th e r th a n th a t, th e w ritin g in this sto ry is v ery plain. We have n o u n s an d verbs but not so m a n y adjectives an d adverbs, w hich often are signs of overw ritin g . The w ritin g here is po w erfu l in large m easure because it is so direct an d b ru ta l. (Can yo u h ear Ed's h an d being saw ed off? C an y o u see his acne?) I w a n t y o u to th in k about th a t, especially those am o n g y o u w h o believe every featu re sto ry should be the literary event of th e season. A nother th in g I like ab o u t th is sto ry is th a t it's evenhanded. One can easily im agine an advocate for health care and h ea lth in su ran ce refo rm w ritin g a sto ry based on Ed an d M arilyn. But it m o st likely w o u ld have been laced w ith h a rs h ju d g m e n ts ag ain st th e cruel h o sp ital ad m in istra to rs w ho w an ted to th ro w Ed in th e street, w hile d rip p in g w ith com passion fo r th e poor, desperate, innocent victim s k n o w n as Ed an d M arilyn Van H outen. Such a heavy-handed tre a tm e n t w o u ld have led to p len ty o f back­ lash and cynicism , th o u g h , and w ould have been less effective. D orschner w as w ise to rem ain basically objective in this story.

44

~~~

CHAPTER 3

There's a last positive point I w an t to m ake about this story. You m ay th in k "Stayin' Alive" reads a bit like a profile, especially of M arilyn Van Houten. Because w e're alw ays going to include the 5 Ws and H in any story, it's fair enough to say th is sto ry tells us "who" it is about. But there's really m ore going on here th a n th at. M arilyn Van H outen is the driver; her actions, as m uch as the deterioration in her h u sb an d 's con­ dition and the gam es health care providers play, move this sto ry along. You can m ake sense of a com plex story, and stay on track, if y o u follow the driver. Now, having heaped such lavish praise on this story, let me acknow l­ edge w h a t some m ight perceive as a m ajor sleight of han d in its stru ctu re. It is only near the very end of the sto ry th a t w e are told M arilyn has been seeking hom e health care all along, and th en it is only in the epilogue th a t we learn she got it! I know plenty of city editors w ho w ould have insisted th a t D orschner tell the readers up front, a t o r near the very top of his story, th a t Ed Van H outen's long struggle for hom e health care w as recently rew arded w hen the M etro-D ade co u n ty governm ent decided to step in an d foot the bill for him . These city editors w ould have insisted, in o th er w ords, th a t Dorsch­ ner sta rt the sto ry w ith th e conclusion first. T h ey'd have a point, too. After all, w hen y o u read a gam e sto ry dealing w ith y o u r favorite sports team , you d o n 't expect the rep o rter to give you a blow -by-blow account, th en save the final score for the ending. You'd expect to know the score u p fro n t— inverted p y ram id style— followed by all the details. Yet tru e storytelling technique often saves the best for last, and D orschner seems justified in w ithholding the clim ax of his sto ry until the ending. You be th e judge.

Chapter

The Pro-and-Con Story

Give both sides of the story. Probably no o ther com m on sense w isdom is m ore enshrined in trad i­ tional U.S. jou rn alism . T hink of election coverage. N ewspapers th a t give m ore play to one m ajor candidate th a n an o th er o r consistently produce m ore positive stories about one candidate's policies and "issues" will quickly be suspected of biased coverage. Controversial topics, too, require fair treatm en t of "both sides" of the question. M any large cities in recent years have w restled w ith the ques­ tion of offering large financial incentives to professional sports team s in the hopes of keeping them in to w n or luring th e m aw ay from other cities. In 1984, the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, w o n th e Colts aw ay from Bal­ tim ore, M aryland, by building a new, domed stadium . But in 1996, Balti­ m ore grabbed the Browns from Cleveland, Ohio. Then in 2005 the State of Indiana granted the Colts hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions and yet an o th er stadium to get the team to stay. And so it goes. Some people are disgusted th a t tax p ay er m oney is used to entice and rew ard such professional sports franchises. A fter all, if y o u w a n t to support y o u r local team , y o u can buy tickets, these critics argue. The tax m oney could better be used for schools, roads, or health care for the poor. Investing in m ass tran sit system s m ight even have a greater im pact on the local econom y— w itness w h a t the M etro did for the W ashington, D.C., area beginning in the 1970s. Or ta x rates could be lowered. But city adm inistrators d o n 't stop talking ab o u t the economic im pact of having a professional sports franchise in tow n. There are to u rist dollars to be spent; there are the re sta u ra n t meals th a t will be sold before and after the game; there's th e revitalization of depressed d o w n to w n areas they believe a new sports stadium and team will bring. W ho's right, and w h o 's w rong? You— the w rite r— give b o th sides of the sto ry and let the reader decide. Another, m ore dynam ic w ay of looking a t p ro-and-con stories is in term s of "should" and "should not." By this I m ean th a t proponents of either side of a controversial issue often are recom m ending th a t som ething

45

46

— —

CHAPTER 4

should, or should not, be done. You'll read a sto ry sh o rtly ab o u t the fate of a historic building in Indianapolis: One side in the debate says it should be preserved; the other says it should not be saved b u t rath er dem olished to m ake w ay for new business. Stories w ith tw o sides th a t involve doing som ething, or doing one thing over another, provide a n a tu ra l dynam ic th a t m akes them easy to w rite and easy to read. Pro-and-con stories are b read-and-b u tter stories for daily jo u rn alists, b u t we see m a n y stories th a t are in effect one-sided, especially on the fea­ tures beat. For example, it w ould be surprising to see a feature sto ry ac tu ­ ally dem anding accountability from a United W ay- or C om m unity C hestsupported agency for som ething like flood relief or homeless shelters or cancer research. Stories th a t have a n atu ra l dynam ic, a p u sh an d pull, are better reads, and they can be done on the features beat. Later in this book w e'll look a t advocacy jo u rn alism , in w hich the jo u r­ nalist takes a side, arguing th a t one position is correct, often w hile try in g to p u t dow n an y opposition. This is a controversial practice in U.S. jo u r­ nalism th a t has been w ith us for a t least 30 years. Even if yo u believe there is room for advocacy journalism , there still will be m any, m an y stories th a t have to be reported and interpreted in a balanced w ay. The reader will need to hear both sides of the issue to m ake an inform ed decision. This is a concession usually m ade by the m odern adherents o f w h a t is variously k n o w n as public jo u rn alism or civic jo u rn alism : You, the jo u rn alist, m u st present th e reader w ith a range of solutions to the pressing problem s of the day, n o t m erely lead the cheer for one side or another. There's an additional reason to be evenhanded: W ithout a doubt y ou'll have sources from both sides plying y o u w ith all kinds of d ata and facts to support their side. You never will be sho rt of m aterial to w o rk w ith. Furtherm ore, because pro-and-con stories tend to deal w ith controver­ sial topics, readers m ay either hate you or love yo u for w h at y ou w rite, b u t they likely will respect you for being fair. In general, controversial topics will have ardent supporters on both sides of the issue (just th in k of the ongoing abortion debate). Touch a nerve close to their hearts and you will have dedicated readers from y o u r lead sentence to the last period, b u t you will lose half of y o u r audience if y o u 're n o t fair. Sometimes a pro-and-con sto ry includes inform ation th a t has a do w n ­ side, such as a sto ry th a t highlights a new medical procedure or drug. W ho could be against healing? But you m u st report all risks associated w ith, say, a new antidepressant or perhaps refractive laser eye surgery. Risks or contraindications are listed on package labeling for over-the-counter drugs; you should do no less in y o u r reporting. I did a sto ry several years ago for The Indianapolis News on the grow ing popularity of cosmetic facial surgery (Aamidor, Abe. 1987. "Cosmetic Surgery," The Indianapolis News, p. C - l .), even for ordinary, middleincom e people. I included tw o brief caveats or disclaimers deep in the text, indicating th a t there's alw ays the risk of infection and th a t even success­ ful surgeries will leave patients feeling like someone has ju s t rubbed their epiderm is off w ith sandpaper. 1 th o u g h t I w as being fair and responsible in

THE PRO-AND-CON STORY

47

doing this. The m o th e r of a fellow reporter, largely o n th e basis o f reading m y story, elected to have such cosm etic facial surgery. She h ad a terrible experience, th o u g h . She needed a co n stan t su p p ly o f painkillers for m ore th a n a m o n th , an d her face w as so puffy, raw , a n d red afte r th e su rg ery she w o u ld n o t go o u t in public for w eeks. The w o m a n 's son asked if I h ad not w arn ed readers of th e risks in herent in th e surgery. I looked a t m y sto ry again, and indeed I had. N ot once, b u t tw ice. Yet b o th disclaim ers w ere really quite sm all and buried deep in th e story. I felt s o rry for th e w o m a n a n d w as determ ined th e n a n d th ere to disclose m ore clearly in fu tu re stories a n y risks involved w ith a n y m edical procedure o r d ru g I w as w ritin g ab o u t. I w as going to be evenhanded in every sense of th e w ord; I w as going to take th e n otion o f "pro an d con" seriously. H ere's a n exam ple o f a p ro -a n d -c o n sto ry th a t a n y o f y o u m ig h t have been assigned an d th a t an y of y o u could have done well. It's a sto ry th a t grew o u t of b eat coverage, of zoning issues in th e cen tral city in Ind ian ap ­ olis. The issue is w h e th e r or n o t to te ar d o w n a historic building in Indi­ anapolis a n d p u t u p a m o d ern d ru g sto re in its place. The problem rem inds m e a little o f folk singer Joni M itchell's lyric, "They paved paradise and p u t u p a park in g lot." No, there w as no v irgin tim b er a t stake a t 3 8 th an d College Streets in Indianapolis in 1992. There w as a depressed neighborhood w ith a tw o -sto ry w a lk -u p office building th a t for the m ost p a rt stood em pty. The Chinese re sta u ra n t sign in fro n t w as broken (the re s ta u ra n t itself w as long gone) an d The Indianapolis News ran a large p hoto w ith th e sto ry show ing a n abandoned car parked illegally rig h t on th e sidew alk in fro n t of th e b u ild ­ ing. To som e people, this w hole scene scream ed "u rb a n renew al," especially w h en W algreens, a n atio n al d ru g sto re chain, said th e y 'd b u y th e p ro p erty from its c u rre n t ow ner, clear th e lot, and p u t u p a m o d ern store. But historic p reservationists cried foul. The old, n early abandoned building w as distinctive architecturally; som e even claim ed it w as b eau ­ tiful, alth o u g h th a t's a m a tte r of taste, I suppose. In a n y case, co u ld n 't th e original building be rehabilitated, th e n converted to sm all offices an d shops for neighborhood people to sta ff an d take pride in? Storefront Politics by Abe Aamidor It’s a clash between “progress” and “history." On one side are the MaCo Building’s owner, a local developer, and most of the areas’s residents, all of whom want to see the better part of the art deco-inspired structure at 38th Street and College Avenue demolished in favor of a new, suburban-style Walgreen Drug Store and parking lot. The store will mean 20 to 25 jobs and increased security for the blighted inter­ section. A couple of viable businesses share the corner with an abandoned gas station, vacant supermarket and shuttered bar and grill, not to mention the nearly empty MaCo Building itself, formerly home to the Mandarin Inn restaurant. On the other side of the issue are historic preservationists who point to deli­ cate, limestone relief sculptures in the MaCo Building’s walls, its beveled art-glass windows and its pressed steel roof over a tower room.

48

— -

CHAPTER 4

It's unusual in Indianapolis, and besides, argue the preservationists, leveling the MaCo Building would violate the neighborhood's 38th Street Corridor plan, which calls for saving historic buildings wherever possible. A vote by the Metropolitan Development Commission Wednesday may seal the fate of the building. If the planning commission approves a petition to rezone residential property just south of an alley behind the MaCo Building and include it in the proposed development, a deal to sell the building will go through. The old structure— except for a wing that now houses a coin laundry— will be flattened. Mike Quinn, attorney for Continental Realty and Development Co., who will develop the property and lease it to Walgreen, says the building's architecture may appeal to some, but that the small, cubicle-like offices, high ceilings and walk-up second floor make it unsuitable for commercial purposes today. "The people who think the city is one big park don't understand that," Quinn said. David Frederick, director of the Indianapolis office of Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indianapolis, says the MaCo Building is eligible for historic land­ mark status, though it is unlikely the building could be designated as such without the active support of its owner. Landmark status would add a layer of protection to the building and make it more difficult to destroy. "I just think it's short-sighted to demolish the building," said Frederick. "I could show you 100 slides of buildings built in the '60s and '70s and even '80s that tore down important resources and now have gone out of business.” Even the plan to put in a new drug store has irked people who express no affin­ ity for the Maco Building's art and history. "Really, it doesn’t bother me that they’ll tear it down,” said neighborhood resident Darwin Bell while folding clothes in the laundry in the eastern wing of the building. “But they need to put in a grocery store, not a drug store.” What’s in a Name? The MaCo Building— its nam e is an amalgam of Maple Road, an early name for part of 38th Street, and College Avenue— was developed as a market with adjoin­ ing office space and a two-story “tower” at the corner. Ironically, the Walgreen Drug Co.— the same company that wants the building torn down— was one of the first occupants. The building s recent history has been sorry. A record shop, second-hand fur­ niture store and beauty shop, as well as the Mandarin Inn, have all closed or moved, and a combined travel agency and beauty store rents space on a monthto-month lease. “The other businesses were just barely surviving," said Peter Chung, who manages the travel agency. “The rent was just right, but the people in the neigh­ borhood were not cooperating. There was a lot of shoplifting." Peter Pappas, who operates the unrelated MaCo Dry Cleaners a half-block west, said he, too, is fearful of crime. “To be honest, it’s very dangerous around here," said Pappas, who has operated his business in what was once a movie theater since 1958. “Not my customers, but they're not the ones that are dan­ gerous." Dave Leonards, past president of the Mapleton Fall Creek Neighborhood Asso­ ciation, said most residents of the area favor the return of Walgreens. "We're faced with progress vs. history," said Leonards. “The neighborhood has looked at it and said in this particular situation the benefits Walgreens is going to bring outweigh the value of the building.” “Plus, the feeling is if this building is so important, where was everyone when the Chinese restaurant closed?"

T H E PRO -AND -CO N STORY

49

Continental attorney Mike Quinn also challenges people trying to save the building. “They've got nothing at stake here,” said Quinn, speaking of the Historic Land­ mark Foundation. "They don't own the building and they don’t live in the neigh­ borhood." The Bottom Line Historic Landmark's David Frederick defends his group's interest in the building. “There are other values here in the world besides the bottom line,” said Fred­ erick, who promises to be at the planning commission hearing, along with other preservationists. “There are other things that make a city beautiful. I'm not con­ vinced that this building can’t meet some economic needs." Frederick pointed to Coburn Place, an old public school building converted to assisted-living housing less than two blocks away on 38th Street, and the creation of an O’Malia’s Food Market in the former Sears store Downtown as two ways old buildings can be put to new uses. Other supporters of the status quo include Bill Connor, a board member of the neighborhood association and president of William S. Connor Inc., a general con­ tractor specializing in remodeling and restoration work. Noting that one objection to saving the building is the walk-up second floor, Connor estimated that an ele­ vator could be installed for $40,000. “1think it's a shame to lose that building," said Connor. “There are very few like it in Indianapolis. Its art deco motifs present some styling that you just don't see. Secondly, it's structurally sound and seems to me it would be a waste of resources to flatten it." The sale price is unknown, but Kipp Normand of Historic Landmarks says the building previously was offered at $295,000. The owner, Stanley Cohen, could not be reached for comment. Quinn says the estimated cost of the Walgreens project, including demolish­ ing most of the MaCo Building, is $1 million. As presently zoned, the owner or developers can do pretty much what they will with the building, as long as they don't go beyond the alley behind it. While the plan to destroy the historic building would seem to be an apparent contradiction of the non-binding 38th Street Corridor plan, Maury Plambeck, a senior planner with the Department of Metropolitan Development, said the major objection to the plan is the “setback," or how far the building will be from the street. The orig­ inal site plan for the new store was being revised this week, said Quinn. The city has become involved in the case because of the petition to rezone adjoining resi­ dential property, which would then be included in the Walgreen s development. Feeling in the Mapleton Fall Creek area is that the MaCo Building soon will be history, and not in the way the preservationists want. Wendell Purchase, president of the association, said the community held several meetings last fall and that the majority of people expressed support for the proposed development. "One of our neighbors said, 'If Benjamin Harrison had slept there, it might be historic. But he not only didn’t sleep there, he didn’t even shop there,”’ recalled Purchase. “A lot of people really don't know what historic means. It means differ­ ent things to different people." ‘ Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1992, The Indianapolis News. (This story was edited for inclusion in this collection.) You'll h av e a se p a ra te c h a p te r o n q u o te s in th e la st section o f th is book, b u t I have to p o in t o u t h ere a tto r n e y M ike Q u in n 's o p en in g q u o te: "The

50

CHAPTER 4

people w h o th in k th e city is one big p a rk d o n 't u n d ersta n d " h o w little econom ic u tility the MaCo Building h as in the c u rre n t business clim ate. T hem 's fightin' w ords! It's a q uote w ith attitu d e , n o t m erely a s u m m a ry o f the m a n 's position. There are o th e r good quotes in th is story, alth o u g h th e y d o n 't s ta rt com ing h o t an d heavy u n til well into th e story. Young rep o rters either use too m a n y quotes or no quotes at all in th eir stories. Too m a n y q u o tes early in a sto ry confuse th e reader and lead to th e dreaded "talking heads" or "popping heads" syndrom e, w here y o u really d o n 't k n o w w h o is talk in g o r w h a t th e ir a u th o rity or place in th e sto ry is. In general, th o u g h , y o u on ly q uote people w h en it's a really p u n ch y o r vivid q u o te o r if w h a t th ey say so succinctly su m s u p a position th a t yo u , th e professional w riter, could n o t have said better yourself. Note how clearly th e problem is laid o u t in th e opening p ara g ra p h s. Fam ous w ritin g coach a n d lecturer Don Fry (personal co m m u n icatio n , 1995) likes to ta lk a b o u t th e "a irp o rt term in al" test for local new s cov­ erage. Can a reader, ju s t arriving by p lan e in a n ew city, pick u p th e local p aper and u n d e rsta n d w h a t's going o n ju s t on th e basis o f w h a t he or she reads in th a t d a y 's coverage o f events? The an sw e r here w o u ld be a resounding yes. T here's a lot to be said for clarity, y o u know . N ote also h o w th e coverage is p re tty balanced in th is story, alth o u g h you m ig h t say it's slightly w eighted to w a rd th e su p p o rters of econom ic progress. Yet th a t w o u ld n 't reflect m y bias. The fact is th ere w as m ore su p p o rt to te ar dow n th e building an d p u t u p a d ru g sto re, so it w o u ld have been artificial to provide exactly 50% o f th e space for one side o f th e issue an d 50% for th e o th e r side. There is no fo rm u la for these th in g s, th o u g h . I c an n o t claim th a t if 90% of th e sen tim en t in y o u r coverage area w ere, say, to h an g a convicted child m olester w h o ju s t m oved in to a neighborhood th a t 9096 of y o u r coverage should reflect su ch a sen tim en t. You'll have to decide on a case-by-case basis; it's th e principle o f giving balanced cover­ age in a p ro -a n d -c o n sto ry th a t's m ore a t stake here th a n w o rd count. I w a n t y o u to p ay p articu la r atte n tio n to th e types o f sources in the sto ry y o u 'v e ju s t read. N orm ally y o u have tw o types o f sources in a sto ry : expert sources an d w h a t I call h u m a n in terest o r real people sources. The experts have (or should have) th e d ata, the b ack g ro u n d , an d th e objectiv­ ity to help explain things in y o u r story. The real people are th o se people actu ally affected by the new s. T hink of a to rn a d o story: Surely y o u w o u ld ta lk to people w h o lost their hom es as w ell as to survivors o f a deadly attack ? H ow do th ey feel? H ow w ill th ey rebuild th e ir lives? You'd also talk to m eteorologists w h o can explain how and w h y this latest sto rm did its dam age. You w o u ld talk to a banker o r a n econom ist w h o could explain th e im p act in dollars and cents of th e sto rm on th e larger com m u n ity . The previous sto ry blurs the difference so m e w h at betw een expert and o rd in ary source. T h a t's because in controversies (and th is is a controversy, w hich is w h y it w as w ritte n as a p ro -a n d -c o n sto ry ) alm o st everybody you w a n t to quote is affected by th e issues. Investors, law yers, neighbor­

THE PRO-AND-CON STORY

—

51

hood residents— th e y all have a stake in the outcom e. H aving said th a t, there is a v ery nice m ix o f sources in th is s to r y from a g u y folding his la u n d ry in p a rt o f th e building th a t m a y survive dem olition to w ell-heeled p reservationists w h o w a n t som ebody else to p ay for th eir preserv atio n efforts to th e one tr u ly n eu tra l, inform ed source in th e city ad m in istra tio n w h o helped m e u n d ersta n d th e technical zoning issue a t stake. I said a t th e beginning o f th is ch a p te r th a t p ro -a n d -c o n stories are easy to w rite. W hy? It's easy to identify th e players, for one th in g . Figuring o u t w h o to interview in a lot o f stories can be to u g h . Y ou're going to be on a deadline, even in features, a n d y o u c a n 't afford to spin y o u r w heels too m uch. Ju s t look a t w h o 's affected by th e new s; ju s t look a t w h o has a stake in th e outcom e. This w ill give y o u all the sources y o u need and w ill provide y o u w ith som e im passioned quotes as well. Also, get o u t o f th e office! This has been said before, b u t it c a n 't be stressed to o m uch. I ca n n o t im agine having done this sto ry successfully w ith o u t visiting th e MaCo Building. I w e n t th ere twice, in fact: once, to talk to neighborhood residents an d businesspeople w h o m I kn ew w o u ld be available for interview s d u rin g th e day, the second tim e w ith a couple of historic preserv atio n ists w h o gave m e a to u r o f th e building an d pointed o u t ju s t w h a t w as nice ab o u t it. An outline for alm o st a n y "pro -an d -co n " sto ry is a snap: 1. 2. 3. 4.

S tatem ent o f problem , including b o th sides of th e issue One side o f th e issue in g rea ter depth The o th e r side o f th e issue a t len g th H istory o f th e problem ; additional quotes, d ata, an d sources; com plicating factors 5. The conclusion, w h ich m a y look to the fu tu re (and often show s y o u a big, fat q uestion m ark , m etap h o rically speaking, because th e re 's no reso lu tio n yet) a n d w hich often w ill end w ith a sh a rp ly w orded q u o te fro m one o f th e players q uoted earlier in th e sto ry

I decided to visit th e corn er o f 3 8 th an d College Ave. in Indianapolis before com pleting the second edition to this book. The MaCo Building w as destroyed; th e re 's a W algreens d ru g sto re in its place, an d th e store is one of th e m o st p o p u la r businesses in this innercity neighborhood. A n atio n al video ren ta l store is across th e street; th a t's som ething new, as is a fastfood re sta u ra n t. O n th e o th e r corn er are em p ty businesses, however, including a d ry cleaner w here I h ad done one o f m y original interview s.

Chapter

The News Peg

As I'm sitting here w riting this chapter, the local TV new s is reporting yet another high-speed police chase in the Indianapolis area. In the movies, about 200 cars can be crashed before the bad guy finally spins o u t of control and ends u p in a ditch, only scratched and slightly dazed. C ut to the next scene and som e uniform ed cops are carting him off in handcuffs, w hile a salty, old detective w ho chased the suspect dow n (Gene H ackman? Steve McQueen?) is m aking eyes at his female partner. In the real w orld, though, these chases often end u p in fatalities, fre­ quently involving innocent victim s. Here's the kernel of a really good news feature, from a sm all item carried in The Indianapolis Star. 'According to the U.S. D epartm ent of T ransportation's N ational H ighw ay Traffic Safety A dm inistration and other sources, about 350 people die each year in h ig h ­ speed chases involving police." (Trotter, Eunice. 2005. "Some cities slam brakes on chases, the Indianapolis Star, p. A -l.). The Star published these statistics as p art of a series on deadly police chases and changing policies in police departm ents across the co u n try to restrict or even ban them . This m ay sound cynical to you, b u t police chases are a gold m ine for copy. Do a simple com puter search using the keyw ords "high speed chase" and you will come up w ith hundreds of incidents and thousands of a rti­ cles. M any of the latter will be analysis pieces or editorials ("Should the police m odify their high-speed p u rsuit policy?" and so on), and m an y will be h u m a n interest stories focusing on com pletely innocent bystanders w ho w ere caught unaw ares by such chases and w ere killed. Overall, ab o u t 10% of the people w ho die high-speed police p u rsu its are com pletely in n o ­ cent bystanders, according to The Star's reporting. The n u t g raf will be the sam e in all the stories— so and so died in a police chase on such and such a d ate— and then the copy will branch off into a 2nd-day new s story, an indepth analysis piece, an editorial or a h u m a n interest feature. I've called this chapter "The News Peg" to get yo u thinking ab o u t fea­ tures, backgrounders, enterprise stories, and in-depth pieces th a t can be prom pted by sim ple new s stories or even brief item s th a t appear daily in

52

THE NEWS PEG

53

th e press or on TV A t a m in im u m , including a new s peg in y o u r featu re im m ediately an sw ers th e im plicit question, "W hy are w e doing this sto ry now ?" You can use th e follow ing exam ples of new s pegs to develop m a n y features:

ANNIVERSARY ST O R IE S Im agine to d a y is December 7. W h a t kind o f features w o u ld y o u expect to see in the daily paper? December 7, hm m ? T h a t's th e a n n iv ersary of the Japanese a tta c k o n Pearl H arbor, w hich directly led to U.S. involvem ent in W orld W ar II. Or, suppose to d a y 's date is N ovem ber 22. It's becom e a cliche am ong people o f a certain age in th e U nited States to say, "W here w ere y o u on the d ay Jo h n F. Kennedy w as assassinated?" M aybe to d a y 's date is Septem ber 11? A ny of these historic dates, a n d m a n y o th ers, could lead y o u to in ter­ view people ab o u t th e ir m em ories o f those tim es. M aybe th e y w ere direct observers. M aybe a teacher recalls an n o u n cin g to his or her class th a t the president w as shot, th en dism issing the stu d en ts or leading th em h u r­ riedly to a n assem bly in th e a u d ito riu m . Such recollections could provide y o u w ith b o th th e lead a n d th e basis for stories people w o u ld read. You w o u ld have to su m m arize th e events— typically, individuals o nly rem em ber h isto ry fro m th e ir ow n, snail's eye p o in t of v iew — so y o u m ig h t have to reso rt to som e historical records o r expert testim ony. But y o u 'd have to r e tu rn to th e real people w hose lives w ere touched, o r changed forever, b y such im p o rta n t h istorical events. W h at w as life like o n December 7, 1941, before Pearl H arbor changed everything? W h a t w as life like o n N ovem ber 22, 1963, before Am erica lost its innocence, as som e have liked to say? You could do a deep Sunday' th in k piece: Did Decem ber 7, 1941, have to happen? If yo u read deeply enough into history, y o u 'll find th a t th e U nited States expected Jap an to a ttac k th e Philippines first, an d w e w ere holding back o u r best ships in H aw aii to retaliate. We ju s t d id n 't th in k th e Japanese could strike th a t far from their shores. You'll also learn th a t U.S. ra d a r picked u p the attack in g enemy' air­ craft, b u t th e blips on th e ra d a r screen w ere ignored for h o u rs, u n til it w as too late. The an n iv ersary o f th e a tta c k on Pearl H arb o r w o u ld be a good d ay to read ab o u t these things. I d o n 't w a n t to p u sh th e w a r angle to o far, b u t on February' 15, 1998, m a n y m edia outlets carried stories a b o u t th e Spanish-A m erican War, w hich dated fro m th e sinking o f th e U.S. ship the Maine in H avana h arb o r 100 years earlier. There w ere no survivors from th a t date in h isto ry to interview , b u t I learned a b o u t th e preexisting w a r h y ste ria in th e U nited States, ab o u t th e com petition betw een Spain an d th e U nited States for d o m in atio n in L atin A m erica, a n d a b o u t C uban rebels, w h o w e re n 't m u ch interested in either S panish o r U.S. dom inatio n . I w a s n 't looking to read u p o n th e S panish-A m erican W ar w h en I w oke u p on the m o rn in g of Feb­ r u a r y 15. But it w as th e 1 0 0 th an n iv ersary of the sinking of the Maine,

54

CHAPTER 5

and I couldn't avoid reading som ething ab o u t it in the m orning paper because of the obvious new s peg.

MEDICAL REPORTS You probably d o n 't read too m any medical jo u rn als, b u t new spapers routinely report on the latest issues o f the New England Journal o f Medi­ cine, the Journal o f the American Medical Association, and Lancet (a leading British medical journal). Newspapers also do stories prom pted by the latest reports from the N ational Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and other governm ental an d nongovernm ental h ealth o rg an i­ zations. I rem em ber early reports about the first d ru g to slow the progress of the AIDS virus in hum ans. The drug, called AZT, is still around, b u t this w as 1985, and I w as w orking for a sm all new spaper in Cham paign, Illi­ nois. I rem em ber the excitem ent of a fellow reporter w h o h ad ju s t learned th a t a patient at a local hospital w as taking AZT and th a t the p atient and his doctors w ould talk on record about the experience. The new s peg w as obvious. It w a sn 't ju s t th a t AIDS w as m ushroom ing in the national consciousness by then, b u t an y "national" new s sto ry th a t had a local connection or angle autom atically w as news. M any national medical stories covering m ajor diseases— breast cancer, sexually transm itted diseases (STDs), osteoporosis, and so o n — often are reported by the m ajor w ire services, and these in tu r n often are localized. We interview local patients and local hospital spokespersons: W ho is suf­ fering locally' and w h at progress is being m ade locally to help the suffer­ ers? Localizing breaking o r national health new s is the bread and b u tte r of medical reporting in m ost sm all and midsize m arkets, and it's all a v aria­ tion on the them e of the new s peg. A ntisinoking and sm oking-related disease stories have been big for a num ber o f years now an d will continue to be so for several years to come, I predict.

THE BIG STORY Let's stop and th in k about cigarettes for a m om ent. The sm oking issue has generated thousands of stories in recent years, from business stories ab o u t how tobacco com pany stock prices m ight falter to ag ricu ltu ral features on new uses for tobacco farm land in N orth Carolina or Kentucky' to features about the patch and nicotine chewing g u m to stories on ho w to curb teen sm oking to investigative reporting on tobacco com pany cover-ups and more. The issue of sm oking has become such a big story, in other w ords, th a t an ything tangentially related to it is by definition also a story'. The big story, in other w ords, is a new s peg for sm aller stories, like a g ian t sta r in space th a t spits off enough gases to fo rm new planets.

THE NEW S PEG

55

TR E N D S You've read th e ch ap ter on tren d stories a n d h o w to do th e m by now. By definition, tren d s lead to new and diverse stories, o r else th e y w e re n 't real trends to begin w ith . Let m e explain. T h ro u g h o u t th e m id- an d late 1990s I w as looking for w o m en 's sp o rts stories to w rite ab o u t. I k n ew w o m en 's sports w as a big sto ry because o f federal legislation d atin g back to th e 1970s th a t m a n d ated equal su p p o rt in publicly funded schools for w o m e n 's sports an d because o f th e grow ing p o p u la rity o f certain w o m en athletes (e.g., th e W illiam s sisters). 1 did a n a w a rd -w in n in g sto ry on girls' soccer in Indiana (th a t's w h a t it w as called— g irls' soccer— so perhaps I'll be forgiven for using th a t term ) w h en no one else in m y d ep artm en t seemed interested in the topic. I p u t tog eth er tw o tren d s here. Soccer w as gaining in p o p u la rity b o th natio n ally an d in Indianapolis, and w o m en 's sports w ere co ntinuing to pick u p steam . Voila, a sto ry on girls' soccer in the state. A nother rep o rter I w o rk w ith saw a local u n iv e rsity 's rep o rt on the grow ing n u m b e r of H ispanics in Indianapolis. She im m ediately w e n t o u t an d profiled v ario u s m em bers o f th e local H ispanic co m m u n ity , fro m the m o st educated an d elite to those w h o cam e here as political refugees. She noted th e reasons for th e tren d b u t focused m o stly on th e faces an d lives o f th e people involved. The new s peg w as th e tren d itself. Crime rep o rtin g often has a new s peg, too. Are crim e statistics up in y o u r com m u n ity ? It's likely y o u 'll be assigned to in terv iew residents of victim ized neighborhoods a n d police officials o n w h a t's h appening, an d w hy. If th ere's been a p articu la rly grizzly m u rd e r in y o u r area, y o u m a y be asked to take a close look at th e fam ily o f victim an d p erh ap s the fam ily o f th e suspect. A sensational crim e in itself can become th e new s peg for a h o st o f asso ­ ciated sto ries— for exam ple, I rem em ber reading a tro u b lin g sto ry ab o u t p ro stitu tio n in th e p o p u la r to u rist destinatio n o f S avannah, Georgia, after a su b u rb a n housew ife w h o led a secret life as a call girl w as fo u n d m u r­ dered. A sim ple crim e sto ry w as tu rn e d in to a featu re ab o u t a host of w om en w h o tu rn e d to p ro stitu tio n an d no t all o u t o f desperation, either, b u t because of th e desire for m ore disposable incom e to b u y expensive item s a n d a zeal for excitem ent, th a t w alk on th e w ild side, as it's been called.

THE S E A S O N S This m ay be th e staple of features editors everyw here. By seasons, I m ean a n y an n u a l event. We have an o u td o o rs w rite r in Indianapolis w h o w ill visit th e slopes in w inter, th e tu lip pop lar forests in fall, an d do a sto ry on w ildflow ers every spring (they bloom early, before th e trees fully develop th eir leaves, because th a t's th e w ildflow ers' o n ly chance to catch th e light, before the bigger trees overhead block o u t th e lig h t w ith th eir large leaves).

56

CHAPTER 5

But w e have T hanksgiving food stories an d stories a b o u t en tertain in g over the C hristm as holidays, spring break travel stories, fall football season preview stories, "W hat are th e h o tte st H allow een costum es an d m asks this year?" stories, a n d so on. Year in, y ear o u t, these stories break o u t o f th eir cocoons like th e ephem eral butterflies th e y are. One is rem inded o f th e old biblical injunction: "There is n o th in g n ew u n d e r th e sun." There are o th e r exam ples of new s pegs I could use. B ut I w a n t to go back to th e high-speed p u rsu it story. Every new spaper, an d every TV station, has done one or m ore of these. Every latest police chase th a t leads to a fatality, or a release of th e latest g o v ern m en t statistics on police chase fatalities, becomes a new s peg for a h o st of stories. A dm ittedly, I'm b ro ad ­ ening the definition of fea tu re sto ry to encom pass the enterprise story, m eaning it's a d iscretionary story, n o t one the p ap er h as to do; it h as an im pact beyond th e im m ediate people involved in the telling o f th e story, th a t is, significance to th e co m m u n ity as a w hole, b u t y o u 're really doing it because of th e h u m a n cost involved. A nyw ay, h ere's th e m uch -h erald ed police chase story. It's a solid story, a lth o u g h m y an aly sis th a t follow s th e tex t points o u t a couple of shortcom ings. (I th in k y o u le a rn as m u c h from seeing problem s exposed u nder th e glare o f a naked 1 0 0 -w a tt bulb, as it w ere, as m u ch as fro m reading stellar stories.) In a n y case, y o u 'll easily be able to see here h o w a new s ev en t— a crash th a t resu lted fro m a h ig h ­ speed police chase— led to a w orth w h ile, in -d ep th fo llo w -u p story. Bystanders, Police O ften Hurt: D angerous C hases S pur Police to Look at Policies and O ptions

by Kim Wessel Late on the night of July 1, 1995, Edward L. Dudley went for a ride on his motor­ cycle. About the same time, Jeffersonville, Ind., police officer John Beury tried to stop Ricky G. White for a traffic violation and suspected driving under the influence. White took off—the wrong way—south on Interstate 65, with Beury in pursuit. Eventually White’s and Dudley’s paths crossed—head on—in Louisville. Dudley was thrown from his motorcycle and injured so severely that he’s had at least a dozen operations and has racked up $600,000 in medical bills. For the most part, he has to use a wheelchair to get around. White pleaded guilty last month to a variety of charges—including trying to elude police. But still pending is a lawsuit in which Dudley, 34, and his wife, Connie, say that Jeffersonville and its police department are to blame for his inju­ ries: If police hadn’t chased White, the Dudleys contend, White wouldn’t have run into him. Such litigation—and concern about the killing and maiming of innocent third parties—have prompted police departments across the country to rethink their policies on pursuits, according to a report by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center in Rockville, Md. The dangers that chases pose to motorists and to police themselves also have given rise to new products designed to safely collar fleeing suspects. The devices include relatively low-tech “Stop Sticks," which are placed on the road in front of a fleeing motorist to puncture the vehicle's tires. Louisville and Jef­

ferson County police use them — as do both Indiana and Kentucky state police; the Jeffersonville Police Department does not. But police may soon have in their arsenals more Jam es Bond-like weapons, including the "Road Patriot," an automatically guided rocket-powered unit that emits an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts the vehicle's engine controls. The need to put the brakes on high-speed chases— or find alternatives to them — is obvious to law-enforcement authorities: The most comprehensive federal study to date, the results of which were published in October, concluded that a collision can be expected in nearly a third of all pursuits. About 1 percent will result in a death. While the suspect is usually the one who suffers— about 70 percent of the time injuries and deaths involved the occupants of the pursued vehicle— 14 percent of the toll is on police and 15 percent on innocent bystanders. As the national law-enforcement center puts it, because of the inherent risks, “There is no 'good' pursuit.” The Louisville Police Department allows pursuits only if an officer believes a suspect has committed a felony. The Jefferson County department’s policy, which is less restrictive, says officers may pursue a suspect they believe has committed a felony, misdemeanor or other violation. Jeffersonville had no policy in writing when Dudley was injured. Police Chief Mike Pavey wouldn’t com ment on his department’s role in that accident, or on the Dudleys’ suit, which was filed in June in Jefferson Circuit Court, naming Beury, the department and the city of Jeffersonville as defendants. Pavey said the department is writing a new policy, although he wouldn't say what it might include. But he said that if any chase "becomes too dangerous, it should be terminated." Law-enforcement experts say it would be unwise to restrict pursuits too severely. If police don't chase suspects, there would be a greater incentive for them to flee, and go on to commit more crimes— and flee again. In its model policy, the International Association of Chiefs of Police recom­ mends that officers should pursue only those suspects they would have taken into custody. Officers should take into consideration the weather, their familiarity with the area and the threat to public safety, it says. The Louisville department's policy says that "strong consideration” should be given to stopping a pursuit if the officer knows or has reason to believe that the suspect is intoxicated and poses an extreme safety hazard. But police must consider if they let an obviously intoxicated suspect go and he proceeds to kill or injure someone, their department could still be liable. It's a tough call, said Robert C. Crouse, the associate director of the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville. "They’re damned if they do and they're damned if they don't," he said. "They can be at fault for not doing anything just as much as they can be at fault for doing too much." Crouse said Jeffersonville Officer Beury faced just such a vexing call: He had a suspect going the wrong way on an interstate and clearly posing a threat to public safety— whether he chased him or not. “The officer is probably thinking, ‘I cannot not do anything, ” Crouse said. "Myself, I wouldn’t have had the guts to chase him.” (Beury drove in the emer­ gency lane as he chased White south on northbound 1-65.) Crouse said police chases grow increasingly dangerous the longer they last. "The longer you keep the siren on, the more invincible you feel," Crouse said.

58

— **-

CHAPTER 5

“The adrenalin kicks in. In a long pursuit, you can get to the point at which you start to lose your best judgment.” For that reason, he said, some departments recommend that officers call off chases after a certain period of time, as short as seven minutes. Until futuristic devices like the Road Patriot are widely available, officers them­ selves will have to decide whether to pursue. In its report, the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center says: “The majority of research and professional literature has concluded that pursuit creates a far greater risk than benefit to the officer, the public and the suspect. The question is, ‘Was it worth it?’” Police officers must decide whether it’s a greater danger to the public to pursue a suspect at high speed—or to let him go. ‘ Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1996. Courier-Journal & Louisville Times Co. The new s peg here is in th e anecdotal lead. The w rite r recreates a recent, tragic high-speed chase. 1 kn o w the stretch of In terstate 65 she w rites a b o u t q uite w ell an d can literally see th e suspect's a u to a n d th e police cru iser crossing th e Ohio River from Jeffersonville in to Louisville. It's a good new s peg and anecdotal lead because th is trag e d y led to a law suit; y o u 'll see th a t p a rt of th e problem is liability, n o t ju s t in n o cen t lives lost. In its sim plest te rm s, liability m eans this: The d efen d an t caused th e problem , a n d dam ages w ere suffered. Prove those tw o th in g s in co u rt a n d you, th e plaintiff, w in. "B ystanders, Police O ften I lu rt" proves th a t there is a bigger issue behind th e im m ediate headlines and th a t officials are searching for an sw ers. Also, it's v ery clear. The sentence stru c tu re is alw ay s n o-nonsense, a n d one can tell th a t th e rep o rter talked to a lot of experts. H aving said th a t, it's a bit o f a "talking heads" sto ry ; th a t is, w e get som e ra th e r obvious quotes from officious-sounding b u t u ltim ately u n h elp fu l expert sources. Of course, driving th e w ro n g w a y on an In terstate h ig h w ay a t h ig h speed is d a n ­ gerous! Also, had th e sto ry been longer, th e a u th o r m ig h t have described one o r tw o o th e r tragic high-speed chases. These could have com e after subheads in the story, w h ich are those little ch ap ter headings in boldface th a t separate sections of a longer story. As it is, o nly th e lead is d ram atic a n d visual, a lth o u g h th e a u th o r certain ly has collected som e d am n in g and interesting statistics. In th e w rite r's defense, w e m u st acknow ledge th a t th e sto ry really is h u r t b y th e a p p a re n t refusal of every im p o rta n t ac to r in th e crash itself to ta lk to th e press! The v ery last p a ra g ra p h o f "B ystanders, Police O ften H u rt," too, is a bit g ra tu ito u s. It's th e a u th o r in terp retin g o r su m m in g u p th e s to ry for us. She d o esn 't have to do th a t. The q u o te in th e n ex tto -la s t p a ra g ra p h of th e sto ry had m ore p u n ch to it, a n d m o st readers by th e n w o u ld have u nderstood the dilem m a th a t th e a u th o r w as try in g to explain. Go back an d reread th e next to last p a ra g ra p h in th e story. Do y o u really need th e p a ra g ra p h th a t follow s it? Overall, th o u g h , th e sto ry is fine. T he new s peg is clearly stated h igh u p in th e story, w hich should g rab o u r a tte n tio n (especially if w e 're Louisville

THE NEWS PEG

— **-

59

readers), and the news peg helps us to understand w hy the au th o r is p u r­ suing the issue of such chases in the first place. The story dearly states the problem and touches on some technological solutions and policies th a t dif­ ferent police departm ents have vis-a-vis high-speed chases.

Chapter

International Perspectives

Y ahya R. K a m a lip o u r Purdue University Calumet

A bout 2 years ago, I received a call from a local reporter w hose editor had assigned him to w rite a feature story abou t me and m y scholarly accom ­ plishm ents. I agreed to be interview ed and scheduled a m eeting. On the interview day, the reporter came to m y office— ab o u t 30 m inutes la te— arm ed w ith a notepad an d a recorder. After a brief introduction, he asked for and received m y perm ission to record the interview. So far so good. At the outset of the interview, I noticed th a t he did n o t have an y prepared questions; hence, we ended u p talking about peripheral issues pertaining to the upcom ing elections, media coverage, the Middle East, and the u n i­ versity in general. D uring the interview, he seemed to pay m ore a tte n ­ tion to his tape recorder th a n to the direction of the interview. A bout 15 m inutes into the interview, his recorder stopped. He checked it and said, "I'm sorry. It's o u t of battery. Before com ing here, I interview ed the direc­ to r of U niversity Relations." And then he said, "U nfortunately, I do not have any spare batteries, b u t let's move on." O ur interview resum ed, b u t I im m ediately noticed th a t he w as not taking a n y notes and started to w onder how he could possibly rem em ber o u r conversation, w hich co n tin ­ ued for nearly an hour. At the conclusion of o u r meeting, he thanked m e and said he w as going to send a p hotographer to take m y picture. We shook hands and he left m y office. A bout 3 days later, the director of U niversity Relations called me and said th a t a photographer from the local new spaper had arrived. I w as a bit surprised because he had not called me to set up a time. Anyw ay, I told him to send the photographer to m y office. He arrived shortly after and took a num ber o f sh o ts— he seemed to be a seasoned and skillful photographer.

60

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

61

Two weeks later, the feature appeared on the fro n t page of one of the m ain new spaper sections along w ith m y picture, w hich dom inated the page and took about the sam e a m o u n t of space as the feature itself! I w as pleased w ith the p hoto and th e caption b u t n o t w ith the story. The feature contained only tw o sh o rt sentences and three sh o rt quotations a ttrib u ted to me. One of the sentences read "Born in Iran, Kam alipour has been a citizen of the United States for nearly 30 years. He has been at (Purdue U niversity-C alum et) 18 years." A pproxim ately 70% of the sto ry w as devoted to com m ents (relevant and irrelevant) from the director of U niversity Relations! The director later saw me and said, "I th o u g h t the feature w as going to be ab o u t you, not me!" M y h u n ch is th at, not having taken notes or recorded m y com m ents fully, the reporter had sim ply relied on the director's recorded com m ents— certainly w as an easy w ay out, b u t it w as n o t professional. The few sentences and q uotations attrib u ted to me w ere apparently recorded before the tape recorder ran o u t of batteries. In general, a good interview — w hether conducted in person, by tele­ phone, or b y e-m ail— should result in a sto ry th a t paints a reasonable and accurate picture of the individual or issue a t hand. This rule applies to local, national, and international stories. My reason for sharing this expe­ rience w ith you is to illustrate th a t as a reporter you need to keep m an y things in m ind, including the follow ing points: • Determ ine the n atu re o f the feature you are going to w rite. Is it going to be an explanatory, historical, first-person, profile, over­ view, participatory, or o ther type of feature? • Research y o u r topic or subject before going to an interview. • A lways ask "W hat if?" For instance, w h a t if m y tape recorder ru n s o u t of b attery power? • Prepare a set of open-ended questions. • Be punctual. Arrive a few m inutes before the scheduled m eeting time. • Take notes, even if the interview ee perm its you to record the interview. • W rite y o u r sto ry in a n organized m ann er w ith an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. As a teacher and scholar o f m ass and international com m unication of long standing, I have been interview ed by num erous reporters represent­ ing a w ide range of p rin t and electronic media from all over the w orld. In other w ords, I have been the subject of feature stories for both new spapers and m agazines. W hat I m ostly rem em ber are the exceptionally poor ones and the excellent ones— others fade into the background. W hether you are w riting a local, national, or in tern atio n al story, the process (the do's and don'ts) rem ain the same. But international stories and subjects require a t least a basic understanding of other people and places, including h isto ry and c u rren t events. Years ago, a reporter in Pierre, South

62

CHAPTER 6

D akota, interview ed m e for her local new spaper. She k n ew th a t I w as a native of Ira n an d a stu d e n t in M issouri an d th a t I h ad been invited to spend a few days w ith a local A m erican fam ily. D uring th e interview , she asked, 'Are there trees in Iran or is it all desert?" Well, obviously she h ad n o t done h er h o m ew o rk a n d knew n o th in g a b o u t m e o r th e c o u n try in w hich I w as born. Hence, lack of accu rate b ack g ro u n d in fo rm atio n ab o u t a person, culture, group, o r n atio n poses a m ajo r obstacle for a rep o rter an d can even be em b arrassin g a t tim es. Interestingly en ough, an d perhaps because I w as th e only in te rn atio n a l stu d e n t visiting Pierre a t th a t tim e, the local new spaper ro u tin e ly printed m y every in v itatio n , including m y luncheons and dinners w ith th e Joneses or S m iths (e.g., "Yahya Kam alip o u r o f Iran had lu n ch w ith Mr. an d M rs. DeSmith. . . My p o in t in sh arin g this experience w ith y o u is to illu strate th a t w h en y o u are w ritin g an in te rn atio n a l story, a pitfall often is th a t y o u m ay n o t be fam iliar w ith a p a rtic u la r c o u n try or cu ltu re, o r y o u m a y th in k th a t w h a t y o u 'v e seen on TV or in an occasional new s sto ry is b o th accu rate an d com plete. Yet y o u m a y have noticed th a t so m u ch o f w h a t is reported ab o u t o th e r countries deals w ith crises o r th re a ts o r tends to be negative in o th e r w a y s — w e rarely see a positive sto ry a b o u t certain foreign places an d peoples. Nonetheless, one of the problem s w ith "th in k in g th a t yo u k n o w " is th a t y o u m a y allow th e stereotypical rep resen tatio n s o f n atio n s an d cu ltu res (e.g., Africans, A rabs, H indus, M exicans, M oslem s, Middle Easterners) to color y o u r w ritin g negatively. As a jo u rn a list, y o u r jo b is to in fo rm an d educate and, in th e process, enhance y o u r read ers’ aw areness ab o u t co n tem p o rary issues. Hence, y o u need to avoid relying on the pervasive stereotypes a n d do y o u r o w n inves­ tigation. To w rite a fair, balanced, accurate, an d credible s to r y — w ith an in te rn a tio n a l perspective— you had b etter p repare y o u rself by reading ab o u t th e h isto ry an d c u ltu re of a given people o r natio n . Obviously, an y featu re is u ltim ately a sto ry ab o u t h u m a n s, em p hasizing th e h u m a n elem ent. As a w riter, y o u need to be co gnizant of th e fact th a t, m u c h like yourself, people, bo rn and raised w ith in a n y cu ltu re, are largely th e p ro d ­ ucts o f th e ir o w n environm ents. In o th e r w ords, th eir w orldview is based on such factors as fam ily environm en t, cu ltu re, politics, religion, edu­ cation, a n d a slew of o th e r factors, including social conflicts, w ar, an d fam ine. To th e extent possible, these factors sh o u ld become a p a rt o f the b ack g ro u n d th a t p u ts an in te rn atio n a l sto ry in p roper context an d helps readers u n d ersta n d a given issue, person, o r event. For instance, consider th e follow ing excerpts fro m th e featu re story, "From Israel to Indianapolis: A rab S tu d en ts a t th e C rossroads," w h ich appeared in th e A ugust 21, 2005, issue o f The Indianapolis Star: At a pivotal point in the Middle East peace process as Israeli settlers faced a man­ datory pullout from Gaza last week, 51 Arab university students returned to Israel after a summer in Indianapolis. They took with them a new understanding of how to live among people of all faiths and views in a diverse nation that has seen mil­ lennia of conflict.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

—

63

The Christian and Muslim students who attend the Mar Elias Campus in Israel, an affiliate of the University of Indianapolis, arrived here in early July for a sevenweek stay to attend the school's summer session. They were traveling outside of Israel for the first time and unsure of their welcome here. This was the first group from Mar Elias to study in Indianapolis since the university began offering three degree programs on the Ibillin campus in Galilee not far from the Lebanese border. (2005. "From Israel to Indianapolis: Arab Students at the Crossroads," The Indianapolis Star, p. E-l.) The w rite r of such a sto ry w ould have h ad to do som e research and, ideally, stu d y th e 1948 A rab-lsraeli W ar an d learn ab o u t b o th th e Pales­ tin ia n an d Jew ish n atio n al m ovem ents. W h y w ould th ere be a separate college for C hristian an d M uslim A rab stu d e n ts in Israel if Israel w ere a fully functioning dem ocracy? Yet w h y w o u ld som e o f th eir teachers in Israel be Jew ish, as th e article related, if every th in g th e extrem ists said ab o u t Israel w ere true? The m ere fact th a t it w as new s th a t Israeli A rab stu d e n ts h ad com e to Indianapolis for a su m m er o f stu d y begged th e fol­ low ing questions: W ho are these kids? And w h a t is th eir story? The good jo u rn a list doing his o r h er ho m ew o rk w o u ld have discov­ ered th a t th e A rab-lsraeli conflict sta rted p rio r to th e creatio n of th e State of Israel in 1948, and it is this conflict th a t has continued to th is date. In 1948, su rro u n d in g A rab countries invaded th e nascent Israeli state to stop the U nited N ations p a rtitio n p la n for Palestine, w h ich no A rab o r M uslim c o u n try supported, an d d u rin g th a t w a r th o u sa n d s of Palestinians w ere killed and h undreds of th o u sa n d s w ere b o th forced o u t o f th e ir hom es by th e Israeli a rm y and fled th e ravages of w ar. At a m in im u m , th e good jo u rn a list doing his or her h o m ew o rk p rio r to a sto ry o n Israeli A rab stu d e n ts in A m erica w o u ld have learned th a t these stu d en ts w ere n either te rro rists n o r su p p o rters o f te rro rists b u t h ad inher­ ited a legacy of grievances and w ere try in g to m ake th e ir w a y in the w orld p re tty m u c h like y o u n g college stu d e n ts everyw here. The article in The Star w as good and included sidebars fro m several of the stu d en ts w ritin g in th e ir o w n voices— u n m ediated, unfiltered, u n sa n i­ tiz ed — w h ich in itself is a bit o f a tren d in jo u rn alism . The follow ing full-tex t article also deals w ith stu d e n ts fro m w a r-to rn areas a ro u n d th e globe. It is n o t fro m a m a in stream m edia o utlet, n o r is the a u th o r a highly paid professional jo u rn a list, yet it stru c k a chord w ith me. It is w ell w ritte n , inform ative, engaging, an d balanced. Ju s t im agine b ringing to g eth er a g ro u p o f y o u n g people fro m w arrin g n atio n s a t a rem ote cam p an d forcing th em to live w ith an o th er and, hopefully, learn from one another. A nd th en im agine y o u rself w ritin g a featu re ab o u t such a u n iq u e experience. S eeds of Peace: Bunking With th e Enemy

by Fabio Botarelli For the last three summers I've gone to a sleep away camp called Camp Schodack, in upstate New York. I spent eight weeks there last summer living with 29

64

->*—

CHAPTER 6

other guys in one cabin. During the days we'd have activities like swimming, sports and photography. One adjustment at sleep away camp is living with so many different people without much privacy. Everyone in the bunk as well as in camp must learn to tol­ erate one another. That can be hard sometimes, and one day during the seventh week of camp I lost it. I was the neatest kid in my bunk and Dan, one of the bunk leaders, was the sloppiest. One day he ordered me to clean his area. I was offended because he was a year younger than me. He was bossing me around and it was his mess. “1did my job,” I told him. “Now do yours." Instead, he leaned over my bottom bunk and shouted at me. I stood up and told him to get some self-esteem points from someone else. Other kids told us to resolve our fight by having a wrestling match. We got out our angry feelings through the moderated wrestling, and afterward, we made up and didn’t fight again. Sleeping With One Eye Open Dan and 1didn’t get along because we were polar opposites with personal differ­ ences. The organization Seeds of Peace takes the shaky situations of sleep away camp a step further by bringing kids from warring nations to a sleep away camp in Maine for three weeks each summer. Founded in 1993, Seeds of Peace aims to promote peace by bringing together young people from opposite sides of international conflicts. These countries include Israel and Palestine, Serbia and Bosnia, and India and Pakistan. Some American teens attend the camp, too. I interviewed two of them, Zachary Ruchman, 17, from Greenwich, Connecticut, and liana Blumenfeld-Gantz, 18, from Harrison, New York. “Imagine being thousands of miles from home in a strange country, deep in the woods, on the edge of a lake, in a bunk surrounded by kids who are suppos­ edly your sworn enemies!" said Zach. “A lot of people sleep with one eye open the first night because they are afraid that somebody else will actually cause them bodily harm.” Exposed to One Side of the Story The guys in his bunk came from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and the Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus. Before Zach, who's Jewish, embarked on the Seeds of Peace summer camp in Maine, he viewed the conflict between Israel and Pales­ tine from a fairly pro-Israel point of view. “My parents have always taught nothing but tolerance," he said, but he grew up exposed to only one side of the story. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is long and complicated. Both groups claim the same land. When Israel becam e a country in 1948, the Arab Palestinians who lived there fled the Jewish nation. Over the years, there were several wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. The Israeli teens who attend Seeds of Peace have grown up with Palestinian suicide bomb attacks in Israel. The Palestinian teens have grown up with Israeli army attacks in their towns and villages. Today, Palestinians have their own terri­ tory and government, but Israel still controls much of the area. Facing Fears Together At the Seeds of Peace camp, teens from opposite sides of the conflict bunk together. In many ways it’s like a regular summ er camp with communal meals,

IN T ERN A T IO N A L P E R SP E C T IV E S

— —

65

cabin chores, sports, music and dance. But the heart of Seeds of Peace camp is the daily dialogue session. About a dozen teens from different sides of a conflict region (like the Middle East or India and Pakistan), along with two trained facilitators, form each dia­ logue group. The dialogue sessions are calm at first, said Zach. But after a few days, "the sessions are increasingly louder and yelling occurs almost constantly. Each Seed is so intent on proving his or her point that nobody listens to anybody else.” "It’s not uncommon for a group to spend 149 of the 150 minutes arguing nonstop," said liana. "But we learn how to leave the disagreement behind us when we walk out of the session. Often, the arguments bring us closer with our new­ found friends." Members of a dialogue group have to work together outside the sessions in challenges that build up trust. "This way, members of the group build a stron­ ger bond because they work together to achieve a physical goal and overcome mutual fears, like falling off a tire swing 20 feet in the air," liana said. (They’re har­ nessed in but it’s still scary, she said.) After about a week and half, the frantic arguments in the dialogue groups transform into rational discussions. "It’s as if there’s an incredible amount of anger built up from living in conflict and it all needs to be released," said Zach. "When it’s all gone, it's replaced by reason and tolerance.” Friendship Replacing Hate Both Zach and liana called Seeds of Peace an amazing experience. "I was floored by the friendships I watched form between people who had been literally taught to hate each other,” liana said. Some of her closest friends are from camp, including a Muslim Egyptian boy and a Jewish Israeli girl. "I learned so much from my friends at camp, but most of all, 1learned what it means to look beyond stereotypes," she said. “1 am a more tolerant, more patient, more caring, more respectful person as a result of my two summers at Seeds," said Zach, who still talks to many of his friends from the camp. He noted that on the highway on the border of Maine and New Hampshire there’s a sign that reads: "Maine: The way life should be." At Seeds of Peace, he said, "We take that motto to heart. For three weeks at camp, life is the way it should be as we try to resolve our conflicts on a personal level through dialogue and coexistence." That may work even better than wrestling. ‘ Reprinted by permission. Copyright 2005. Youth Communication, Inc. B otarelli q u ite sk illfully capitalizes o n th e ex p e rim en t to co n v ey several key poin ts: • S tereo types h in d e r o u r rela tio n sh ip s a n d u n d e rsta n d in g o f o th e rs. • Im a g in a ry fears a re j u s t th a t, im a g in a ry . T hey are o ften baseless a n d fa r fro m th e tr u th . • T h ro u g h face-to -face c o n ta c t a n d dialogue, people are able to replace th e ir fru s tra tio n s w ith "reason a n d to leran ce." • T h ro u g h o rg an iz ed effo rts, su c h as th e o ne illu stra te d in th e sto ry , h a te can be replaced b y friendship.

66

— —

CHAPTER 6

• Obstacles are m anm ade and hence can be removed. • T hat a conscientious w rite r/re p o rt can m ake a positive contribu­ tion. One of the problem s is th a t despite the pervasive m ass media, y oung people are often exposed to one side o f a given story, especially th ro u g h their domestic media. Hence, the m ass media often form o u r perceptions of other peoples (Africans, Israelis, Arabs, Palestinians); religions (Islam, Judaism , Christianity, Hinduism ); places (Africa, the Middle East, Latin America); and nations (Botswana, India, Hirkey, Colombia, Thailand). U nfortunately, perceptions are largely based on stereotypical images p o r­ trayed by the media. Going back to the earlier m entioned feature in The Indianapolis Star, a Palestinian student w as quoted saying, "Before I cam e to Indianapolis, I w as w orried. I thou g h t Americans w ould have a different culture and values and the professors w ould not be able to understand m y English. . . . In reality, the professors are very friendly and love to help us. They feel like family." The point here is th a t stereotypes and perceptions of "others" exist in every culture. Hence, how people aro u n d the w orld th in k of the United States is based on m ass m edia's representation of America, p artic­ ularly Hollywood movies, music, an d television series, w hich are readily available on the w orld m arket via satellite and dom estic TV channels, including DVDs and videotapes. Ideally, the cliches ab o u t "being h u m an " and n ot caring ab o u t w h eth er one is black, green, brow n, o r yellow m u st be replaced w ith questions of identity, dignity, m u tu a l respect, and tolerance. Ju st see w h at happens w hen we begin to equate and accept m edia p o rtray als of Middle Eastern­ ers as terrorists, Asians as sneaky capitalists, Italians as crim inals, Native Americans as savages, and African Americans as villains. We begin to look for and expect particular behavior from those individuals. We keep them enslaved in iden tity — an often subtle form of slavery th at m akes them appear overly reactive w hen expressing their views. We categorize them , attach a label to them , and judge them by their pervasive stereotypical images. In a way, by relying on the prevailing stereotypical images of o ther ethnic groups, w e pronounce everyone guilty u ntil proven in n o ­ cent— guilt by association has seem ingly become the accepted mode of thinking. Both feature stories ("From Israel to Indianapolis" and "Seeds of Peace") cited in this chapter not only are well researched and well w ritten b ut also provide a useful context for understanding w hy different people have different perspectives ab o u t "others," especially if they are involved in a conflict. The articles fu rth e r illustrate th a t b o th projects are successful in building bridges of understanding and cooperation w here none exist and, in the process, paving the road for peaceful resolution of global conflicts. Conflicts are created by people and, therefore, can be resolved by people. Nonetheless, the negative and positive im pact of m ass media on people's perceptions th ro u g h o u t the world m u st be em phasized. In other w ords,

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

—

67

as a reporter, you have a special responsibility and unique o p p o rtu n ity to fu rth e r the cause of h u m a n ity and peace th ro u g h credible, fair, balanced, and inform ative stories. Finally, keep in m ind th a t w hen you w rite ab o u t other peoples and cul­ tures, they are all different (food, clothing, lifestyle, freedom, education, health, w orldview) in som e respects and sim ilar (h u m an feelings, kind­ ness, friendship, basic needs, survival) in other respects. But, in the final analysis, you m u st alw ays rem em ber th a t different does not necessarily m ean bad. You ow e th a t consideration to y o u r readers.

Chapter

Advocacy Journalism

A surgeon I know once said there w as no such thing as sterility. "So w h y scrub before an operation?" I asked. "To reduce the risk of infection, o f course," he replied. T hat's the argum ent about objectivity in a nutshell, too. Perhaps there is no such thing as pure objectivity, b u t w e try to be objective to reduce the risk of bias, error, favoritism , skullduggery, whatever. The debate on objectivity in the m edia is as old as the hills, b u t it really w en t hayw ire in th e 1960s, w ith V ietnam , the civil rights m ovem ent, sexual liberation, and other topics dom inating the new s. These w ere all m oral issues, and reporters, like m any other citizens, w an ted to take a stand. Being neutral, detached, objective w o u ld n 't do, or so m an y felt. And so developed a new jo u rn alism called, in fact, the New Journalism . Early nam es associated w ith this trend include N orm an Mailer, H unter S. T hom pson, and Gay Talese. Reporters p u t themselves in the s to ry — no use pretending a reporter isn 't actually asking the questions th a t p ro m p t the quotes or pretending th a t one side isn 't m ore right or ju s t th a n the other! The New Journalists, and m a n y reporters after them w ho h a d n 't even know n the roots of this m ovem ent, m ade the kind of ju d g m en ts on events and personalities th a t previously w ere the province of editorial w riters or au th o rs w ith signed colum ns. The line betw een "news" and "opinion" became very blurred. Here's w h a t I th in k is really going on. I w as a philosophy m ajor in college and studied the English w riter G. E. Moore. Instead of talking about objectivity and subjectivity, he divided statem ents into "norm ative" and "descriptive" (Moore, G. E. 1903. "Principia Ethica," Cambridge, England. Cambridge University Press.). You sh o u ld n 't kill, yo u sh o u ld n 't do drugs, eat y o u r vegetables, and get eight h o u rs o f sleep: these are all examples of norm ative statem ents, w h a t you w ould think of as statem ents about w h a t is rig h t and w rong and w h a t one o u g h t and o u g h t n o t do. On the other hand, consider these statem ents: Pete Rose w as banned from baseball for gam bling; John F. Kennedy w as assassinated in Dallas on N ovember 22, 1963; a fetus is viable by the third trim ester. These are all 68

ADVOCACY JOURNALISM

— —

69

descriptive statem ents, w h at y o u 'd th in k of as statem ents of fact. W hat I th in k all New Journalists, advocacy journalists, and subjective jo u rn alists really m ean to do is to m ake norm ative statem ents in their w ritin g — to say w h at is right and w rong and to tell the reader w h a t he or she should be doing. In G. E. M oore's term s, they w an t to do norm ative w riting, n ot descriptive w riting. But you still have to su p p o rt an y norm ative statem ent w ith facts and logic; you have to offer evidence, face scrutiny, and m odify y o u r posi­ tion, or abandon it altogether, w hen a w eakness is exposed. Taking a stand and w riting norm ative statem ents in no w ay absolves y ou from doing the same kind of hard, serious jo u rn alism as those w ho feel bound by the straightjacket o f objectivity. Saying som ething like, "Well, th a t's ju s t m y opinion and you can like it o r lum p it," offers no refuge— you still have to defend opinions! If you understand this, th en the debate over objective versus subjective becomes less significant. Advocacy jo u rn alism is jo u rn alism w ith a cause. And the reporter is taking sides! You'll note in the following anti-cap ital-p u n ish m en t story th at, for the m ost part, only research th a t attem pts to underm ine the notion of capital pu n ish m en t's effectiveness in deterring crim e is presented, and the lengthy profile of a leading anti-capital-punishm ent advocate is largely positive. People w ho still support capital punishm ent? T hey're likely to be dunderheads o r politicians on the make. So the sto ry hardly is objective. Yet the a u th o r in th e following sto ry does n o t glorify m urder­ ers or trivialize w h a t th ey have done: The m urderers on death ro w in this sto ry are never sym pathetic characters; their crimes are never forgotten. W hy have I included this story? If you recall from the Introduction, I said there are some tales so terrible— such as the genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s— th a t m any people w ould expect you to point fingers, raise a hue and cry, and present all the evidence against the evildoers y o u can m uster. Not all issues are so clear-cut, yet people do take sides, staking o u t the m oral high g round and contradicting others w ho th in k th a t God and right are on their side. The issue of capital punishm en t is a case in point. I've included "A Q uiet Voice A gainst the Death Penalty" because it is a good story, well w ritten and well researched (though largely one-sided), b u t above all it is representative of the breed. A nother reason: The sto ry comes from the pages of the Phoenix New Times, one of the granddaddies of New Journalism (and w h at also w as called the A lternative Press, if you w a n t to w arehouse some m ore new s­ paper trivia). M any of you reading this text, if y ou w an t to leapfrog past the ubiquitous 12-inch traffic fatality stories y ou m ight have to do for y o u r hom etow n daily new spaper on y o u r first job o u t of school, and if you w a n t to go beyond the fluff often th ro w n a t you on the features desk ("Oh, we m u st do a sto ry on the Volunteer of the Year a t next m o n th 's United Way fund-raiser!"), will in fact seek em ploym ent at a paper like the Phoenix New Times or the Boston Free Paper or the Chicago Reader, w here I freelanced in the m id-1970s.

70

CHAPTER 7

A Quiet Voice Against the Death Penalty: Amnesty International’s Dr. Daniel Georges-Abeyie Coolly Argues the Case Against the Punishment in Our Hang-’em-High State b y Michael Kiefer Arizona is a hang-’em-high state, and its political leaders are death-penalty poster boys. Gov. Fife Symington publicly blasted the courts for granting a stay of execu­ tion. Sheriff Joe Arpaio commended a journalist who witnessed a lethal injection for coming "to see what we do to murderers." Attorney General Grant Woods, a onetime defense attorney in capital cases, lobbied for federal legislation to limit the time-consuming legal obstacles between conviction and execution; thensenator Bob Dole lauded him for his efforts and President Clinton signed the bill into law. Capital punishment in America is synonymous with law and order, and no pol­ itician who wants to be reelected will speak out against it. Arizona has put six men to death since 1992, one in the gas chamber and the others by lethal injection, and the state plans another execution before the end of the year. Each time, the state clemency board, a prisoner’s last chance of a stay or reprieve, has conducted its death-sentence hearings with unyielding adherence to the guilty verdicts. And each of the six times the clemency board convened to decide if a man should live or die, telephones started ringing, and the anti-death-penalty forces mobilized to testify on behalf of a violent stranger and to stand vigil outside the state prison in Florence where the hearings and the executions took place. Each side has Biblical passages to justify its stand: “An eye for an eye"; “Turn the other cheek"; "Thou shalt not kill”; “Whosoever sheds the blood of man, by man so shall his blood be shed.” The concept of punishing a crime with a like act is called lex talion. "The only lex talion in jurisprudence is capital punishment," says Dr. Daniel Georges-Abeyie. "We don't rape rapists. We don't sodomize sodomists. We don't burn down the homes of arsonists. We don't steal from those who steal. It doesn't make any sense here either." Dr. Georges-Abeyie (pronounced "Ah-bay-yee”) is a world expert and walking encyclopedia on capital punishment, a professor of administration of justice at Arizona State University West. He is Arizona State coordinator for Amnesty Inter­ national’s program to abolish the death penalty, and because of his cool and rea­ soned manner, his ability to maintain a low and level tone in an argument that raises voices and blood pressures, he has become Al’s point man in the western United States. He is a man of striking presence, as dark and distant as an eclipse, precisely dressed, tautly academic and formal, with a locked-on gaze and gentle voice. He has black belts in three different martial arts, and he wears that training as a thin veneer of self-control and serenity over a tense and passionate core. He’s seen violence: He grew up in the South Bronx in the 1960s when it burned to the ground. Two of his older brothers were murdered, “one by poison and one by the knife,” he says. But he won't say how or why, and offers only that their killers were never brought to justice. “My parents would not want me to talk about it,” he says to end the line of questioning. In March, Amnesty International sent Georges-Abeyie to Alaska to lobby state legislators against putting a capital punishment referendum on the ballot.

A D V O C A C Y J O U R N A L IS M

—

71

“There just weren't any questions he couidn't answer,” says Barbara Hood, an Alaskan death-penalty abolitionist. The bill never made it out of committee. In September, Al sent Georges-Abeyie to Oregon to address the media on that state’s first execution in 34 years. “He was the most remorseless killer I have ever seen," says Georges-Abayie, but he lobbied on his behalf anyway. Twice this summer he delivered detailed legal analyses before the Arizona State Clemency Board, hoping to give the board members reason to grant a reprieve or a stay of execution to two brutal murderers. Arizona is a predominantly white, conservative and anti-intellectual state, and Georges-Abeyie is a black, East Coast intellectual, defending a cause that is dis­ missed as liberal. So, if the board members don’t recall Georges-Abeyie by name, they remember his face and his well-researched arguments. Amnesty International, of course, is looked upon in this country as some vaguely left-wing collection of liberals fretting about political prisoners in places like Chile and China. “Amnesty is not a political rights organization, we're not a civil rights organiza­ tion,” says Georges-Abeyie. “We're a human rights organization. There are certain rights that cannot be taken away and cannot be given up. They are your rights simply because you are Homo sapiens. And we defend those rights regardless of the political organization of the nation state.” Though Al has 6,000 members in Arizona, until recently it has not been a dominant force in the death-penalty-abolition movement in Arizona. The tenured protest groups, Middle Ground in Phoenix, SOL:PAE (Sanctity of Life: People Against Execution) in Tucson, and the Catholic Church, frequently approach the topic from an emotional level, as a question of prisoner needs and rights. Before the last execution, for example, the Catholic Church and the prisoner rights groups lobbied to allow a condemned man's girlfriend to visit him in his last days. “Daniel said that Amnesty International did not do that,” says Ann Nichols of SOL:PAE. “He said, 'We conserve our energies for publicizing the death penalty, for the specific facts of the case that might make people believe that this shouldn’t happen.’” Amnesty International’s approach is intellectual and coldly informational, bringing a voluminous library of research and resources and a global perspective to the local protest movement. It can cite studies that suggest the death penalty is prohibitively expensive and is practiced at the expense of budgets that could put more cops on the street. One such study says the U.S. spent $82 million on capital cases in 1993 alone; in California, capital cases have threatened to bank­ rupt county governments. “It costs five to six times more to try a capital case than a noncapital murder case,” says Georges-Abeyie. “Then it costs anywhere from two to five times more to execute a person than to incarcerate a person for 40 years to life at the highest levels of security.” Other studies have shown that the death penalty does not serve as a deter­ rent to murder because states with active death-penalty statutes have the sam e or higher homicide rates than states without them. “It’s as if you went to a physician and said, 'Give me the most expensive, inef­ fective prescription you have,”’ says Georges-Abeyie. A 1993 report of the U.S. House of Representatives judiciary committee found 48 men who were sent to death row and later found to be innocent. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, however, ruled that a convicted man could be put to

72

—

CHAPTER 7

death despite new evidence indicating innocence, so long as due process was fol­ lowed during his trials. In the more liberal 1970s, the Supreme Court threw out state death-penalty statutes because they verged on cruel and unusual punishment. As eyewitness accounts bear out, the electric chair, the gas chamber and lethal injection are not always efficient, instantaneous and painless forms of euthanasia. “Amnesty is not opposed to punishment,” says Georges-Abeyie. “We are not opposed to safety. We believe an offender should be punished. The issue is pun­ ishment without torture and abuse." Furthermore, the 1970s courts noted that the death penalty was applied “capriciously." If the political makeup of the Supreme Court has changed enough in the past 30 years to cast those decisions aside, the capriciousness of imposing the death penalty, arguably, has not. In cases where more than one person com ­ mitted the murder, usually only one is sentenced to death while the others turn state's evidence and receive lesser sentences. According to Al statistics, of 20,000 homicides, only 250 resulted in death penalties. Daniel Georges-Abeyie has met monstrous murderers, men who buried women in the woods and then returned repeatedly to dig them up and rape the decomposing corpse. He knows of a man who killed women by ripping off breasts with his bare hands, another who carried severed genitalia in a plastic baggy. They did not go to the gas chamber. “The point I'm trying to make is that the worst of our offenders, the most violent people, don't go to death row," he says, his soft voice never breaking cadence. “The social outcasts go to death row. The homosexuals and bisexuals go to death row. Nonwhites who kill whites go to death row. People with incompe­ tent counsel go to death row. Persons with iQs below 80 go to death row. I could go on and on." Daniel Georges-Abeyie so resembles the legendary Indian spiritual and politi­ cal leader Mohandas Gandhi— if Gandhi had been buff, that is— that his friends call him “Gandhi." But few people seem to know him intimately. There is genuine warmth beneath his stern exterior, but he seldom reveals much of his past. He has fathered four children from two failed marriages, but he refuses to talk about them. Instead, he seems to drive himself like a man trying to evade his memories. He escapes most weekends on trips with a Valley hiking club, of which he is president. Every evening he works his body for an hour and a half at a Scottsdale health club. He claims that he does 1,000 push-ups and 1,200 crunches every day. He leads a martial-arts club at ASCI West and gives private lessons in hapkido, a Korean street-fighting art that is at once beautiful and brutal. Hapkido is an art well-suited to Georges-Abeyie’s temperament: It has graceful flowing motions designed to break bones contrasted with a strong intellectual abhorrence of vio­ lence and a vow to exhibit self-control even in the face of death. “If I had not been in martial arts, I think that I would be in prison or dead," Georges-Abeyie says. "Everyone around me in my world in the South Bronx went to prison or went insane from drug use or alcohol or they died. I know at least eight men who were sentenced to death. I grew up with them. They were my cohorts." Daniel Georges-Abeyie was born in New York City in 1948. His mother was a U.S. citizen, a Sea Islander, as the Gulla-speaking folk from the islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia are called. His father was from Tortola, an island in the British West Indies, east of Puerto Rico. Both parents were descended from escaped slaves. “Georges" presumably was the name of the plantation that

A D V O C A C Y J O U R N A L IS M

73

the father’s ancestor had escaped from. “‘Abeyie’ means ‘return when the time is right,'" Georges-Abeyie says. “It's a Fanti name, from Ghana. The Fantis have a tradition that when a major life event occurs, the name changes.” Georges-Abeyie’s mother wanted her children to be born in the U.S., but the family returned to Tortola shortly after Daniel’s birth. Georges-Abeyie spent the first five years of his life in an island paradise, but, as his grandfather told him, "You can’t eat sea and sand," so the family moved back to New York, and Daniel’s father became a New York Transit Authority police officer. The family lived in a West Indian enclave in the South Bronx, and GeorgesAbeyie remembers seeing vast firestorms from the windows of the family apart­ ment as buildings were burned in rage or for insurance money. He remembers hearing rats moving inside the walls of the apartment and going to sleep with cotton in his ears to keep the roaches out. "My father would take us every week on a car trip," he recalls. "He would take us downtown to see where the whites and the wealthy lived so that we could see the dramatic differences between the two worlds. He was telling us that we didn't have to live like this, that you didn’t have to be an animal.” His mother would go to the A&P each week to get a new volume of Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedia and gather the children in the kitchen so that they could all take turns reading and playing gam es with the words on the page. The African Americans in the neighborhood looked down on West Indians, calling their diet of plantains and assava and rice and mangoes "monkey food." “Also, we were derided because we had an education orientation instead of a sports orientation," Georges-Abeyie remembers. Anyone who didn’t participate in sports was suspected of being a sissy or worse. For survival, Georges-Abeyie’s uncles schooled him in the African-originated martial arts of the islands, usually called Capoeira, but which they called, simply, kickin' butt. The toughs in the neighborhood thought it was dirty fighting because it used kicks and sticks and razors, but it kept them at bay. Georges-Abeyie began studying jujitsu and boxing when he was 12, kempo karate as a young man, and finally hapkido when he was in his 20s. Because he could fight viciously, GeorgesAbeyie was afforded respect on the mean streets. He had three brothers and two sisters. His two oldest brothers were killed in separate incidents some years apart in South Carolina. “I would just attribute it to greed and jealousy," he says. Neither killer was captured or tried. “You can kill blacks with impunity,” he says. Tortolan pride, he says, is sometimes excessive, and so he will not talk about the murders except in the abstract. “The immediate reaction is always the sam e for a victim's family survivors," he says, “anger and rage. I would have liked to have seen these persons appre­ hended, tried and executed. But soon after, I opposed that. I would rather see them in prison for life, to take their freedom forever, not their ability to breathe and eat.” Striking out in fear or rage is animal behavior, a murderous but irrational trait we inherited from our unreasoning monkey ancestors. “Some see homicide as a willful act of evil,” Georges-Abeyie continues, “and I don't think that’s the case with every individual. There are forces that are psy­ chological and social and biological that are so powerful that they throw people toward certain behaviors.” Georges-Abeyie went to public schools in New York, and did well enough to get a scholarship to Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He studied for his master's

74

—

CHAPTER 7

degree in sociology at the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in urban, social and political geography at Syracuse University. Throughout his university days, he threw himself into civil rights and social justice student activism. Then he went on the academic fast track. By age 23, he was teaching at prestigious Johns Hopkins University, and he bounced through appointments at the University of Texas at Arlington, Penn State University and California State University at Bakersfield, and finally at Florida State University, where he was an associate dean. Then in 1992 he was invited to teach at ASU West. Because the university requires its faculty members participate in community service, he became adviser to the student chapter of Amnesty International— he had, after all, been an Al member since the mid-’60s. The assignment fit his only deeply held philosophi­ cal beliefs. Two years later, at a regional meeting in San Francisco, Cossette Thompson, the western regional director of Amnesty International, couldn’t help but recog­ nize the impassioned authority with which George-Abeyie spoke about the death penalty. She appointed him to the western regional planning commission, a panel of 14 that sets agendas for Al, and made him Arizona state coordinator for deathpenalty abolition. Last spring, Ann Nichols of SOL:PAE, the Tucson-based anti-death-penalty organization, announced that she wanted to start a state coalition against the death penalty. Georges-Abeyie immediately responded. “He becam e very active right away in helping us think through how to start the coalition, what were som e of the issues we wanted to address in developing a statement of purpose that could gather people around without excluding any,” says Nichols. Amnesty International's Cossette Thompson recalls that just hours after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, she received a phone call asking if the office would stay open. “it was very symbolic of the prevailing perception that the major problems are only happening in countries on the other side of the globe," she says. And earlier this year, when a condemned man was executed by firing squad in Utah, Thompson’s phone lines burned with calls from journalists in other countries who were astounded that such a thing could happen in the bastion of freedom. The United States is the only Western industrial nation that still has and uses its death penalty. No western European nations have death penalties for civilian crimes. And in the Western Hemisphere besides the U.S., only Chile, Cuba, Gua­ temala, Guyana and the Caribbean island nations still execute their citizens. Despite United Nations covenants to the contrary, the United States will execute prisoners who are mentally retarded or suffering from brain damage, and we are one of just six nations worldwide— Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq are the others— that execute persons for crimes they committed before they were 18 years old. Nichols of SOLtPAE hopes that the Arizona State Legislature will consider bills in the next session to stop both practices. She expects that her husband, Andy Nichols, a state representative from Tucson, will co-sponsor the bills, but she admits, “If we don't have a Republican co-sponsor, we re not going to get a hearing.” There are approximately 3,100 men and women on death row in the 38 U.S. states that still impose death penalties. California, Texas and Florida have the most capital prisoners; Arizona, though the nation’s 24th largest state, has the tenth largest death-row population, with 120 men and one woman.

AD V O C A C Y J O U R N A L IS M

75

Arizona hanged its murderers until 1931. That year an obese woman who had been convicted for killing a chicken farmer stood, noosed, on the gallows, and when the trapdoor opened beneath her, the weight of her body falling pulled her head right off her neck. Because of that horror, the state built a gas chamber, which it used until 1963 and then— as the nation wrestled with the death penalty in state and federal courts— did not use it again until 1992, and then only once before switching to lethal injection. Arizona judges still imposed the death penalty, but its legality hung in the balance for nearly two decades. A 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down all state death penalties for being capricious and erratic in their imposition. The Arizona law was rewritten in 1973 but was not used. The Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, and a year later, Gary Gilmore faced a firing squad in Utah, the first person exe­ cuted in a decade. But the legal challenges had not ended, and the Supreme Court and the U.S. district courts continued to strike down state statutes as late as 1990. The current law calls for the death penalty for first-degree murder, that is, premedi­ tated murder, when there are aggravating factors in the commission of the crime, such as rape or brutality or child molestation or other felonies. The sentence can be mitigated, however, by such things as the murderer’s mental health and mental state at the time of the crime. In March 1992, the state of Arizona put a convict named Don Harding in the gas chamber. It took more than 10 minutes for him to die. Horrified witnesses watched him choke and strain and moan in pain. The next year, the state began to kill by administering a lethal injection. Five men have been put to death since then, including two in 1996. The first man to die this year, Daren Lee Bolton, refused any legal help on his behalf, choosing instead to die without putting up a fight. Daniel GeorgeAbeyie spoke on his behalf anyway at his 45-minute-long hearing. But on June 19, Bolton was put to death. On August 21, the clemency board met again to determine if there was any reason not to send a monster named Luis Mata to the death house. Mata was one of three men who was implicated in the brutal 1977 murder of Debra Lopez. Mata and his brother Alonzo and a third man had been drinking with Lopez at their apartment, and when the woman got up to leave, Mata grabbed her by the hair and told her that they were going to rape her. The men beat her until she passed out and, allegedly, while Luis Mata was raping her, she regained consciousness. She struggled and the two fell off the bed. Luis beat her head against the floor. Luis Mata and his brother then carried her to their car and drove her out to the desert, where Luis slit her throat with an onion knife, cutting so deep that he severed her trachea and nearly decapitated her. Then they left her body by the side of the road. They were caught immediately. The third man turned state’s evidence against the Mata brothers; Alonzo was sentenced to life in prison and Luis was sentenced to death. Capital punishment, however, requires a long string of appeals, some of them automatic, that are supposed to safeguard against executing innocent people. Mata's case raised eyebrows because the presiding judge, Stanley Goodfarb, was already under scrutiny for his continued use of ethnic slurs in the court; during Mata's case, he had referred to illegal Mexicans as “wetbacks.” Furthermore, it had

76

CHAPTER 7

com e to light that Luis Mata had suffered brain dam age in an accident as a child. As an adult, he had an IQ of 64, virtually mentally retarded, which could have been a mitigating factor if it had com e up during his original trial. In July 1995, Mata was granted a stay of execution by the courts so that those matters could be addressed. Governor Symington expressed his outrage. Attorney General Woods worked to ensure that such stays couldn't continue. "Those on death row who were counting on delays of ten years will find that, in two years, they will be executed," he told the media. Time ran out for Luis Mata. His execution was set for 12:05 a.m. on August 22; the clemency board hearing started at 8 a.m. the morning before at the state prison in Florence. The Arizona Board of Executive Clemency has seven members, all of them appointed by Governor Fife Symington. Their job in death-penalty cases is to consider any last issues raised before the convict is put to death. Then they can recommend that the governor grant a temporary stay of execution or a reprieve. Neither of those scenarios has happened in the six capital cases brought before them since the executions resumed in 1992. And in only one instance was there anything less than a unanimous decision to execute; Mata’s earlier stay had come from the courts. Mata's lawyers raised a number of points, including his diminished intelligence. They screened videotaped testimony from the prosecutor who originally tried the case, and he confessed that had he known about Mata’s mental capacity, he may not have recommended the death penalty. Daniel Georges-Abeyie addressed the board on behalf of Amnesty Interna­ tional and the Coalition of Arizonans to Abolish the Death Penalty, not to forgive Mata his sins, but to ask that he be sent to prison forever. Georges-Abeyie admits that he is personally repulsed by the brutality of Mata's crime, and he began his speech by expressing his condolences to the family before he stated his philosophical case. “I believe, as Amnesty believes, that the taking of a life is the most basic vio­ lation of the most basic human right, the right to life," he says now. “The board knows that I will plead Eighth Amendment, that is cruel and unusual punishment. They know that I will plead the Fifth and Sixth amendments which protect due process issues associated with the case. And they know I will try to point out any errors by the prosecution." On Mata's behalf, Georges-Abeyie presented “Sixteen points of law,” he says, along with unmentioned medical evidence suggesting that Mata may not have actually raped Lopez. The clemency board tapped feet and sat impatiently through his talk. Wit­ nesses claimed that at least two of the board members seemed to be sleeping, one of them behind dark glasses. “He puts on a very good presentation," says Duane Belcher, chairman of the clemency board, of Georges-Abeyie’s efforts. "Obviously, he has an agenda and he has a feeling about capital punishment and the agency he represents. He obvi­ ously has presented to the board information for serious thought, and especially when it comes to a situation where the board is going to make a recommendation of sparing or not sparing an individual that’s getting ready to be executed.” "It was an effective presentation,” concurs Mata’s lawyer, John Stookey. “The bottom line is that the clemency board wasn’t going to be convinced by anybody." After a full day’s hearings, the board had found no compelling reasons to stop the execution.

ADVOCACY JO U RNALISM

— —

77

Shortly before the next morning, after giving up hope that any court would grant a stay of execution, as Mata mouthed the words to the Lord’s Prayer, he was put to death. Daniel Georges-Abeyie was outside the prison at the candlelight vigil that forms each time a man is executed, not just to protest the death penalty, but also to provide support for the family of the condemned man. "We don’t want someone executed in silence," George-Abeyie says. “We don't want someone executed without the public knowing.” But it was nothing more than a symbolic and frustrated gesture. GeorgesAbeyie had decided not to bother with any more clemency board hearings. “We are not going to win the battle through the courts," Georges-Abeyie says sadly. “We are not going to win the battle through the reprieve and commutation hearings. We must win the battle by educating people and winning hearts and minds. We must pass legislation. Our goal is to abolish the death penalty through legislation." He went home crushed and exhausted. Then, a week later, Amnesty International called and asked if he could fly to Portland, Oregon, to speak out against a pending execution there. Dr. Daniel Georges-Abeyie packed his bag and went. ^Reprinted by permission. Copyright 1996, New Times Inc. Dr. Georges-Abeyie is a sain t, an d capital p u n ish m en t is in h u m an e. W h a t else could y o u conclude afte r reading this sto ry ? Well, it's n o t quite th a t sim ple here. This sto ry definitely argues ag ain st capital p u n ish m en t, yet it is n o t alto g eth er one-sided or dogm atic. There are plen ty o f interesting, com pelling, b u t easy to follow statistics offered th a t challenge th e n o tio n th a t capital p u n ish m en t reduces crim e, o r even th a t it saves ta x p ay e rs' m oney. I w o u ld have liked a little m ore a ttrib u tio n for som e o f th e studies alluded to in th e story, b u t it's been a n u n fo rtu n a te tren d in recent y ears n o t to b o th e r th e reader w ith such q u a in t details as th e source of th e d a ta o r th e reliability o f m ethodology. N evertheless, th e a u th o r o f th is piece m ercifully avoids telling us th a t every convict on d ea th ro w m u st have been a child sex abuse victim o r a b ab y b o rn to a crack cocaine-addicted m o th e r o r a victim o f po o r socio­ econom ic sta tu s. N o— these convicts are terrible people w h o did terrible th in g s and ruined th e lives o f fam ilies like y o u rs and m ine. Note th a t th e a u th o r is being ju s t as ju d g m e n ta l and opinionated in th is reg ard as he is in arg u in g th a t capital p u n ish m en t is no good. But a t least he's m ak in g ju d g m e n ts b o th w ays, w hich has th e ad v an tag e of sep aratin g th e issues o f "detach­ m ent" an d "objectivity" fro m th a t of in teg rity and intellectual honesty. The a u th o r is n o t detached, b u t ap p a re n tly he is intellectually honest. This is a fine exam ple o f advocacy jo u rn alism . H ere's h o w th e sto ry is organized: • Part 1. A rizona politicians are o n a killing frenzy. • P art 2. Dr. Georges-Abeyie w a n ts to p u t a n end to th a t killing. • Part 2a. Dr. Georges-Abeyie is quite a n in terestin g person.

78

—

-

CHAPTER 7

• Part 3. The facts are on the side of the an ti-cap ital-p u n ish m en t camp. • Part 4. The w riter continues w ith a lengthy aside on Dr. GeorgesAbeyie's life (this m ight have been trim m ed in some new spapers, or else it w ould have been broken o u t as a sidebar). • Part 5. Recent history of capital p u nishm ent decisions in America is given, b u t m ostly as they affect Arizona. (This p a rt really goes back to substantiating the rath er b ru tal claims the a u th o r m ade in Part 1.) • Part 6. The Luis M ata case is detailed, w hich finally illustrates ju s t w h a t it is Dr. Georges-Abeyie does w hen he argues against the death penalty. I have no objection to Michael Kiefer's organization, b u t I m u st note th a t m a n y traditional editors w ould suggest beginning w ith the M ata case, especially if it w ere still c u rren t (this w ould be y o u r news peg, in effect). Then, one could get into the arg u m en ts about capital punishm ent, b o th pro and con, and perhaps have included some biographical m aterial on this m ysterious outsider, Dr. Georges-Abeyie. Finally, y ou w ould finish w ith the outcom e of the M ata appeal. Such an organization of m aterial is also called the sandwich, for obvious reasons. Your lead and ending are essentially ab o u t the sam e m atter, an d everything in between is the m eat of the sto ry or, in the case of this story, context an d background. There is nothing w rong w ith this kind of organization, b u t it's n o t w h a t the a u th o r did. I th ink the m easure of success for a sto ry like this is w hether it changed y o u r m ind on anything; after all, th a t's often the point of advocacy jo u r­ nalism , not to inform o r entertain, b u t to m ove you in one direction or another. 1 found the w riting to be p retty persuasive; I learned some things about the failures of capital punish m en t I h a d n 't know n before, and I w as relieved th a t m urderers w eren 't painted as perpetual victims. Also, I like passionate w riting. Realistically, w riters are only going to be passionate about issues and causes they believe in. If y ou see the jo u rn a l­ ist's role as opinion m older and shaper, and n o t ju s t as some glorified ste­ nographer, then this type of w riting is for you. Nevertheless, I d o n 't think m uch one-sided w riting succeeds, except for people w ho already believe. Preaching to the choir, as the old saying goes, isn 't w o rth very m uch. I th in k one-sided reporting doesn 't really w ork because, eventually, people learn of the other side. Perhaps an o th er reporter will discover th a t "studies" show ing the death penalty do esn 't reduce the m u rd er rate are really com paring apples and oranges: The death penalty m ay be enforced in states w ith higher crim e rates to begin w ith, hence com paring deathpenalty-states to non-death-penalty-states m ay be m isleading. Plus, w itness the failure of m edia in state-controlled societies such as the Soviet Union, w hich w as all advocacy jo u rn alism all th e tim e. The C om m unist

ADVOCACY JOURNALISM

Party ruled th a t land and controlled the media for m ore th a n 70 years, b u t ultim ately th ey couldn't convince their ow n people of the rightness of their b rand of socialism. But advocacy jo u rn alism has its place, ju s t like the prosecution and defense in a crim inal trial. We know each side is going to be one-sided; th a t's w hy the courts w an t to hear tw o sides of a case. Similarly, if y o u 're a good reader and serious thinker, then it's fine to read one-sided pieces, as long as you seek o u t the other side or sides, as well.

This page intentionally left blank

II Writing Features

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter

The Lead

The purpose of the lead often is explained in term s of function: It is there to hook the reader, to get him or her to read the rest of the story. T hat sounds m uch too m uch like a m echanical function: It's like the first stage of a three-stage rocket, the booster th a t is m eant to get the missile off the platform before it is jettisoned and lost over the ocean forever, its w ork complete so the serious business of space travel can carry on high above. Anyway, w ith m odern new spaper design, it w ould be m ore tru e to say th a t it is the headline, or the headline together w ith the deck, th a t expanded headline w hich comes between the regular headline and actual text, th a t hooks the reader. A graphic designer, too, m ight say th a t it is proper lay o u t and good a rtw o rk th a t hooks the reader. I have a stockbroker friend w ho says, "The sell is everything," m eaning the sales pitch and the ability to close a deal are m ore im p o rtan t th a n w h a t is actually being sold. I'm not sure I'd ever w an t to bu y securities from such a fellow, as I'll be the one stuck w ith the stock w hen he's counting his com m issions. But the analogy w orks for stories. A lead, a headline, or a strong a rt package can alw ays help sell a sto ry b u t is a sto ry there? I'd like to recom m end a m ore honest approach to lead w riting. First of all, the lead, by definition, is the first p a rt of y o u r story. It's usually short, from one p arag rap h to three or four, alth o u g h there alw ays m u st be room for exceptions. W hat the lead accomplishes, beyond m erely hooking the reader, is to help the reader u nd erstan d w h a t kind of sto ry he or she is getting. I call this being tru e to the story. The lead m u st be tru e to the story. For example, if y o u 're doing a feature on an incurable, inoperative form of brain cancer, and you begin y o u r sto ry by focusing on a p atient at a local hospital, th a t p atient better be central to the w hole story, n ot ju st the lead. You cannot have a heartbreaking im age of a dying person in y o u r lead, th en follow up w ith a dry, talky sto ry filled w ith experts and sta­ tistics and lots of other stu ff about the cancer b u t not about the personal tragedy yo u introduced in the lead. T hat person better reappear later in

83

84

CHAPTER 8

y o u r story, though you m ay introduce other case studies and o th er infor­ m ation relevant to the topic, as well. There's a corollary here, too, as it applies to w riting style. I've seen reporters agonize over cleverly or colorfully w ritten leads, only to fill the bulk of their stories w ith dull, robotlike prose or soft adjectives and vague abstractions. I've been to w orkshops w here the lead ("the alm ig h ty lead," a facilitator a t another sem inar cried out, b u t facetiously, for she knew w h a t a crock an overw ritten, overw orked, o v erw ro u g h t lead really is) w as em phasized alm ost to the exclusion of the rest of the story. Consequently, I say again th a t the lead m u st be tru e to the story. Char­ acters and concepts, b u t also style and tone introduced in the lead, should be carried th ro u g h the story; you m u st get the rest of y o u r sto ry up to the level of y o u r brilliant lead, or y o u r sto ry isn 't ready for publication. I have a respectable w riting text in m y collection th a t identifies 12 or 13 different types of leads. Scary, isn 't it? I d o n 't w a n t you to m em orize or w o rk from lists of approved leads, thou g h . If every sto ry is a little bit dif­ ferent, then every lead can be a little different from the next, as well. Having said th a t, there are some fairly recognizable types. M aster ju s t a few and you will go far. The perennial favorite is the anecdotal lead. An anecdote is ju s t a little story. But first, a w ord of w arning: Sociologists often speak negatively about anecdotal evidence as opposed to properly collected, scientific data. By' anecdotal evidence they' m ean isolated events, incidents, o r stories from w hich you c a n ’t generalize in any' scientific w ay. A lthough w e jo u rn alists alw ays act as if we can generalize from one p erson's experi­ ence to an entire class of sim ilarly placed persons (the cancer victim, the w ar refugee, the lottery w inner), social scientists know better. May'be the anec­ dote is representative of a larger trend or class of people; m aybe it isn't. This is w o rth em phasizing: We feature w riters pretend w e can general­ ize from one person's example, or one anecdote, all the time. I ju s t advised you to do exactly th a t at the top of this section w h en I said if yo u in tro ­ duce a dying cancer patient in a sto ry ab o u t cancer, he or she m u st rem ain im p o rtan t th ro u g h o u t y o u r story'. In this regard, feature w riting is a lot like political propaganda. Polit­ ical propaganda, too, often focuses on one example, th en seeks to rally' su p p o rt aro u n d a greater cause. Bigots follow the sam e p attern : You find one m em ber of a hated group w ho perhaps has engaged in questionable behavior, then argue they are all like th at. Similarly, revolutionary groups like to have m arty'rs w h o w ere killed by the central authorities: The m arty rd o m "proves" th a t the central regime is corrupt. Well, it's the w rite r's a rt w e're teaching here, not social science or polit­ ical science. As w riters, w e w rite anecdotal leads, even if I ca n 't pretend th e y 're the m ost intellectually' or scientifically valid tools w e have. I can argue they''re effective, however. But there is one sense in w hich learning from an anecdote is quite valid, com pletely a p a rt from the questionable idea of generalizations. It is in o u r

THE LEAD

85

ability to identify w ith the hero or heroine or victim in a w ell-told anec­ dote, ju s t as w e do in a w ell-told story. T hink of literature, for example. A great novel ab o u t the tragedy' of w ar m ight focus on a young soldier's experiences, and m ost readers will feel th e y 'v e learned some universal tru th s about fear and suffering and loneliness and the kill-or-be-killed w orld of real w arfare. We talked about this in the chapter on the focus story; it's the same thing w ith the anecdotal lead. We m ight read of a young explorer's desire to climb the highest m o u n ­ tain and share in his or her jo y a t the m ountain to p and feel th a t we, too, now know, if even for a fleeting m om ent, w h at it m u st have been like to be at the m ountaintop. Put a soldier in a foxhole, or an explorer on a w indy high ridge, or a patient in the cancer w ard, or an Olympic athlete a t the train in g cam p at daw n, or a y'oung w riter a t the m ailbox w hen he gets his o r her first accep­ tance letter, or a young teacher in front of the third-grade class on his or her first day of teaching, o r —well, you get the picture by now. All these scenes, all these m om ents, likely w ould m ake for great anecdotes th a t could lead to stories on, respectively, military' training and dow nsizing of the army', the agony and the ecstasy' of m o u n tain climbing, the w ar on cancer, the drive to be the w orld's best a t the Olympics, th e inner life o f a w ould-be writer, and education today. As long as y'our lead really' is related to the them e o f y o u r story, and the person o r persons in the anecdote are relevant to w h a t happens in the rest of y'our story, y o u r lead will w ork. But keep it short (every year, the trend in jo u rn alism is for sh o rter leads th a t get to the point m ore quickly'), do use active verbs and graphic images w here appropriate, and m ake sure the point of the anecdote is clear rig h t from the gun. I'm going to show yo u three simple examples of the anecdotal lead, all from The Wall Street Journal, w hich virtu ally "owns" this form at.

EXAM PLE 1 Janet Dresden, 50 pounds overweight, tried Weight Watchers, the Diet Center, the Stillman Diet, the Atkins Diet, raw juice fasts, an “applied kinesiologist's” high-fat diet and nearly every other diet she ever heard of. Nothing worked. She would lose 20 or 30 pounds and gain them right back. (Reprinted from M. Miler, “Fat Pharm," Wall Street Journal, July 20, 1994, p. 1A.) O ne-paragraph-long, b u t we know w h a t the sto ry is about (w hy diets fail) and w e can feel Ms. D resden's fru stratio n . Ms. Dresden reappears several tim es in the sto ry — she does n o t disappear from the scene like a booster rocket sinking to the bottom of the ocean after it's been expended—b u t we learn m any other things related to dieting in the rem ainder of the sto ry as well, of course.

86

—

CHAPTER 8

EXAMPLE 2 Seattle resident Michael Rozek says he woke up one morning three years ago feeling "like people who drink too much and one day decide they've had enough.” But his hangover wasn't from gin; it was from free-lance writing. Mr. Rozek says he had sold some 2,000 articles to magazines ranging from Esquire to Physician’s Sports Life, and the experience left him feeling "brutalized." He was fed up with editors making changes to suit their biases, he says, and sick of seeing 1,500-word features compressed into captions. He was also tired of profiles of actors, politicians and “people who committed some kind of heinous crime." Too much of what was published in the magazines he wrote for was "smug, trivial and self-serving." (Reprinted from M. Selz, “Old-Style Journalism for Today’s Turned-Off Reader,” copyright 1996, The Wall Street Journal, p. Bl.) 1 alm o st stopped after th e first p a ra g ra p h and called th a t th e lead, b u t th e first three p ara g ra p h s m ake a nice, cohesive package. A nd I th in k w e know , fro m ju s t three p ara g ra p h s, th a t Mr. Rozek (pronounced RO-zak, w e are told a little deeper in th e sto ry ), is a reform er, a m o d ern Jere­ m iah w h o 's going to tell us w h a t's w ro n g w ith jo u rn a lism to d ay from th e inside o u t. It's alm o st like som eone defecting fro m th e fo rm er Soviet U nion to expose the abuses there, afte r years of external criticism th a t w as n o t alw ay s believed.

EXAMPLE 3 COUNTRYSIDE, III. —On a recent Saturday afternoon in this Chicago suburb, car salesman Robert Williams spent three hours selling a 1991 Nissan Maxima. The final price, $18,800, was $3,100 below the sticker, but that still left $800 of gross profit. Mr. Williams’ cut? Twenty-five dollars. At this rate, he isn’t likely to top the $ 16,000 he made last year selling cars. And out of those earnings, he paid $ 1,920 for his medical insurance. (Reprinted from Patterson, G. A. "Tough Business," copyright 1992, The Wall Street Journal , p. Al.) The p a tte rn should be clear by now ; one person, one problem , one story. The sale indicates how h a rd it is for Mr. W illiam s— an d by extension, m a n y car salespeople— to m ake a living; it also gives us an in sig h t into the dog-eat-dog w o rld of com petitive a u to sales. In fact, th e rem ain d er of the sto ry fulfills th is prom ise nicely. We revisit W illiam s th ro u g h o u t th e sto ry b u t m eet o th e r car salesm en, som e m ore successful th a n o th ers, and w e h ear from the car d ea le r's point o f view as w ell (the sto ry tu rn s o u t to be fairly w ell balanced; n o t all stories are). Once again, the lead w as tru e to the story. Now, here's an exam ple o f an anecdotal lead I w ro te in 1997 for a con­ su m e r m edical sto ry on refractive laser eye su rg ery : In the temperature-controlled “clean room” of a Northside medical office build­ ing, Dr. William Whitson and two assistants prepare to zap a patient's eye with

THE LEAD

87

a laser powerful enough to evaporate her cornea, yet precise enough to split molecules. It's called refractive laser eye surgery, and up to 1 million people have had the in-office, same-day procedure to correct their vision since the 1980s. On this early winter morning Linda Barbee will be the latest patient to say “good-bye glasses, hello world." Three sentences; th ree p ara g ra p h s. The lead is really quite sh o rt, b u t look a t all y o u 'v e learned. You are there as Dr. W h itso n prepares to zap Ms. Barbee, y o u le arn th a t th is high-tech procedure n o w is quite com m on, and y o u should be able to feel Ms. Barbee's an ticip atio n and excitem ent at having this procedure. Ms. Barbee reappears in th e sto ry twice: first w h en she is interview ed im m ediately after th e su rg ery a n d deeper in th e story, a fte r a follow -up telephone interview w as conducted to see w h a t the results w ere a w eek after th e procedure. The rest of th e sto ry cites o th e r doctors and patients, h as lots of facts a b o u t the su rg ery itself, an d ends w ith a long list of caveats an d w a rn in g s a b o u t risks involved w ith laser eye surgery. The n ext ty p e of lead y o u should perfect is th e s u m m a ry lead. A good s u m m a ry lead is better th a n a bad version o f a n y o th e r type o f lead you can w rite, especially overly long anecdotal leads o r overly florid descrip­ tive leads or inane m y stery leads (e.g., "W hich '5 0 s-e ra television sta r hosted his o w n show for six years, launched the careers o f som e o f y o u r favorite comics, and w as b ro u g h t to y o u b y th e m o st p o p u la r b ra n d of gasoline on th e m arket?") Fact is, y o u can never go w ro n g w ith a clearly w ritte n , to -th e -p o in t, accurate s u m m a ry lead because it has th e great, g reat saving grace of a t least telling y o u r reader u p fro n t, in no u n ce rtain term s, w ith o u t w astin g his o r her precious tim e, w h a t th e sto ry is ab o u t. In th a t sense, a su m m a ry lead is m u ch like th e n u t g ra f noted several tim es already in this book. H ere's a respectable s u m m a ry lead from th e J a n u a ry 22, 1998, edition of The New York Times. As y o u can see, the n ew s peg is the 25 th an n iv er­ sa ry of th e Roe v. Wade ab o rtio n decision: "Twenty-five years after the S uprem e C ourt recognized a co n stitu tio n al rig h t to ab o rtio n , tens of th o u ­ sands of ab o rtio n o ppo n en ts m arched to th e c o u rt to d ay in som ber protest, w hile ab o rtio n rights advocates pledged to fight a n y rollback" (Mitchell, M. 1988. "Both Sides Rally to A bortion Ruling," The New York Times, p. A -19.). No persons are m entioned by nam e in th e lead, a lth o u g h th a t is n o t verboten in a su m m a ry lead. W e're n o t told in detail o f an incident or anecdote. This lead succeeds n o t because it is a rtfu l, in o th e r w ords, b u t because w e k n o w in th e first sentences w h y th e sto ry is being w ritte n at this tim e an d h o w it's going to b reak dow n to tw o sides o f the arg u m e n t. S u m m a ry leads m o st often are linked to new s stories, o f course. Some textbooks will use the te rm news lead in its place. H ere's a su m m a ry lead fro m a n A ssociated Press article th a t's b rig h tly w ritte n : "Space sh u ttle Endeavor slid u p to M ir and docked S aturday, b rin g in g a fresh A m erican

88

CHAPTER 8

a s tro n a u t to relieve a hom esick David Wolf." (D unn, M. 1998. "E ndeavour hooks u p w ith Mir, an d W olf does flips," The Buffalo News, p. 2-A). This is a good s u m m a ry lead because it h as som e active verbs in it— docked a n d slid —a n d decent adjectives t h a t give th e rig h t flavor to ev en ts— fresh an d homesick. H ere's a b rig h ter exam ple still of w h a t y o u can do w ith a s u m m a ry lead: "Buffalo, N.Y.— H ad th e psychics been rig h t, 1997 w o u ld have gone dow n in h isto ry as th e y ear M ick Jag g er becam e a m em ber of P arliam ent an d W alter C ronkite a critically acclaim ed lo unge singer" (Thom pson, C. 1998. "Psychics Strike O ut: No predictions for 1997 cam e tru e," The O ttaw a Citizen, p. A-10.). This Associated Press sto ry w as ap p ro p riately titled, "Psychics strike o ut: No prediction for '9 7 cam e tru e." The sto ry is all a b o u t psychic pre­ dictions m ade a y ear earlier. In a clever w a y w e are told w h a t th e rest of the sto ry confirm s (and w h a t the headline gave aw ay, actually): The p sy ­ chics d o n 't k n o w w h a t th e y 're talking ab o u t. Now, here's a su m m a ry lead fro m a featu re series on aging I w ro te y ears ago. They are America's fastest-growing population group. Centenarians. People who were alive when President Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated and George Eastman improved his famous hand camera, the Kodak. “These people are survivors," says Mary Jane Koch, a gerontologist at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. “They’ve probably lived through the death of their spouse. Maybe their children.” (Aamidor, A. 1989. “Surviving a Century,” The Indianapolis new s, p. D-l.). I interview ed ab o u t 15 c e n te n arian s— people m o re th a n 100 years o f ag e— for th is th re e -p a rt series, plus sidebars. W h at y o u have is th e lead for th e first story. M any o f th e people w ere delightful, sh arp -w itte d , and eager. I th o u g h t of leading w ith a n anecdote a b o u t one o f th e cen ten arian s, b u t I felt the best w a y to p u t all of th e cen ten arian s u n d e r one u m b rella w as w ith a su m m a ry lead. An anecdotal lead w o u ld have w orked h ad I few er older people to w o rk w ith , an d if I w a s n 't w ritin g a series. But focus­ ing on one person in th e lead could have w orked: I w o u ld o nly have needed to be v ery careful in m y n u t g ra f to s ta te th a t so an d so is a m em ber o f a class, "one of a grow ing n u m b e r o f cen ten arian s." I generally d o n 't like quotes u p high in m y leads (not a rule, ju s t a pref­ erence), b u t th e q uote fro m M ary Jane Koch helps su m u p w h a t th is sto ry is ab o u t, so I used it. I th in k th e lead, as w ritte n , a lth o u g h by no m eans brilliant, still is effective at m aking its p o in t as to w h a t th e sto ry a n d series to com e are about. One la st note ab o u t this last lead: Som e books ad m o n ish y o u n o t to use o n e-w o rd leads, as in m y one w o rd sentence, "C entenarians." Also, som e a u th o rs d o n 't like h isto ry or alm anac lessons, stories th a t being w ith , "On this d ay in 1492 blah happened." Have I violated th eir rules? I w an ted to m ake th e p o in t th a t m u ch tran sp ires o ver a 10 0 -y e a r period an d th a t these cen ten arian s have seen a g rea t deal. Even if I b roke th e rules, m y

THE LEAD

89

lead told the reader exactly w h a t th e series to com e w as ab o u t, an d th a t's ab o u t all I ever ask o f a su m m a ry lead. The th ird ty p e o f lead often is called th e descriptive lead, for reasons th a t w ill becom e obvious alm ost im m ediately. I include it n o t so m u ch because I favor it b u t because I w a n t to issue th e follow ing w arn in g : Handle w ith care. The descriptive lead is th e m o st dangero u s, seductive, an d abused lead y o u w ill a tte m p t (and I k n o w y o u will a tte m p t it). Everybody w h o loves to w rite, an d w a n ts to be a w riter, n o t m erely a reporter, th in k s p ain tin g p re tty pictures a n d w ritin g b eautiful prose an d setting th e scene is w h a t it's all ab o u t. I rarely a tte m p t p u rely descriptive leads. But I get u p th ere an d take m y cuts som etim es. The follow ing is fro m a sto ry on a m issing link to Yellow­ stone N ational Park: The little, leather-covered diary, about the size of a greeting card and as slim as a checkbook, lies on Lee Parsons’ dining room table, its pages as fragile as dried leaves. Parsons, an Indiana environmentalist and amateur historian, had tracked this diary since 1980. It was written in 1870, then lost to history for all those interven­ ing years. The diary, written in the hand of Henry Dana Washburn, chronicles the first official survey of that portion of the northern Rockies which was to become the nation's first national park, Yellowstone. (Aamidor, A. 1998a. "History Mystery," The Indianapolis Star, p. D-l.). Gotcha! It's really a s u m m a ry lead, th o u g h th e first p a ra g ra p h cer­ ta in ly is descriptive. In fact, m o st of th e s to ry is flush w ith descriptions of th e park, an d th e anim als a n d w ilderness there, an d even o f th e soldier an d su rv ey o r W ashburn himself, so th e lead is tru e to th e sp irit o f the sto ry in m u c h th e w a y I dem anded for all leads a t th e beginning o f this chapter. But I d o n 't th in k the first, highly descriptive p a ra g ra p h w o u ld have w orked unless I im m ediately got to the p oin t o f th e story. Nobody is going to care for long a b o u t a little, leather-covered d iary o n so m eb o d y 's dining room table. The reader is going to ask, "So?" before reading on. The lesson here? Be descriptive, w ax poetic, if y o u m u st. But get to the p oint of th e s to r y — quickly! H ere's a p articu la rly evocative lead fro m Bill Shaw, a fellow rep o rter at The Indianapolis Star w h o fo rm erly w ro te for People m agazine an d o th er n atio n al m edia: GUILFORD, Ind.—On Sept. 16, 1993, Bill and Thelma Jean Taylor were watch­ ing the late news in their farmhouse along the West Fork of Tanner's Creek when the fire department beeper squawked to life. Bill, 66, a Miller Township volunteer firemen, threw on clothes, rushed out the door and saw fire in the night sky. He felt sick. The 118-year-old Guilford Covered Bridge, a local landmark and powerful emotional symbol to this tiny Dearborn County farming community, was engulfed in flames. (Shaw, B. 1997a. “Spanning Past and Future," The Indianapolis Star, p. Bl.)

90

CHAPTER 8

Can y o u picture this? Bill an d Thelm a in fro n t o f th e old TV? Can y o u h e a r th e beeper "squaw king" to life? Flames in th e n ig h t sky? The bridge is o n fire; th e bridge is o n fire! This is n o t o nly a hig h ly descriptive and successful lead, b u t it's dynam ic, n o t static. By th a t I m ean th e w rite r h as described action; th in g s are h a p ­ pening here, n o t ju s t lying on a dining ro o m table. The m o ral o f th e sto ry ? If y o u 're going to describe things, describing action is b etter th a n p a in t­ ing p re tty pictures. Yet y o u w ill need a n u t g ra f very soon to tell ” 'h a t th is sto ry is ab o u t, too. Is it a profile of Bill an d Thelm a? The sto ry o f losing an d rebuilding a historic bridge? H ow a volu n teer fire d ep a rtm en t operates? You c a n 't really tell fro m this otherw ise delectable descriptive lead. H ere's a n o th e r descriptive lead fro m th e A ssociated Press. P1TKYARANTA, Russia (AP)—In the deepening dusk, a young man comes weaving up a snow-covered street. It is a gloomy street of shambling wooden buildings long untouched by paint, of small windows and little light. As the man steps unsteadily out of the shadows, his face comes into focus: It is round, the hair pulled back into a pony tail, the mouth formed into a sneer. A cigarette dangles from one hand. His breath smells of tobacco and alcohol. He gives his name as Andrei, his age as 30. “1smoke,” he says defiantly. "Smoking is not a problem for me. I always smoke when I drink." He takes a short, hard drag and glares. “Frankly speaking, I did not smoke for two months," he says. "Then I lost my job. Well, now I have nothing to do but drink and smoke." Once a railroad worker, Andrei now sits home. (Landsberg, M. 1998. “Dying Young—A way of life in gloomy Russia,” Chicago Tribune, p. 8) So m u c h description, this could be the opening scene in a novel. In fact, it's a long featu re a b o u t econom ic dislocations and u n em p lo y m e n t in th e fo rm er Soviet U nion. The lead is highly descriptive b u t could also be con­ sidered a n anecdotal lead or even the beginning o f a focus s tru c tu re sto ry a b o u t u n em p lo y m e n t th a t focuses on one individual's m isery th ro u g h o u t th e entire story. I d o n 't kn o w if I like th e lead m uch, th o u g h . Do you? It d o esn 't get to th e p o in t (the n u t graf, in this case) u n til several p ara g ra p h s deeper in the story. Is th e lead really so colorful, so h a u n tin g , so d ram a tic th a t m o st readers w o u ld have held o n u n til th a t n u t graf? I d o n 't know . But this is a case in p o in t o f living dang ero u sly as a w riter. If y o u 're going to a tte m p t a g rea t descriptive lead, it b etter be great. Special note: You may' have heard th a t a jo u rn a lis t sh o u ld never em ploy a question lead. W h at is u su a lly m e a n t by th is is th e practice o f b eginning a sto ry w ith a question for the sole p u rp o se either o f an sw erin g it in th e very' next sentence o r q u o tin g som eone im m ediately. For exam ple, one m ig h t begin a sto ry badly th is way': "W hat did Russian c o sm o n au t Yuri Kerensky say' w h en he first set foot o n M ars? 'This is one

THE LEAD

91

sm all step for a m an , b u t one gian t step fo r m a n k in d .'" W ith apologies to A m erican a s tro n a u t Neil A rm stro n g , w h o said so m eth in g like th is w h en he set foot on the m oon in 1969, y o u can see th a t th e q u estio n is su p er­ fluous an d g ra tu ito u s here: We ju s t d o n 't need it to set u p the q u o te th a t follow s. You could ju s t as w ell create context fo r th e q u o te by acknow ledg­ ing the historical event (m an lands on M ars), th e n q u o tin g th e source. H ere's a n o th e r m ade-up exam ple of a b ad question lead: "W hen did W orld W ar II eru p t? It w as on Sept. 1, 1939, w h en th e G erm an A rm y sm ashed th ro u g h the Polish frontier, unleash in g a chain o f events th a t saw 50 m illion you n g soldiers an d innocent civilians from all sides perish, and w hich caused u n to ld tra u m a in those w h o survived." If it's im p o rta n t to y o u r sto ry to in troduce th e first day of W orld W ar II, th en by all m eans do so. You ju s t d o n 't need to w aste tim e on a q u estio n before in troducing the relevant fact o r facts. H aving said this, there is at least one special case w here a q u estio n lead can be a superb tool, w here it will serve as a veritable th em e sta te m en t for the entire sto ry to com e. This is w h en y o u are asking w hat is the problem (or identifying th e problem ) an d indicating to th e reader th a t th e rest of the sto ry will seek to explore said problem . H ere's h o w I used a question lead in a sto ry o n S h aro n Aschen, a 4 9y ear-old w o m a n w h o w as diagnosed w ith inoperable spinal cancer: What would you do if you were told you had six months to live? Sharon Aschen decided to call an ex-college roommate and five other friends she hadn't seen in at least 20 years. Then she held a party for them and more recent acquaintances, variously calling the get-together an “affirmation of life” and a “living funeral." (Aamidor, A. 1998b. “Party of her life,” The Indianapolis Star, p. J-l) The reason I began th e sto ry w ith a q u estio n w as largely because I w an ted to involve th e re a d e r— to p u t "you" in th e picture. But th a t single question posed th e m o st h u m a n o f dilem m as w e all face, nam ely, o u r ow n m o rtality. H aving accom plished th a t, th e sto ry goes on to tell h o w Aschen dealt w ith th is crisis in her life. And, a v ery last note on q u o ta tio n leads: You m ay have been told n o t to use them , an d th a t's generally good advice. The reaso n not to use q u o ­ ta tio n leads is th a t th e reader doesn 't k n o w w h o the speaker is, an d the context for th e q uote has yet to be established. N evertheless, this is a rule th a t can be b roken on occasion. Jolin Cam p (Camp, J. 1985. "Life on th e Land: An A m erican Farm Family," St. Paul Pioneer Press, p. A -l.), a w rite r for the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, began a m u l­ tip a rt series on farm in g in th e U pper M idw est w ith a six -p ara g ra p h quote. M ost jo u rn a lism in stru c to rs, an d m o st editors on m o st n ew sp a­ pers, w o u ld tell y o u never to do th a t. They w o u ld strike th e quote, m ake you change th e lead, and begin to w onder alo u d w h eth e r yo u really had w h a t it takes to be a jo u rn a list. B ut Jo h n C am p w o n th e Pulitzer Prize for feature w ritin g for his series on farm in g th a t began w ith a six -p ara g ra p h quote.

92

— —

CHAPTER 8

A lthough I generally w ould discourage you from using q u o tatio n leads, the arg u m en t about identifying the source or establishing context first is a bit of a red herring. W ith m odern new spaper layout and graphics, and the use of m agazine-style titles and deck headlines u n d er the title, m ost readers will have some idea w ho the speaker is, and w h at he or she is talking about, even if you begin y o u r sto ry w ith a quote. Ju st d o n 't do it often. I d o n 't like quotation leads because they become a cheap trick th a t encourages laziness in reporters. Usually, you can do b etter th a n a q u o ­ ta tio n lead.

Chapter

Interviewing Techniques

Nelson Price Indiana University-Purdue University a t Indianapolis

Almost no other aspect of the feature w ritin g process is as crucial for a sto ry 's u ltim ate success as the choreographing of interview s th a t are pen­ etrating, engaging, and revelatory. Yet the deceptively simple questionand-answ er exchange is influenced by m an y diverse and subtle factors: the selected interview setting th a t's chosen, the w ay th a t quiet, nonver­ bal, or m onosyllabic interview ees are handled, w hether the interviewees are children or teenagers, how the killer questions are broached, and the w ay th a t even nonthreatening questions are phrased and choreographed. All are am ong aspects of the feature w riter-subject relationship th a t will be explored in this analysis of interview ing. W hen I have found m yself in the clutches of dreaded w rite r's block, the cause rarely is m y inability to come up w ith a precise w ord or phrase. Dic­ tionaries and thesauri abound, w ith some m ere clicks on the Internet. The block alm ost alw ays is the end result of interview s th a t were not probing or thorough. Or m aybe I sim ply didn't do enough interview s, and I need— for example, w h en p u ttin g together a profile of an ath lete— to talk to the coach, parent, rival, team m ate, neighbor, childhood pal, or th e custodian w h o w itnesses the predaw n w orkouts. Or m aybe the athlete needs to be interview ed one m ore time. Regardless, I'm afflicted w ith w rite r's block because I d o n 't have the anecdotes th a t capture th e athlete's essence or other raw m aterial sufficient to propel th e profile. Interviews, of course, are feature w riters' raw m aterial, their biggest source of gold. There's jo y w hen striking gold during an interview. Indeed, feature w riters should experience jo y m erely in the interview ing process— th a t is, in being given license to ask w hatever we w an t. In his book Making

93

94

—

CHAPTER 9

People Talk (Farber, B. 1987. N ew York: W illiam M o rro w an d Com pany, Inc., p. 19.), radio talk sh o w host B arry Farber says th a t golden in te r­ view s, ju s t like th e stim u latin g , m ean in g fu l conversations th a t occasion­ ally flow am o n g new acquaintances, h ap p en in th o se m o m en ts "w hen everybody aro u n d , th ro u g h fully dressed, seems to be sh arin g a h o t tu b ." So h o w do w e get o u r interv iew subjects to d rop th e ir defenses, if n o t shed th e ir clothes? "Were y o u nervous?" T h a t's a questio n typically asked o f w riters after interview s w ith a stro n a u ts, football heroes, cheerleaders, CEOs, crim i­ nals, w idow s, judges, police officers, o r even ailing g ran d p a re n ts, g riz­ zled m echanics, sullen teenagers, and th o se w h o m ay be m onosyllabic. No w o n d er w e fixate on o u r degree of anxiety. L arry King, one of TV 's b est-k n o w n interview ers, o ften q uo tes su rv ey s rep o rtin g th a t m a n y folks w o u ld ra th e r ju m p o u t o f a n airp lan e th a n sit n ext to people th ey d o n 't kn o w w ith th e expectation o f m ak in g extended co n v ersatio n — o u r reg u la r ta sk as interview ers. Even so, th e q u estio n a b o u t th e in te rv iew er's jitte rs has its priorities reversed. It's irrelev an t w h eth e r th e in terv iew er is nervous. The key question is "W as th e interview ee nervous?" If yo u have been interview ed, y o u probably k n o w th a t can be in tim id atin g . A stra n g e r is asking y o u questions, an d y o u d o n 't k n o w w h a t's com ing next. N ot only th a t b u t th e stran g e r also is ta k in g notes o r recording y o u r every w ord. Friends, com petitors, a n d y o u r m om p ro b ab ly w ill read th e result. The te n ­ dency is to clam up o r to w eigh every w o rd carefully, resu ltin g in quotes th a t are generic a n d superficial. Once I interview ed a 3 6 -y ear-o ld b u si­ ness executive w h o climbed M o u n t Everest; th is m a n — w h o n early per­ ished attem p tin g to scale th e w o rld 's tallest m o u n ta in — sheepishly con­ fessed th a t he "lost sleep" th e n ig h t before o u r in terv iew because of jan g led nerves. So am o n g th e first challenges is to coax th e interview ee to o pen up. 'A w a rm su n is m ore likely to get som eone to shed his overcoat th a n a how ling w ind," British TV personality David Frost used to say. Frost, w h o w as k n o w n d u rin g th e 1970s for landing interview s w ith elusive su b ­ jects such as fo rm er President Richard Nixon, h ad a point. A lth o u g h som e w ell-k n o w n m edia figures have b u ilt stellar careers w ith interview styles th a t are p rosecutorial o r badgering, u su ally th a t's n o t th e w a y to get folks to open up, p articu la rly for feature w riters w h o seek personal in fo rm a ­ tion for profiles and topical stories ab o u t, say, coping w ith th e foster care system o r surviving on th e street as a n illegal im m ig ran t. Obviously, w e can go overboard w ith th e "w arm su n " bit. Sincerity is key, along w ith establishing a level o f tr u s t. It's a m istak e— n o t to m en tio n deceptive and, alm ost alw ays, tr a n s p a re n t— to act as if w e are o u r in ter­ view ees' lifelong buddies. Instead, w e sh o u ld seek a professional rap p o rt, expressing unfeigned in terest in th e ir lives o r in th e topic a t h and. Convey th e sense th a t they are going to get a fair shake, th a t w e are n o t p la n ­ ning to seize th eir w ords to hum iliate th e m o r to use th e ir w o rd s as am m o for a perso n al agenda. "Interview ing is th e m odest, im m ediate science of

INTERVIEWING TECH N IQ U ES

——

95

gaining tr u s t, th e n gaining in fo rm atio n ," says Jo h n Brady in The Craft o f Interviewing. (Brady, J. 1976. C incinnati, OH: W riter's Digest Books, p. 68.) He also rig h tly p o in ts o u t, 'An interview often depends less on questions th a n on o ne's spirit of questioning." Begin by establishing a com fort level th a t gently d o w n sh ifts a n in ter­ viewee from o n -g u a rd m ode to relaxed mode. Som etim es I've slipped m y notepad u n d er th e table an d proceeded w ith m y n o te -tak in g th a t w a y so th e process is o u t of sight. Interview subjects tend to fixate on the note taking, panicking w h en th ey see th e interview er scribbling fu rio u s ly — th e "Oh m y God, w h a t did I ju s t say?" p h en o m en o n — or, conversely, w o r­ rying th a t th ey have become a bore if the note tak in g slow s. "W hen yo u s ta rt ta k in g notes, y o u becom e a critic w h o silently gives the interview ee m essages: 'Well, th a t q uote w a s n 't p articu la rly in terestin g because I d id n 't w rite it d o w n ," ' notes Shirley Biagi in h er book Interviews That Work. (Biagi, S. 1992. Belmont, CA: W adsw orth Publishing Co., p. 40.) It's best to m a in ­ ta in an even, steady pace w ith note taking. D uring interludes w h en the quotes are not relevant o r interview ees ram ble, jo t d o w n descriptive term s a b o u t th eir physical appearance, dem eanor, hom e, or office. T h at brings u s to th e setting. D o n 't be relu c tan t to voice a stro n g prefer­ ence w hen scheduling th e interview . W'hen I've had flexible deadlines, I've delayed interview s so th e y could occur in th e m o st desirable setting. Basi­ cally, there are fo u r choices: th e interview ee's office or w orkplace, th eir hom e, y o u r office, o r a n e u tra l setting, such as a coffeehouse, re sta u ra n t (typically for lunch), library, o r conference room . The overriding q uestion for w riters should be, "W here are th e interview ees m o st ap t to feel com ­ fortable and open up?" The obvious answ er: th e ir hom e. T h a t's th eir tu rf. In addition to being th e m o st com fortable an d relaxing en v iro n m en t for th em , th eir hom e offers a w ealth of details ab o u t h o w th ey live. Of course, if th e featu re sto ry is focused on th e subject's jo b — a look at an em ergency room n u rse o r a t a yoga in stru cto r, for exam ple— y o u 'll also w a n t to see th e person in action a t the w orkplace. Even w ith those stories, th o u g h , I m ig h t also lobby for a hom e in terv iew to ask questions in a quiet setting. The th ird choice o f interv iew se ttin g — far less desirable th a n th eir hom e an d w o rk p lace— is a n e u tra l place such as a re sta u ra n t. It d o esn 't tell m e a n y th in g ab o u t interview ees o th e r th a n th eir m en u pref­ erences and how th ey behave to w a rd w aiters. W hen conducting lunch interview s, w riters also grapple w ith th e challenges o f try in g , sim u lta n e­ ously, to choreograph questions, take extensive notes, and eat. Even th a t m u ltita sk in g challenge is b etter th a n beckoning th e interview ee to go to th e w rite r's office, w hich is u n fam iliar te rrain an d g u aran teed to spike the interview ee's an x iety level. The ideal interview sho u ld consist o f o nly tw o people: y o u and the subject. Sure, it's com m on for interview ees to ask to be accom panied by th e ir m anager, spouse, publicist, best friend, coach, agent, or, in som e sit­ u ations, th e ir law yer. D iscourage th a t. The presence o f a th ird p a rty com ­ pletely alters th e dynam ic. Reflect on a tim e w h en y o u w ere enjoying a conversation w ith a friend. T hen som eone else jo in ed the tw o o f yo u . It

96

——

CHAPTER 9

could even have been a close friend. But the third person inevitably' altered things. So w hen setting up a n interview, I m ake certain th a t there w o n 't be three in the crow d. If the interview ee has insisted th a t the th ird body' be p resen t— "I really' w a n t m y husband (coach, m anager) th ere"— the tem p ­ tatio n is to ask th a t person to sit silently. W rong strategy. T hat makes the person an audience; the interview ee tends to glance a t him or her for reactions or approval. And the third wheel, n o t having a stake in the con­ versation, tends to become judgm ental, b o th about the questions and the answ ers. So I've learned th a t if third parties m u st jo in us, the best s tra t­ egy is to pull them into the process and direct questions a t them as well. In a few cases, once the three-w ay interview has started to unfold, the third wheels have become unsettled and excused them selves to find a soft drink m achine. W onderful. We're back to the tw o of us. My w o rst experience along these lines w as interview ing soap opera actor Drake Hogesty'n, w ho at th a t tim e had been a sta r of Days o f Our Lives for nearly 20 years. A personable, articulate m an, H ogestyn has had a colorful life. (He w as a p ro baseball player w ho tu rn ed to the soaps w hen sidelined by' a foot in ju ry .) The problem w as th a t I foolishly agreed to a request from his fan club m em bers to observe the interview. (Drake w as in to w n for a soaps convention.) Talk ab o u t a distorting influence: We had m ore th a n 80 people listening and reacting to m y questions and his answ ers (often giggling, cheering, or groaning), m aking au th en tic rap p o rt alm ost unachievable. There are a couple of exceptions to the n o -th ird p a rty policy. One con­ cerns young children. W hen interview ing a child, I w a n t a supervising adult fam iliar w ith the child's com prehension level (preferably a teacher or parent) w ith us. O ther exceptions involve those situations w here I have a strong sense th a t the third p a rty will act as m y ally in excavating anec­ dotes, elaborating on m em ories, and so forth. If having the wife w ith us will prom pt a "yep-nope" husband to elaborate ("Remember, honey, yo u w ere w earing a seersucker suit th a t night w e m et in the diner, and Sinatra w as on the radio"), then th a t m ight call for a policy relaxation as well. If saddled w ith a m onosyllabic interviewee, some artfully' phrased requests are helpful: Can you elaborate on th at? Describe th a t for me. Tell m e m ore about th at. Those are gentle com m ands th a t compel th e inter­ viewee to share details. Avoid yes-no questions. Ask open-ended ones. In his book How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere (King, L. 1994. New York: C row n Publishers, Inc., p. 53.), L arry King says his favorite inter­ view question is one w ord: Why? It's a b eau ty because an explanation is required. As I prepared to interview a tw o -tim e w idow on death ro w in Indiana (both of her husbands w ere killed; she unsuccessfully claimed innocence in each death), I th o u g h t th ro u g h w h a t I w as curious about. Feature w riters are generally typical people; if w e're w ondering ab o u t som ething, o u r readers are bound to be as well. So I asked her, "W hat w as it like to hear the judge bang the gavel and condem n y o u to death?" T hat's an open-

INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES

——

97

ended question; she couldn't answ er w ith a yes or no. And I w as gen­ uinely curious ab o u t w hether her life flashed before her eyes (the w ay tragedy survivors som etim es report) o r w hether she felt num bness, rage, or terror. On a lighter note, here is m y favorite qu estion— at least during the beginning of an interview, w hen w e're establishing rapport: W ho w as y o u r role model? or W ho influenced you the most? The answ er is often telling. C ontrast the person w ho identifies Princess Diana as an influence w ith someone w ho says "m y grandm other," or y et an o th er person w ho says "Hillary Rodham Clinton." W e're getting a peek at their personalities. The questions also tend to create a w arm vibe because interviewees are focusing on a fondly regarded person. Q uestions about influential books o r movies also can be effective early in the interview. Ju st take care not to sound frivolous; tw o or three ques­ tions about favorites is enough. Also highly recom m ended, particularly for public figures such as poli­ ticians and sports stars, are such questions as "W hat is the biggest m y th about you?" or "W hat's a m isconception concerning y o u r life?" The answ ers m ay be self-serving— and, therefore, unusable in the featu re— b u t the questions a t least enable interviewees to feel th a t th ey were given an opp o rtu n ity to explain their side of things. And questions about the public's "biggest m isconception" d o n 't only apply to new sm akers. Bankers, m orticians, cheerleaders, farm ers, doctors, teachers, car salesm en, w idow ­ ers, jocks, and jo u rn a lists— all feel th a t th e w orld has pegged them inac­ curately in some w ays. W ho w ould resist the chance to open up about that? Let's stick w ith the w idow er for aw hile. Assume you are asking about his wife of 45 years w ho passed aw ay last spring. Here's an example of a bad interview question: Was she the love of y o u r life? It's dreadful on several levels. First, it's a yes-no question; he can opt for a one-w ord answ er and be done w ith it. Second, you are p u ttin g w o rd s— specifically, "love of m y life"— in his m outh. If he replies affirmatively, h e's signing off on it, sure. But it's not his voice, his language. How m uch better to have asked an open-ended question th a t w ould have prom pted a sense of his distinctive voice w ith a n answ er such as, "She w as the m oon, the Earth, and the stars to me." By the way, people often speak in generalities and toss aro u n d concept w ords th a t come across as vague or hollow in print. O ur challenge is to m ake the interviewee share details, concrete examples, specifics. Take the w idow er again. A quote such as "she alw ays w as loving and supportive" doesn't have m uch em otional resonance w ith readers. Ask him how th a t love w as expressed on a regular or special basis. Did she send him roses? Leave notes on his pillow? Sell her jewels so he could go to grad school? To evoke memories, sensory questions often are helpful; they have the added benefit of providing descriptive m aterial for the feature. If inter­ viewing a couple ab o u t their first date a t a World W ar II-era diner, ask

98

CHAPTER 9

about the music on the jukebox. Or at least w h at hit songs th ey rem em ber from th a t year. Ask w hether the food w as flavorful— or if they even really tasted it. Ask if they w ere surrounded by other custom ers or if they cared w hether others w ere there. "The question is an excavating tool," ABC-TV jo u rn alist Diane Saw yer correctly em phasizes in Interviewing America’s Top Interviewers (Huber, J., & Diggins, D. 1991. New York: Birch Lane Press, p. 159.) So dig. In digging for anecdotes, keep in m ind th a t people tend to rem em ber firsts, lasts, and "unusuals." That m eans they alm ost alw ays rem em ber their first date, their first car, their first ap artm en t, th eir m ost u n u su al patient or client or, for instance, in the case of a lifeguard, their m ost u n u su a l rescue. I alm ost alw ays end interview s the same w ay: T hat is, w ith the follow ­ ing question, Is there anything you w an t to add th a t I d id n 't ask about? As w ith the "biggest misconception" question, the responses often are selfserving, but, once again, the interview ee is being presented w ith a p lat­ form , w hich tends to close the session on a note of professional courtesy. And you never know : Occasionally an interviewee will use the "an y th in g else?" query' as an ideal m om ent to b lu rt o u t riveting quotes on a topic th a t, despite m y th o ro u g h preinterview hom ew ork and research, had n ot been touched on. Failure to do hom ew ork is one of the three biggest reasons w h y inter­ views fail. There's alm ost no excuse in the 21st century' for n o t getting background on the topic, even if y'ou have only 20 m inutes to prepare. Surely the need for hom ew ork is obvious if you w an t to ask questions th a t are fresh, inform ed, and penetrating. Reason 2 for interview failure: failure to probe. Press conferences— part of daily' life for m any y'oung reporters on city hall and o th er governm ent b eats— tend to m ake w riters ru sty at probing. Q ue stio ns are shouted rapidly from various media outlets, w ith few jo u rn alists following up on an answ er to a com petitor's question. Rather, jo u rn alists w an t to sh o u t their ow n pet questions, as Biagi pu ts it. So w hen the o p p o rtu n ity for an in-depth, sit-dow n interview occurs, m an y reporters are a t a loss to p ut together a series of questions th a t flow. The third reason for failed interview s probably is the m ost devastating of all: failure to listen. There's alm ost nothing m ore insulting th a n being tuned out, particularly if the nonlistener is a w riter w h o asked for the interview, is being paid to quote accurately, and, it's hoped, intends to do a fair, skillful job of explaining the topic in print. Interview ers w ho stop listening invariably give themselves aw ay. They repeat a question th a t already' w as answ ered. They' d o n 't follow up w ith an obvious question ab o u t intriguing inform ation th a t w as ju s t shared. Their eyes and facial expressions indicate th a t they are focused on an o th er p lan et— or any th in g o ther th a n the present conversation. An enemy' of listening is the tendency' to, lickety'-split, react internally' w ith silent opinions about the interview ee's com m ents. "Keep y o u r m ind focused on the message itself, n o t o n ju d g m en ts of rig h t-w ro n g or good-

INTERVIEWING TECH N IQ U ES

—

99

bad," em phasizes M orey Stettner, a u th o r o f The A rt o f W inning Conversa­ tion. (Stettner, M. 1995. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, p. 144.) "Lis­ tening does n o t oblige y o u to pick a side." A t h om e later, y o u ca n decide o n w h a t points y o u agree w ith y o u r in ter­ view subject an d on w hich th e interview ee is all w et. D uring th e interview , th o u g h , y o u r goal is to keep coaxing m aterial, to get the interview ee to open up. T h at d o esn 't prohibit challenging the person, b u t rem em ber th a t the danger of co n tin u ally focusing o n y o u r o w n opinions is a n easy w ay to allow y o u r listening to slide. If y o u r alertness is a t risk because th e speaker is rep etitiv e— w h o h a s n 't experienced th is?— S tettn er has a terrific suggestion: p ara p h ra se th e in ter­ view ee's p o in t a n d repeat it. "Repetitive speakers w a n t to m ake certain th a t th eir points are understood, so th ey speak in loops to convince th e m ­ selves th eir m essage is clear," he says. By p ara p h ra sin g o r su m m arizin g the essence an d repeating it, y o u achieve several things: You establish th a t the m essage w as received, and, as S tettn er notes, p ara p h ra sin g also "helps y o u keep pace w ith the speaker a n d prevents m isu n d erstan d in g ." Listening never is m ore crucial th a n in phone interview s. N othing beats face-to-face interview s, o f course. "R apport, w h ich can be m ain ­ tained th ro u g h breaks, silences, even m in o r catastro p h es in the flesh, will v anish quickly w henever silence descends upo n a telephone conversation," Brady notes in The Craft o f Interviewing. Smiles, nods, eye contact, body la n g u ag e— none of tho se is a t y o u r disposal in a phone interview . On the phone, it's all in th e tone o f voice a n d style of questioning. Yet often th ere's no o ption b u t th e phone. The interview ee is in Seattle, say, and y o u 're based in Boston. Or y o u have tw o dozen people to interview in 2 d a y s— a n d o nly tw o legs. W hen questioning b y phone, never forget th e goal of coaxing th e interview ee to continue. Everyone has felt tu n ed out by a person on th e o th e r end of a phone line a n d w ondered, "Are th ey still there?" D uring a phone interview , it helps to provide plenty of verbal rein­ forcem ents: "U h -h u h ," "M m m h m m m ," an d so fo rth . The purp o se isn 't to endorse w h a t th e interview ee is saying. Rather, it's m erely a w a y of indicating th a t you are follow ing th e speaker, kind of an "I'm w ith you" signal. In The Craft o f Interviewing, Brady calls phone interview s "the M cDon­ alds o f jo u rn a lism ": not th e m o st flavorful experience, b u t "fast an d ser­ viceable." E-m ail interview s are even less desirable because th e y rem ove even voices from the interplay. T hey should be last reso rts, and th ey should be labeled as e-m ail interview s in stories. Because com m en ts and answ ers obtained via e-m ail do n o t resu lt fro m a co n versational exchange, th e resulting quotes need to be accom panied b y an exp lan atio n ("she com ­ m ented in a n e-m ail interview " o r "he replied via e-m ail.") W ith o u t such an explanation, interview ees w ill com e across as stilted, asto n ish in g ly articu late (they can polish e-m ail), o r both. A lm ost every su b stan tiv e in te rv iew — w h eth e r in person, b y phone, o r via e-m ail— has a t least one o r tw o killer questions. T hey a r e n 't confined to h ard new s stories o f th e "W hat did y o u do w ith th e m issing S50,000?"

100

—

CHAPTER 9

stripe. Feature interview s have killer questions— th a t is, queries ab o u t topics th a t are painful, threatening, sensitive, o r otherw ise u n co m fo rt­ able— the son w ho died of AIDS, the m usician's bad reviews, the ex-wife and her allegations. There's alw ays some touchy area th a t needs to be explored during a substantive interview. How do you choreograph a killer question? Lead u p to it gradually. Lawrence Grobel, a u th o r of The Art o f the Interview {Grobel, L. 2004. New York: Three Rivers Press, p. 239.), joins o th er experts in pointing o u t th a t the first few m inutes of an y new encounter are spent sizing up the o th er person. W hat does he sound like? H ow is she reacting to me? W h at are his quirks, m annerism s, and intellectual capabilities? Does she have a sense of hum or? Those and dozens of other questions are flying aro u n d in b o th people's heads until enough m inutes pass th a t each gets a handle on the other. To w eigh dow n this stage of an interview w ith an y heavy topic w ould be futile. Establish rap p o rt and cover less explosive m atters first. "You have to listen to the nuances of each conversation, w aiting for the rig h t m om ent, looking for an opening th a t m ig h t come unexpectedly (p. 129)," Grobel advises. Save the killer question(s) for th e final th ird of the interview — although n o t for the very end because yo u d o n 't w a n t to ru n o u t o f tim e. Plus, the conclusion is the place to ask, "Anything to add?" "Often, o u t of insecurity, a new reporter tries to project the attitu d e th a t '1 kn o w it all' (p. 70)," Biagi notes in Interviews That Work. T hat approach, particularly in features, nearly alw ays backfires. W ho w ould confide in a know -it-all? Bluffing is also disastrous. W hen interview ing an author, d o n 't pretend th a t you have read the a u th o r's book. He o r she is th o ro u g h ly fam iliar w ith the m aterial and will be able to detect a bluffer w ith in m inutes. Far better to begin the interview b y m entioning, "I m ade it to page 38." Everyone understands the lack of tim e in the 21st century; interview ees will understand as long as y ou m ake a good-faith effort to do hom ew ork. W hat th ey w o n 't appreciate is a faker. W hat if the interview ee places restrictions on the line of questioning? If a crucial aspect of the sto ry is off lim its— for example, if a tycoon will consent to an interview only if his m uch-publicized divorce or b an k ru p tcy isn 't broached— I w ould seriously consider n o t doing the interview. In any case, readers need to be inform ed about the circum stances of a m ajor inter­ view conducted w ith significant lim itations. O therw ise, the w riter comes across as a toady or a dunce w ho d id n 't kn o w ab o u t the big (off-limits) new s. The special circum stances of th e interview can be explained w ith a sentence such as, "Joe Tycoon declined to answ er an y questions ab o u t his divorce" or "He agreed to an interview only if he w a sn 't asked ab o u t his bankruptcy." We ow e readers that. Speaking of special conditions: They also should be shared if, say, they affected the interview process or the quotes. The presence o f tran slato rs is an example. In the w ake of the Septem ber 11, 2001, te rro rist attacks, I interview ed teenagers attending the Indiana School for the Deaf w h o w ere processing the tragedy by creating artw o rk , including draw ings of the Twin Towers as they collapsed. My feature w as full of quotes from stu ­

INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES

101

dents w ith to tal hearing losses. I d o n 't know sign language. 1 owed it to readers to explain th a t the com m ents w ere obtained w ith the assistance of an interpreter. If there's confusion during o r after an interview, 'fess up. "D on't hes­ itate to ask clarifying questions," stresses Betsy P G raham in Maga­ zine Article Writing. (Graham , B. P 1980. New York: Holt, Reinhart and W inston, p. 55.) "To pretend th a t you understand a point w hen you d o n 't is self-defeating." A lm ost all interview ees will appreciate y o u r effort to obtain accurate inform ation. And it's better to come across as a bit slow to y o u r interviewee th a n to m ake an error in print w ith hundreds or th o u ­ sands of readers. Here's a strategy for an interview subject w ho is unclear in his answers: "Draw him o u t by p u ttin g the onus on yourself," Brady recommends. " 'I'm sorry, but I d o n 't understand. T h at's not quite clear to me. Could you give me an exam ple?"' If the problem is the other w ay a ro u n d — the interview ee doesn't seem to u nderstand y o u — address it, pronto. "Did I m ake m yself clear? (p. 77)" is an excellent w ay to do it. Clarity between interview er and subject is never m ore crucial th a n w hen dealing w ith children an d teens. As m entioned earlier, interview s w ith children are the exceptions to the n o -th ird -p a rty policy. We w an t the presence of a teacher, parent, or o ther ad u lt w h o has insight ab o u t the child's com prehension level. A 6-year-old boy once told me, "My daddy has been gone a long, long tim e." Ju st as I w as concluding th a t the boy had been abandoned, his teacher explained th a t his father had left for the office 2 hours earlier— a long, long tim e to the little boy. "W hen you interview a child, the first thing to do is sit dow n," Biagi recom m ends. "This p u ts the tw o of you closer to eye level and removes the intim idation of ad u lt size (p. 83)." A dults con stan tly lecture cliildren and teens. Young people crave opportunities to be regarded as the possessors of w isdom and insight. So a m arvelous tool to get children and teens to open up is to ask for their advice on a topic. For a back-to-school feature in late A ugust, I once visited a classroom of second graders. I asked them , as seasoned (or a t least recent) veterans of first grade, to offer tips to first graders— do's and d o n 't's — for the first day of class. The second graders couldn't stop talking; they loved the chance to be sages. Framing questions in term s of advice, by the way, often can be an effec­ tive w ay of addressing sensitive topics w ith a n y age group. D on't know how to get 80-year-old Millie to open u p ab o u t the father w h o skipped tow n during the Depression? How ab o u t this: "It had to be to u g h grow ing up in the 1930s w ith o u t a father in the house. W h at advice w ould you have for to d a y 's kids in single-parent homes?" You m ig h t strike gold. Or p u t B arry Farber's w ay, you m ig h t feel th a t yo u and Millie are sharing a hot tu b — figuratively speaking.

C hapter

Best Use of Quotes

M ost beginning jo u rn a lists use either to o m a n y o r to o few quotes. The reason som e overquote is clear: It's ju s t easier to sit at a te rm in al, flip th ro u g h pages of y o u r notebook, an d q u o te aw ay. The reason for n o t q u o tin g en o u g h is less clear, b u t often the p roblem is m echanical. By th is I m ean th e rep o rter d id n 't take an y full quotes in his o r her notes, so he o r she ca n n o t q u o te anyone. Each sem ester th a t I ta u g h t advanced w ritin g I'd look for tw o v o lu n ­ teers from the class, one to ask questions on th is o r th a t topic, an d th e o th e r to an sw er them . A few m in u tes later, I'd invite the rest of th e class to ask questions, too. I alw a y s tape-recorded these sessions. A fterw ard , I'd ask stu d e n ts to read th e ir notes. H alf o f th e stu d e n ts w o u ld have w ritte n no quotes. They m a y have su m m arize d th is o r th a t sta te m e n t or tak en dow n a couple of num b ers, b u t th e y d id n 't q u o te in terestin g sta te m en ts o r com plete sentences. O ther stu d e n ts often g ot th eir quotes w ro n g — n o t m ajo r m istakes, perhaps, b u t real anom alies in w h a t th e y w ro te as com ­ pared to o th e r stud en ts. I'd prove all th is to m y stu d e n ts by playing back th e tape. A good q uote is like a n inflection in a p erso n 's voice. Beyond the m ere content, it can signal sadness, glee, coyness, rage, o r self-doubt. U sing quotes effectively falls sq u arely w ith in th e sh o w -d o n 't-te ll p h ilosophy of good w ritin g . H ere's a q uote fro m a sto ry on a 101 -y ear-o ld w o m a n w h o lived her entire life in ru ra l Indiana. The q uote com es at a m o m en t in the interview w h en th e w o m a n needs to rest for a bit. "Pardon m y old-lady shoes. My feet h u rt. I hate these shoes." (Shaw, B. 1998. "W hen faced w ith h eartache 101-year-old Ann Vollmer has p u t on a brave face . . . The Indianapo­ lis Star, p. J - l) This sim ple, single q u o te speaks v olu m es ab o u t th e w o m an . You d o n 't have to call her o rn e ry o r spunky; you d o n 't have to say she's a to u g h old broad; y o u d o n 't have to say she's d o w n -to -e a rth . We can see it in the quote. The quote is fro m a profile o f A nn Vollmer, w ritte n by Bill Shaw, w hose w ritin g you previously saw in th e ch ap ter on leads.

102

BEST USE OF QUOTES

— —

103

Later in the same sto ry we are told th a t Vollmer keeps a loaded h andgun near her bed. Then, she is quoted as saying, "I like a revolver. You can count on it." Part of w h at m akes the quote exciting is th a t the w om an is, after all, 101 years old. It blow s aw ay an y stereotypes yo u m ight have of centenarians, if y ou'll pardon the pun. But the second sentence in the quote is the better part: 'You can count on it.'' Would anyone doubt she m eans business after hearing her talk like this? I bet she has a steady hand w hen she fires her w eapon, too (Shaw, 1998, J2). Here's another provocative quote— the first quote in the sto ry — from "A Quiet Voice A gainst th e D eath Penalty," w hich yo u read in the chapter on advocacy jou rn alism . I'll keep it in the context of the lead, w here it appeared: 'Arizona is a hang -'em -h ig h state, and its political leaders are death-penalty poster boys. Gov. Fife Sym ington publicly blasted the courts for granting a stay of execution. Sheriff Joe Arpaio com mended a jo u rn a l­ ist w ho w itnessed a lethal injection for com ing 'to see w h at we do to m u r­ derers.'" The a u th o r w an ts to paint death penalty supporters (fairly or unfairly) as a blood-curdling lot. This single, partial quote does m ore th a n all the nam e-calling rhetoric or condem nations from secondary sources he could ever have employed. T hink back to "Storefront Politics," the progress versus historic preser­ vation sto ry in the chapter on pro-and-con stories. Remember the to u g h call on w hether to dem olish the attractive, b u t n early vacant historic MaCo Building in Indianapolis in favor of a new d rugstore and parking lot? I still like the follow ing quote from a neighborhood resident w ho sup­ ported new construction: "If Benjamin H arrison had slept there, it m ight be historic. But he n o t only d id n 't sleep there, he d id n 't even shop there." It w as ju s t a hom espun, do w n -to -earth , unpreten tio u s thing th a t pegged the speaker as a regular guy. Here's a string of quotes from the sto ry ab o u t Sharon Aschen, the 49year-old w om an w ho w as dying o f spinal cancer th a t I introduced in the chapter on leads. She and an a u n t hosted an affirm ation of life party, w hich also w as called a living funeral. Fifty people came to the party, b ut some refused. W hy? The dying w om an explains in her ow n w ords: "One rela­ tive said, 'W hat if yo u d o n 't die in M arch? W on't you be em b arrassed ?'" Aschen recalled. A nother brusquely declined, telling her, "I'll come to the real funeral." Aschen added, "Some people said th ey d o n 't believe in this. I'm still try in g to understand w h at p a rt they d o n 't believe in. Cam arade­ rie? Friendship? Affirming a life?" (Aamidor, 1998, p. J2). The w riter could have said som ething like this: "Some of Aschen's rel­ atives and friends w ere unm oved by her im m inent death, arguing it w as inappropriate to have a celebration prior to her death, or otherw ise m aking excuses for not attending." But such a p arag rap h or statem en t w ould have been vague, im personal, and g uilty of the tell-d o n 't-sh o w school of jo u r­ nalism . Using three strong quotes in a row m ade the point m uch better; the reader could also sense A schen's fru stra tio n and even o u trag e th a t som e people did not approve of her affirm ation of life party. (Yes, it's rarely the case that you will need to string quotes together like this in

104

——

CHAPTER 10

a story. But you know the old saying, "Sometimes you gotta break the rules.") I cited in an earlier chapter the following rule o f th u m b on quotes: If the source said som ething b etter th a n you can say it, quote the source. O ther­ wise, m ake the point in your ow n w ords. A fter all, y ou are the profes­ sional w riter, n o t your source. (This is over and above the notion th a t we quote people to convey personality and em otion.) Here's a fictionalized example of an unnecessary quote. Let's say y o u 're doing a story on a hurricane survivor in the South Carolina low country. You m ight begin y o u r sto ry w ith som ething like this: "Winds w ere so high th a t light poles bent or snapped in tw o, and plate glass w indow s in ocean fro n t hotels were shattered. Cars w ere tossed from a parking lot and stacked on top of each o ther like ju n k y a rd wrecks. H ighw ays leading o ut of to w n w ere clogged w ith disappointed to u rists forced to cut sh o rt their vacations." I th in k this lead is adequate, if not quite brilliant. But you m ight have been tem pted to quote an eyew itness instead. Employing a n eyew itness rep o rt sounds good, doesn't it? "I never saw w inds like th a t before," said Joe Sm ith, w ho operates a coffeeshop near the ocean front. "I w as never m ore afraid in m y life." Quotes like this are a dime a dozen. T h ey 're th e antithesis of the show don 't-tell model w anted for good, vivid jo u rn alistic w riting. In the sam ple p ara g ra p h th a t preceded the quote, w hich could have been gleaned from several sources, readers have a t least an adequate picture of w h a t things w ere like u nder the veil o f the storm . Q uoting ju s t one person w h o had nothing interesting to say implies the reporter d id n 't do m uch reporting to begin w ith (otherw ise he or she w ould have come up w ith a better quote), and it's really an unnecessary tying of the rep o rter's hands. The reporter is free to interview m any people to glean the active, graphic details th a t m ake up a w ord picture and then p u t things in his or her ow n w ords. Q uoting too often or carelessly defeats this. I often like to th in k of quotes as pun ctu atin g a p ara g ra p h or section in a story. You'll see lots of w ell-w ritten leads w ith only one quote in th e m — the very last parag rap h in the lead, w hich th en will be followed by the n u t g ra f or the m ain body of the story: On Sunday, March 23, at 3:10 a.m., Hazel Cox, who was 90, died in her sleep in the Lockefield Village nursing home, a public facility for poor, sick people with no place else to go. She died clutching pale-blue rosary beads, her only possession other than a blond Barbie doll with a princess dress. Since Hazel Cox had no relatives, friends or money, a “removal service” took her tiny, crippled body to the Flanner & Buchanan Mortuary on High School Road for a pauper's burial. The next day the mortuary placed a death notice in the paper: “Hazel E. Cox, 90, anyone knowing a living relative, please contact Flanner and Bucahnan Mor­ tuary, (555-7020).” No one did.

BEST USE OF QUOTES

105

"We get very few iike this who are just nobody,” mortuary manager Tim Taylor said. (Shaw, B. 1997. “A prayer for Mrs. Cox," The Indianapolis Star, p. E-l.) This is another lead by Bill Shaw, and it's v ery good. It describes action w ith ju s t enough detail (the rosary, the Barbie doll) th a t you get the picture. It doesn't w aste (or mince) words; you see ho w sad this w o m an 's life w as a t her end w ith o u t a n y need of m audlin w riting or, as I like to say, w ith o u t th e w riter pouring on the gravy too thick. But the real point here is how nicely the anecdote leads into the kicker quote. The w riter doesn't m erely tell us the w orld p u t no value on the w o m an 's life at her end; instead, w e learn this fact from the u n co m p ro ­ mising, unsentim ental quote a t the end of the anecdotal lead. Additionally, one often ends a feature sto ry w ith a strong quote. The quote can be like the cherry on top of the dessert or the ribbon aro u n d a nicely w rapped gift package. A good quote is the finishing to u ch to m an y pieces. H ere's how Sharon Aschen's affirm ation of life sto ry ended: "It w as a high," said Aschen. "I'm glad I did th a t. And if I'm lucky enough to live to m y 5 0 th birthday, w hich is M oth er's Day, I'm going to do it again" (p. J02). You w o u ld n 't th in k there could be a hopeful ending to a sto ry about dying of spinal cancer, b u t there it is. Look back at the m an y full-text stories in this collection— m ost end w ith a quote. OK, I've convinced yo u to use quotes sparingly and wisely, like spending y o u r allow ance only o n things you really w anted w hen you were a child. T hat still begs the question, "W here do quotes come from , M omm y?" Some people like to w o rk from a list of questions. I ca n 't say th a t's w rong, b u t unless y o u 're w illing to deviate from script, as it were, and im provise a little or ask follow -up questions in response to surprising answ ers, th en it probably is w rong. A list of questions (either w ritte n or com m itted to m em ory ahead of the interview ) is n ot a bad idea, ju s t d o n 't be a slave to them . I prefer a m ore conversational approach; thankfully, th a t's easy on the features desk. You're not going to do too m a n y press con­ ferences; you sh o u ld n 't be doing too m an y interview s w here y o u 're sitting across the desk in some b u rea u crat's office. More likely, y o u 'll be inter­ viewing y o u r subject or subjects in some interesting venue th a t attracted y ou to their stories in the first place. I did a sto ry of an u rb an archaeol­ ogist w ho dug th ro u g h old outhouse pits digging for historical artifacts. Yes! You bet we m et a t one of the toilet pits to do the interview — and to see for myself. As m entioned in the Introduction, I interview ed the father of a fam ous baseball player in Terre H aute, Indiana, several years ago. I said, "Let's go to the baseball diam ond w here yo u and Tommy played and do the interview there," an d th a t's w h a t w e did. Will you be interview ing a n atu ra list w ho is preserving flora in a local wildlife preserve? Do th e interview on site— in the w oods— n o t in his or her office. And certainly n o t by telephone. You will sim ply get better quotes if you have a b etter idea on ho w or w here to do y o u r interview s. This also raises the question: Pen and paper or recorder? People argue this both w ays, and it also depends on w h a t y o u 're m ore com fortable w ith. 1

106

CHAPTER 10

often can n o t keep up w ith fast speakers, an d if, say, I'm interview ing an eq u estrian an d w e're b o th o n horseback for p a rt of th e interview , obvi­ ously pen and p aper are n o t going to w o rk . If yo u sense th a t th e source is n o t u n com fortable w ith a recorder, I'd say use it. It will be m ore accu­ r a te — th a t's no m ean th in g . Also, it can be quite lib e ratin g — see Nelson Price's ch ap ter on interview ing techniques in this book. He talk s ab o u t hiding his notebook u n d er a desk o r table w hile tak in g in terv iew notes ju s t so th e source w o n 't be overly anxious. I've found th a t people will sta re at th e tap e or digital recorder a t first, especially because it's p ro b ab ly posi­ tioned ju s t so in fro n t o f him o r her, b u t afte r a few m in u tes it w ill be for­ gotten, an d you an d th e source w ill h ave a fine conversation. Also, keep open th e possibility of a second in terv iew w ith th e so u rce— m ake sure th e interview ee know s, a t th e sta rt, th a t y o u 're ju s t try in g to get to k n o w his or her story, and it m a y tak e m ore th a n one interview . Last, do y o u r hom ew ork. As Price alread y told y ou, d o n 't ask obvious questions of w ell-know n people th a t yo u should clearly alread y k n o w ab o u t. For exam ple, d o n 't ask c o u n try singer Alison K rauss w here she w as b o rn , b u t you m ig h t a sk h er w h a t it w a s like g row ing u p in C ham paign, Illinois. D o n 't ask British sta te sm an Tony Blair if h e's fro m England, b u t you m ig h t ask him to com pare England and America, an d so on. A lm ost all celebrities th a t y o u 'll com e across already h ave been in ter­ viewed ad nauseam . You can get b ack g ro u n d on such people easily on the In tern et or fro m th eir public relation s people. (In such cases, th o u g h , you should ask if th a t in fo rm atio n is c o rrec t— h an d o u ts, previous interview s, an d Internet sites are no t alw ay s accurate.) Even w hen speaking w ith "expert sources," say, an epidem iologist for a sto ry on th e spread of AIDS, y o u sho u ld have som e p rio r know ledge. You should kn o w som e things. Do n o t ask w h a t HIV stan d s for. A sking really obvious questions is o ff-p u ttin g to th e subject; how ever, sta rtin g off w ith som e level of know ledge inspires som e confidence in y o u r subject. H aving said this, do n o t— repeat, do n o t— p reten d y o u k n o w m ore th a n yo u do. If y o u r expert source asks y o u if y o u 'v e looked a t the latest N ational In sti­ tu te s o f H ealth d ata o n the prevalence of AIDS, for exam ple, do n o t say yes unless th a t's th e tru th . If th e expert source asks y o u if y o u k n o w the difference betw een prevalence a n d incidence, for exam ple, do n o t say yes unless you do. (And if y o u d o n 't, ask th e source to explain it or look it up before y o u w rite y o u r story.) Ju st th in k of th e last tim e an y o n e interview ed yo u a b o u t a n y th in g — n o t necessarily a new s article, b u t m ay b e in a jo b interview or a first date. Were y o u secretly thinking, "T hat g u y 's an idiot?" You d o n 't ever, ever w a n t to be in a situ atio n w here th e perso n y o u 're in terview ing is secretly thinking, "W hat a n idiot!"

C hapter

Literary Journalism

H ank N uw er

W hen editors con fro n t a w riter w hose featu re stalled, th ey often say th a t th e ailing sto ry needs b etter flow an d detail. In o th e r w ords, th ey give w ritin g suggestions th a t a re n 't m u ch help to th e one stru g g lin g . Those tw o te rm s are ab stract, an d th e w rite r needs concrete suggestions th a t get th e sto ry back o n track. W h at does help every w rite r is a diagnosis o f th e story, a checklist of fu n d am en tals th a t include such essentials as featu re elem ents, p roper org an izatio n , crisp tran sitio n s, an d sto ry essentials. Too often, th e sto ry is n o sto ry a t all, a t least n o t in the sense of E. M. F o rster's classic definition: "a n a rra tiv e o f events in th eir tim e sequences." Every feature, like every good speech, is actu ally a series o f sm all stories th a t co n trib u te to the overall w hole. Successful stories require not only logical tim e sequences b u t tim ing as well. Once onstage, the w rite r finds th a t delivery is critical, as is voice— a conversational voice on paper th a t confides, cajoles, and m es­ m erizes readers. In o th e r w ords, pacing is critical here. A lth o u g h "show and d o n 't tell" is a w ritin g m axim even a n a m a te u r h as heard, it isn 't tru e, no t entirely. W hereas th e professional w rite r stresses n a rr a tio n — the sh o w in g — there also are tim es w h en su m m a tio n — tellin g — is also a p p ro ­ priate. Finding logical sto ry places to in sert in fo rm atio n su m m aries in the briefest, m ost interesting fashion possible is as critical as scene setting an d creating a sexy lead. You m ain ly show , in o th e r w ords, b u t alw ay s yo u have som e in fo rm a tio n th a t is conveyed best b y telling.

107

108

CHAPTER 11

ALL IN THE DETAILS D uring the storytelling, the w riter concentrates on pulling details from his or her reportage and interview s th a t m ake the feature m em orable. Sometimes the details are tim e elements th a t cleanly differentiate the past from present. Sometimes they are nifty facts, figures, and statistics. Some­ tim es they are revelations of character and personality or bits of place and geography. Sometimes they are clues to a cu ltu re and its values, mores, custom s, and w ays. One caveat: Putting details into a feature is like adding ingredients to a g ourm et cook's recipe. Ju st the right am o u n t is called for. A nything less m eans a tasteless, w atered-dow n stock, and too m uch is equally un d e­ sirable, overw helm ing the reader w ith clu tter ju s t as too m uch of a good thing destroys a recipe. Thus, selection of choice details is crucial. The w riter metes these out on a need-to-know basis. Likewise, the w riter simplifies these details for the reader by tra n sla t­ ing com plex inform ation into easily understood details. Using im agery and clever observations, the feature w riter train s the reader to identify concepts, boundaries, and definitions, th en u n d erstan d their significance. Instead of m erely telling readers th a t a fish kill w as caused w h en dum ped fertilizer tu rn ed lake w ater to an undesirable pH, the w riter says the w ate r tu rn ed to vinegar. W riters graft these details into sto ry elem ents w ith im agery to give the reader insights and an em otional connection. One p arag rap h m ight reveal a profile ch aracter's personality. The next one m ight build im pressions of a place (say Catholic, w orking-class Buffalo) in a certain tim e (1950s) and period of turm oil (fam ily-ow ned businesses giving w ay to o u t-o f­ city corporate acquisitions w ith resulting layoffs and a m ass exodus to the suburbs).

COMBINE DESCRIPTION WITH ACTION W hen it all comes together, the reader experiences precisely the em otions the crafty w riter w an ts to elicit. And w riters o f features and essays, such as M ichigan's Jim H arrison (also a poet and novelist), know how to m ilk the m ost o u t of a scene. They "make it vivid," as a h an d w ritten note above H arrison's com puter adm onishes him to do. W hether H arrison is penning a feature on the outdoors or a piece on g o u rm et cooking, he fashions engaging images on the page w ith descriptive nouns and verbs th a t also serve to advance the overall story. Occasionally, a skillful w riter such as H arrison or Jo an Didion moves the im agery to another level by m aking a n im age a sym bol. Didion does ju s t this in her chilling book Salvador, in w hich om nipresent black Jeep Cherokees become symbolic of sudden death because Salvadorian death squads use these vehicles to m ake political enemies disappear for v ultures to find and tear a p a rt (Didion, J. 1983. Bookthrift Co.).

LITERARY JOURNALISM

—

109

Good feature w riters com bine action, description, characterization, and sum m arization to reenact scenes th a t have already occurred. They seldom rely on description alone, a technique th a t died w ith W ashington Irving and Charles Dickens. This com bination of action, description, and charac­ terization is often w h a t a n editor looking for "flow" actually w ants. W hen it all w orks, editors say the w ords "sing" on a page.

THE ETHICS OF SEC ON D-HA N D ELABORATION All feature w riters need to rem ind themselves th a t unless they w ere present physically at the events, the details they insert in stories like jewels in a tia ra w ere obtained from eyew itness h u m a n sources, paper docum ents, and, if cited, other w riters' published accounts. Even experienced feature w riters need rem ind them selves th a t everything used m u st stand up to docum entation. There are clear ethical lim its on the use of one's im agina­ tion while creating nonfiction. W riters w ho do their jobs m ake readers feel th ey w ere present at the described events. Getting every nuance right in those recreated stories requires precise reporting, a knack for asking sources the right questions, and astonishing tenacity. M ost im p ortant, th e great feature w riters select the details th ey use w ith the care of a tailor putting together a custom suit from w hole cloth. Knowing th a t stories evoke em otions in readers, these w riters introduce scenes, characters, and background inform ation as concisely and precisely as possible. Never do they forget the reader and w rite to please a source or even a profile subject.

FICTION TECHNIQUES IN NONFICTION The techniques of fictive devices in nonfiction come n atu rally to nonfic­ tion m asters H arrison, Didion, and Tom Wolfe, w ho also w rite fiction, b u t jo u rn alists too can and do use fiction techniques to create dram atic n a rra ­ tive, stresses Wolfe, an expert on w h a t has been called the New Jo u rn al­ ism. W riters for new spapers and m agazines playing w h a t Wolfe dubs "the feature gam e" use point of view, scene setting, dialogue, and statu s details (details th a t provide clues to the culture of a subject). Unlike fiction w riters, w ho tu r n to their im agination for such details, feature w riters get such statu s details by im m ersing themselves in their subject's environm ent and by scrupulous reporting and reliance on reliable docum ents. Wolfe's book on astro n au ts, The Right Stuff, accurately captures their pilots-by-day, V ikings-by-night culture w hen he describes them in their planes and in a local b ar as well (Wolfe, T. 2005. Black Dog & Levanthal Co.). W here char­ acters live and w o rk and play, w h a t vehicles th ey ow n, and their clothing's condition (soiled, pressed, w rinkled, starched) and b ran d help the w riter establish m ood and context, as well as status.

110

CHAPTER 11

For p o in t of view, featu re w riters m a y have a n om niscient n a r r a to r (just like fiction w riters do) w h o sees an d describes all because all th e w rite r describes w as uncovered d u rin g days, m o n th s, o r even years of sc ru p u lo u s research. Som etim es the p oint o f view in a profile m a y be th ro u g h th a t o f a m ain ch a racter in th e sto ry itself, som eone w h o seems alm o st su p er­ h u m a n o r p erhaps flawed a n d all to o h u m a n . Som etim es th a t view p o in t shifts, a n d th e reader sees events (even one event) th ro u g h th e uncovered lenses o f m ultiple characters. In addition, ra th e r th a n relying on a few p ith y q u o ta tio n s to bolster reportage th e w a y rep o rters of basic new s stories do, fea tu re w riters use m ore revealing quo ted passages o f one or m o re ch aracters. They also can an d do p ara p h ra se, tra n sfo rm in g quoted m aterial fro m a subject in to w h a t readers recognize clearly as th e voice of a ch aracter in th a t featu re. Dia­ logue, too, serves to b reak u p p u re exposition an d elicits responses from readers th e sam e w a y th ey w ould if th e reader en co u n tered th e subject of a fea tu re o n th e street. D ialogue (one source in the sto ry speaking to a n o th e r source b u t no t directly to th e w riter) is far m ore forceful an d to th e p o in t a n d co n trib u tes to d ram atic sto ry tellin g in a w a y m ere q u o tes in an inverted p y ram id fo rm a t can n o t achieve. Som etim es m ore com plicated in fo rm a tio n com es fro m experts an d au th o rities o n th e topic a t h an d . As w ith new s stories, the featu re w riter locates the best sources to help sim ­ plify th e m a teria l and p u t it in to context. Of course, a n y literary device is fair gam e for th e featu re w rite r to em ploy so long as the in fo rm atio n w as g ath ered d u rin g h ard research an d never m ade up. A w rite r such as Didion or Wolfe em ploys m e ta ­ phors, similes, alliteration, onom ato p o eia, o x y m o ro n , an d fo resh ad o w ­ ing, am o n g o th e r literary devices, in his o r her creative nonfiction. M any tim es such irreplaceable m aterial com es fro m d o cu m en ta tio n uncovered as the result of interview s w ith sources w h o w ere eyew itnesses to a n event. Som etim es the in fo rm atio n com es fro m th e w rite r directly o b serv ­ ing a ch aracter o r characters in th eir lair o r in a less fam iliar en v iro n m en t. In featu re w ritin g , som etim es the little th in g s th a t are observed give the reader a n u ance o r m a n y nuances th a t m ake c h a racters— real people— either appealing o r revolting b u t alw ay s com pelling to learn ab o u t. W h a t's been created, therefore, is w h a t editors call a n au th en tic atm osphere.

CONFLICT A N D COMPLICATIONS Unlike som e lite ra ry fiction in w hich very' little seems to hap p en to a ch ar­ acter, featu re w riters alm ost alw ay s dig o u t in fo rm atio n th a t lets th e m show a ch a racter engaged in inner o r o u te r conflict d u rin g one o r m o re scenes. W hen th a t ch aracter solves a problem , o r fails m iserably w hile try'ing, insights in to th a t perso n 's ch a racter m ake such scenes com e to life a n d are th e h e a rt a n d soul of good featu re w ritin g . For exam ple, a fea tu re by P ulitzer P rize-w inning w rite r Jo n Franklin introduces u s to a su rgeon w h o eats a p e a n u t b u tte r san d w ich afte r losing a fem ale p atien t

LITERARY JOURNALISM

—

111

to the "m onster" th a t has developed and expanded over years beneath her breast. As w ith fiction, the feature focuses on w h a t a character desires implic­ itly and explicitly. Readers care because a character cares, and readers gain such em pathy by reliving actual experiences in a scene (or scene sequences) on the page. Such conflict— or even a crisis— takes place as it unfolds in a scene th a t you p u t dow n on a page. Thus, a good feature becomes as compelling as good dram a or com edy perform ed on a th eater stage. However, w hen jo u rn alists (as opposed to fiction w riters) uncover such inform ation from witnesses, they possess a legal and ethical responsibility to reconstruct the scene or sequence of scenes precisely as the events occurred. If the events described by eyewitnesses differ significantly, and often they do, such com ­ plications can add an a u ra of m ystery to the piece and are welcomed by good w riters, never resented. In fact, often it happens th a t conflicting ver­ sions by sources give a piece additional conflict and even m ore breadth and depth. But you, the jo u rn alist, m u st try to be tru e to the facts.

WHERE DO YOU START? W here a feature begins in space and tim e depends on w hether the piece w as inspired by som ething a w riter w itnessed firsthand or a concept dream ed u p b y the w riter or editor. At some point, the feature w riter and an editor agree on a proposal th a t results in an assignm ent. T hat assignm ent details the n a tu re of the piece and gives direction to all research an d interview s. But ju s t as readers love good surprises in a prose piece so too do editors. (However, an im p o rtan t caveat to rem em ber is th a t w hatever m aterial gets used in a feature has in some way, shape, or form appealed to the vision for th a t m agazine or new spaper th a t w as created by the editor in charge. W hat are appealing details in one publication m ay be totally o u t of place in another venue.) T hat assignm ent letter (especially if y o u 're w riting for a m agazine) or budget line (if y o u 're w riting for a new spaper) serves as a guide m ap to help the feature w riter locate sources and possible characters, to search for and locate p rim ary docum ents (e.g., court docum ents, a birth certificate, property records), and to decide in advance w ith the m ain subject w here interview s and observations will occur. Legendary Wall Street Journal editor and w riting coach Bill Blundell alw ays claimed th a t jo u rn alists need both a reporting plan and a w riting plan before em barking on an assignm ent— this is it, folks. Feature w riters spend as m uch tim e observing characters as they do interview ing them . Later, w hen the first draft sits in the com ­ puter, a feature w riter will reread the assignm ent letter o r original p ro ­ posal and notes m ade w ith an assignm ent editor to m ake sure every point has been addressed. If the piece is returned for a rew rite or clarification, the assignm ent letter or budget line helps the w riter tw eak the piece to provide w hatever the editor found lacking in the original story.

112

—

CHAPTER 11

If w h a t is needed is n o t in a w rite r's notes, additional calls or a visit to a subject o r reference lib ra ry m ay be called for. And, as in all jo u rn a lis­ tic w o rk , inconsistencies a n d inaccuracies are verboten. Sensitive m aterial m a y call for visits to th e original sources o r even additional sources u n til th e editor an d w rite r agree th e featu re is copy ready. A nother characteristic o f good featu re w ritin g is th a t w riters d ra w a clear line betw een them selves and th e ir subjects. W riters w h o sto o p to pleasing a source, o r even outlin in g a piece w ith w h a t th e ir subject alone m a y deem im p o rta n t, cross th a t line clearly. Good w ritin g is objective, an d even one groveling p h rase destro y s a piece. T hus, a p ro p er featu re is said to be balanced, m eaning th a t th e w rite r looks h ard to un co v er b o th a subject's good side an d a n y blem ishes m a rrin g th a t side. In o th e r w ords, featu re w riters keep a respectful distance fro m th e ch aracters and sources th ey v isit— even as th e y im m erse them selves in th eir sources' professional an d som etim es p rivate lives. Good w ritin g is revealing, o r else w h y do readers em p ath ize so readily w ith the subjects? In tim es of crisis, ch aracters d rop th e ir m ask s an d reveal them selves for w h o they really are. Readers can identify w ith a ch a racter w h o an sw ers a k n ock o n th e door w ith a bearer o f bad new s in th e m iddle o f th e n ig h t. Readers love to see characters visit en v iro n m en ts o u t o f sync w ith th e p riv ate perso n a a ch a ra c te r— a celebrity p e rh a p s— h as carefully (if falsely and artificially) n u rtu re d .

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE BY SELF-CRITIQUING W h a t distinguishes good featu re w ritin g from bad? One easy exercise is to pick u p a n old m a n u scrip t, preferab ly u n p ublished, th a t y o u have w ritte n . W ith a hig h lig h ter pen, circle ph rases an d even passages th a t are vague, th e n com e u p w ith colorful, concrete copy to replace th e w eak m aterial. A fter reading th e piece for overall readability, o rg an izatio n al w eak ­ nesses, stru c tu re , an d "flow" (there, I said it!), y o u have becom e a line editor. Every w o rd m u s t belong. Every sentence m u st pass th e te st o f crisp­ ness. All tran sitio n s m u st be n a tu ra l o r else th e w rite r needs to provide subheadings th a t guide th e reader from one passage to th e next. Too m a n y adjectives o r adverbs tells th a t th e n o u n s and verbs previ­ o u sly selected a re n 't concrete o r precise. Those adjectives an d adverbs clu t­ terin g th e prem ises need to leave for th e w ritin g to qu alify as tig h t (well, a t least m o st of th e m should be gone). Som etim es a needed rew rite is a m a tte r o f isolating expressions and p h rases to see if five w o rd s w ere used w here one o r tw o suffice equally w ell o r better. Such excess verbiage, and even m indless repetitions, m u st v an ish d u rin g th e self-editing phrase. Also, w riters w h o co n tin u ally begin sentences w ith there is o r it is need to im prove th e cadence o f such sentences by lopping off th e offending exple­ tives an d recasting th e sentence b y leading off w ith concrete w o rd s th a t ac tu a lly convey a w o rd picture.

LITERARY JOURNALISM

—

113

Close inspection of the verbs in a sto ry w ill reveal passages w rongly told in the passive voice instead of the active voice. Weak and overused "to be" form s of w ords need reconstructing to m ake sentences b lu n t and appealing. An overdose of auxiliary verbs, such as is, was, were, am, and are m ake the sto ry drag an d read like a g radu ate stu d en t's doctoral disser­ tation, not like a feature. A nother tip-off to inadvertent bad w riting is the overabundance of prep­ ositional phrases in a piece. As w ith unneeded adjectives and adverbs, these to o -ab u n d an t prepositional phrases get inserted w hen the m ain clauses in sentences fail to convey w hatever inform atio n the w riter w an ts to get across in a scene or scene sequence. Deleting the offending phrase, while strengthening the m ain body of the independent or dependent clauses, alm ost alw ays im proves the readability of a feature. Prose p ru n in g is a skill th a t separates the professional feature w riter from the prom ising am ateur. Finally, alth o u g h good w riting is conversational w riting, some w ords used in speech, such as very o r indeed and ju st and appeared m u st depart the premises. Such qualifiers s tu n t the g ro w th of a sto ry and kill a w rite r's style w ith their flabby presence. Good w riters also excise all vague expres­ sions. Far better to say a character snorted th a n to say she reacted with dis­ pleasure. Good w riting stresses sensory details, m eaning th a t the reader gets the benefit of seeing events in a scene and going beyond the visual to find how things tasted, sounded, and felt. W hatever changes get m ade during th e editing phase, w riters m u st never alter the tru e m eaning of a passage o r insert fiction for the sake of heightening dram a. D ram atic tension th ro u g h o u t all n arrativ e sequences is crucial, of course, b u t th a t tension m u st come from w h at actually w as observed by the w riter or the w rite r's sources.

THE VOICE OF AUTHORITY Feature w riting has been called the literature of fact. A m yriad of things separate features th a t are literary from those m erely well w ritten, b ut w h a t separates the nonfiction miracle w orkers from their less-talented counterparts is a resonant voice on paper th a t readers can detect w hen the w hole body of a w rite r's w ork gets examined. Such w riting is n ot only journalistically flawless b u t also strongly stylistic. Certain cadences in a w rite r's style show up in feature after feature. Ju st as readers recog­ nize lines of verse to distinguish a Robert Frost poem from one b y Dylan Thom as, so too do the prose rh y th m s of a Tom Wolfe differ significantly from those b y Didion o r a John McPhee. But alth o u g h cadences v ary from w riter to writer, one th in g w riters com m only possess is th a t all take com m and o f a sto ry during presenta­ tion. From the first w ord to the last, features alw ays reflect the craftsm an ­ ship of their m akers. Such expertise m eans th a t to d a y 's feature alw ays is a notch b etter th a n last w eek's feature.

C hapter

Research

H o w a r d S in k e r Minneapolis Star Tribune

Ju s t m en tio n in g the w o rd research can drive a sm a rt, inquisitive, literate stu d e n t a w a y fro m the w o rld of academ ia. Research is w h a t takes p r o ­ fessors a w a y from th e classroom . Research is w h a t gets in th e w a y of a good theory. Research is in conflict w ith speculation, w hich is m u ch m ore fu n to engage in. However, for those o f u s w h o have opted for a career in jo u rn a lism (or pondering such a thing) research is w h a t drives the to p q u a lity featu re w riter. The kind o f research th a t w e do as featu re w riters is w h a t forces people to read o u r stories from the opening sentence to the last w ord. Good featu re w ritin g dem ands good research. Sure, it includes le arn ­ ing how to read census tables an d school b oard budgets a n d even a sci­ entific article in th e Journal o f the American Medical Association or Scien­ tific American. This ch a p te r cannot give y o u a quick lesson in reading an Excel spreadsheet, b u t it can tell y o u this: You will have to learn h o w to read a n Excel spreadsheet if y o u expect to be tak en seriously as a jo u r n a l­ ist in th e 2 1 st century. This chap ter will n o t m ake y o u a scientist, b u t y o u should seriously consider taking b o th a statistics course an d a scientific research m ethods class. So m u ch of w h a t w e believe a b o u t h e a lth o r m ed­ icine o r society's ills com es fro m studies done a t leading universities and o th e r research entities, b u t do w e really k n o w w h a t th e m edical an d social scientists are telling us? Can w e really tr u s t every n ew stu d y th a t com es d o w n th e pike? A fter all, so m a n y are co n trad icto ry ! You ca n n o t w rite a b o u t m edicine w ith o u t k now ing a t least a little b it o f biology an d p a th o l­ ogy- y o u ca n n o t w rite a b o u t pov erty w ith o u t k n o w in g a little b it a b o u t econom ics, y o u ca n n o t w rite a b o u t politics w ith o u t k n o w in g n am es like

114

RESEARCH

115

Jo h n Locke and Thom as Jefferson, you cannot w rite about veterans of w ar w ith o u t know ing the great issues and the great generals and the num bers of o rdinary foot soldiers w ho fell in terrible battles, and so on. D on't be alarm ed. This chapter focuses m ore on w h a t old-tim e new spa­ per people used to call legwork. As im portant as academic research tools are becoming to both the investigative jo u rn alist and good feature writer, yo u 're still going to have to roll up y o u r sleeves, get y o u r hands dirty, and m arch right into situations w hen lesser jo u rn alists w ould rath e r hide behind their telephones. Good feature w riters have a w ay of im m ersing them selves in a tim e and place, learning all th a t th ey can as they step into a w orld unfam iliar to them , a w orld th a t will become a p art of the readers' reality w hen the w riter is ready to share his or her w ork. If yo u spend tim e on a rem ote Native American reservation, take tim e to understand the conflicts, the religion, the uniqueness of the education system , and the reservation's relationship w ith the federal governm ent and the su rro u n d in g com m u­ nities, then you can begin to explain to y o u r readers ab o u t life on M inne­ sota's Red Lake reservation, w here a 16-year-old g u n m a n shot nine people to death an d th en killed him self on a cold M onday afternoon in M arch 2005. After the news stories had done w h a t they needed to do, giving basic detail and second-day reaction stories, it w as up to the feature w riters to hum anize th e dram a and p u t the reservation in context for readers h u n ­ dreds, even thousands of miles aw ay. A novelist also does research and, as long as he o r she m aintains credi­ bility about the subject m atter, is not necessarily bound by the facts w hen w riting the book. Feature w riters for new spapers o r m agazines are bound by the facts they learn and interpret. Later in this chapter, you'll read ab o u t th e three legs of a feature w rite r's research stool, a m ethod th a t will get you in the best position to w rite the kind of features th a t m ay seem unm anageable to the beginning jo u rn alist. For now, th o u g h , let's talk ab o u t observation. Now and again, to keep m y ow n w riting instincts sharp, I quietly catalog new and unfam iliar surroundings. For example, I am w riting the first draft of this chapter sitting on the deck of a tw o -sto ry log house th a t w as built in 1913 on M ichigan's U pper Peninsula. There is no elec­ tricity o r runn in g w ater here, and, come sundow n, candles and flash­ lights will illum inate the house if it is occupied (the regulars w h o stay here find this lighting preferable to the kerosene lam ps th a t tend to be m ore trouble th a n th e y 're w orth). In one direction, a sh o rt w alk do w n ­ hill leads to a 20-foot dock on Lake Gogebic. In the o th er direction is an outhouse. W hen the hom e w as first built, its ow ner b ro u g h t his nine chil­ dren up for the sum m er from M inneapolis, m aking the trip twice b y a u to ­ mobile to get the entire fam ily to Michigan. Today, the house serves as a fam ily retreat, w ith m em bers signing up in the preceding spring for weeklong stays (Saturday to Saturday). The fam ily m em bers decided against adding electricity or running w ater, even th o u g h it is readily available. The house has a w ood stove th a t's heated by w ood chopped during th e fall

116

CHAPTER 12

and split b y those w h o com e u p to use it. The refrig erato r is pow ered by propane. There is a M cD onald's a b o u t 35 miles a w a y in th e n earest to w n th a t's large en o u g h for such franchises, and a sm all to w n 10 m iles d o w n th e h ig h w a y has th ree bars, a com bin atio n re s ta u ra n t/la u n d ro m a t, a n d a convenience store. T here's also a tin y F o u rth of Ju ly p arad e in th e n ea rb y to w n , follow ed b y a hu g e firew orks show th a t brings in people fro m m iles aro u n d . A bout a m ile a w a y is a c o u n ty p a rk w here th e fam ily p ay s $10 a y ear for a p erm it th a t allow s people to d u m p th e ir tra s h and fill gallon bottles w ith w ater. There are flush toilets a t th e p ark . Those are facts gleaned th ro u g h m y o w n o bservations an d q u estio n asking. Interesting in the asking an d recounting, b u t n o t y et en o u g h to w rite a good feature sto ry a b o u t one fa m ily 's su m m e r place an d its col­ o rfu l history. The pow er o f description is a n im p o rta n t elem ent in th e research toolbox y o u 'll need to w rite excellent featu re stories. Based o n my' know ledge o f th e su m m e r place, I k n o w th a t I'm n o t ready' to w rite th a t story'— p erhaps a travel o r h isto ry piece, w h ich in them selves are a kind o f profile. T here's m ore w o rk to do. W hen w ill I be ready' to w rite so m eth in g for publication? W hen I feel like I k n o w m ore th a n th e people I'm interview ing ab o u t th e place. T h a t's th e ideal. You c a n 't alw ays reach it, b u t th a t's a good, am b itio u s ta rg e t to set for yourself. This exam ple— I w a n t to k n o w th e prim itiv e N o rth w o o d 's re tre a t b etter th a n I k n o w m y o w n h om e an d b etter th a n the locals k n o w i t — h as lessons th a t are tran sferab le to alm o st any' story' o r w ritin g assignm ent. I w a n t th e things told in an in terv iew to be confirm ed, w h eth e r it be a second source, an official docum ent, o r w hatever. W h en I w as th e a ssista n t sports editor for a good-sized M idw estern new spaper, I w orked w ith a w rite r w h o had a m a ste rfu l to u c h w ith th e language, sp in ­ ning p h rases in a w a y th a t I could never im agine m y self doing. However, th e w rite r's w o rk often w as light on research. The resu lt, I o ften felt, w as th a t w e w ere telling stories th a t d id n 't take readers as far as I w o u ld have liked. "C otton candy," w e som etim es called these stories in g ath erin g s of editors. They' seemed good en o u g h a t first, b u t afte r y o u w ere finished, y'ou realized there w a s n 't really' m u ch there. T hey w ere good stories th a t could have been great. T hink a b o u t this: The good featu re w rite r u su a lly is going in to te rri­ to ry th a t h as already' been m ined by' o th ers. A new s story' ab o u t th e d eath of a soldier in Iraq is ty'pically' follow ed b y th e featu re a b o u t th e deceased, n o t so m u c h a b o u t how th e soldier died as m u c h as a b o u t h o w he o r she lived. First, th e new s rep o rter chases th e new s, th e n th e featu re w rite r h as th e chance to explain w h a t it m eans. For exam ple, one w rite r a t the M inneapolis S ta r TYibune p u t to g e th er th e stories o f tw o dead servicem en— one w h o died in com bat an d one w h o died m y'steriously' in K uw ait— w h o atten ded th e sam e sm a ll-to w n hig h school. Individually, each w as a story. Together, th e y m ade for a pow erful tale a b o u t tw o y'oung m en fro m a p a rt o f ru ra l M innesota th a t seemed to be paying a d isp ro p o rtio n ate price in th e W ar o n Terror. Added to this story', m ak in g it even m ore dram atic, w as th e perspective o f a th ird friend w ho had enlisted w ith th e o th e r tw o b u t

RESEARCH

— —

117

ended u p staying hom e because of an injury. The sources th a t the reporter unearthed in covering the original new s stories led h er to a compelling tale about young lives lost and how they were m ourned. T hat reporter, a form er medical reporter tu rn ed general assig n m en t/ feature w riter, became m ore valuable to her new spaper because of her research skills. In a 12-m onth period, she w rote ab o u t subjects as diverse as school shootings in a ru ra l M innesota com m unity, the Catholic phe­ nom enon of perpetual adoration, electronic surveillance on the bridges of M adison C ounty (to th w a rt vandals and arsonists), and the jo y s of law nm ow er racing. As the editor, I knew I could give this reporter a topic and w ithin 2 to 6 hours, she w as going to be well on her w ay to getting the inform ation needed for a first-rate feature. There w as n o t only style to her w o rk b u t also substance, a full meal instead of cotton candy. Sometimes, the first step is a simple search, perhaps using a search engine such as Google— a kind of factory outlet m all for 2 1 st-cen tu ry jo u rn alists, in th a t some results are valuable and some is overhyped and hardly w o rth its place in cyberspace. For example, if y o u 're doing a quick-hit interview w ith a n artist in y o u r tow n, and the p rom oter did not forw ard you a press kit (or yo u d o n 't tr u s t it), yo u can likely find o u t all sorts of biographical inform ation online. D on't do an interview w ith a visiting artist, celebrity, or a u th o r w ith o u t doing m inim al back­ ground research. If you've been assigned to w rite about the local college's new football coach, or the new superintendent of public schools, do an online search, too. Maybe the person w as fired from his or her last job! If so, y ou'll have som ething to talk about during your form al interview. But inform ation online can be w rong, so look for m ultiple (and indepen­ dent) sources th a t allege the sam e fact and give y o u r interview subject a chance to react. Also, as good as Google is, d o n 't forget about other search engines, such as Yahoo! or MSN. Search engines are ju s t starters. The real research, however, is done on the ground. Visiting people and places and seeing things for yourself is w h a t separates the real w riters from the m ere stenographers. Being p ro ­ active and w inning the tru s t of people you ju s t know will be sources for you in the fu tu re also m atters. For example, yo u m ay have to investigate background and connections to a shooting in a close-lipped sm all tow n. You can call the local police chief and ask him to fill you in, b u t it's far better if you have already established a rap p o rt w ith him either th ro u g h earlier w o rk or th ro u g h social calls w hen you w eren 't asking him to help on a specific story. An example o f such payoff: A funeral service is closed to the media, and, ra th e r th a n risk attending and being asked to leave, the rep o rter's rapport w ith the police chief is so good th a t the chief offers to m ake a tape of the m em orial service. Then, w h en the reporter w an ts to w rite about how teenagers in the com m unity rallied aro u n d the fam ily of a teenager w ho w as shot to death by a classm ate, it w as the police chief w ho m ade the overture to the fam ily on behalf of the reporter. Good feature w riting is n o t form ulaic, and I resist m ost tem ptations to tr y to chart the w a y to a good story. I've seen it done by others, and

118

—

CHAPTER 12

th e results typically range fro m silly to laughable. I w en t to one sem in ar w h ere th e presen ter likened fea tu re w ritin g to th e flight of a spaceship. T h at seemed a little risky to m e, to be h onest. B ut a developing featu re w rite r w ould be w ise to consider research as a three-legged stool in w hich all th ree legs m u s t be th e sam e length, lest y o u r sto ry w obble w ith th e u n c e rta in ty of th e facts an d observations th a t y o u bring to it. The first leg of the stool is th e subject itself— learning all y o u can fro m th e w o rk of others. T h at m eans usin g th e resources of y o u r o w n n ew sp a­ p e r— its library, w h a t y o u r lib rary researchers are able to find fro m o th e r sources, y o u r o w n In tern et research, books, an d o th e r d ata th a t help y o u fram e th e basic direction o f y o u r featu re story. W riting ab o u t a reform ed convict's life of crime, for exam ple, d o esn 't w o rk w ith o u t reading n o t o nly th e new s accounts of th e crim es b u t also his crim inal records th a t sh o u ld be available th ro u g h th e co u n ty co u rts, law enforcem ent agencies, and the state d ep a rtm en t o f corrections. M ost in fo rm atio n fro m th e co u rts is public record, w hich m eans y o u have a n absolute, u n fettered rig h t to review them , w ith p artial exception o f ju v en ile records, som e sexual assau lt files in som e states, and som e sealed files. (Your sta te alm o st certain ly has a professional jo u rn a lists' o r p ublish ers association, an d th e y offer legal counsel ab o u t y o u r rig h ts as a jo u rn a list.) The goal is to k n o w y o u r subject en o u g h after th e first phase o f y o u r research th a t n o th in g y o u learn afte r­ w a rd will take y o u b y surprise. There are few th in g s w o rse th a n h aving th e prem ise of y o u r sto ry v anish because th e first phase o f y o u r research is inadequate. For exam ple, y o u d o n 't w a n t to w rite ab o u t a killer an d learn only after th e sto ry th a t he h ad a n accom plice. You d o n 't w a n t to w rite a sto ry a b o u t a needy single p a re n t w h o w o n th e lo ttery o nly to learn th a t he o r she is a deadbeat w ith a long trail o f debt a n d b an k ru p tcy . You d o n 't w a n t to w rite a b o u t a fu n d ra ise r fo r a m a n o r w o m a n w ith cancer o n ly to find o u t later th a t the subject d o e sn 't have cancer an d has pulled fu n d ra is­ ing scam s in m a n y o th e r com m unities before g etting to y o u rs. The featu re w riter in p articu la r should have tim e to be th o ro u g h in his or her research, do In tern et searches, look u p o th e r m edia rep o rts on Nexis (assum ing y o u r m edia o u tlet subscribes to th is online d atab ase o f m illions of vetted n ew s­ paper an d m agazine articles fro m a ro u n d th e w orld), an d tak e full a d v a n ­ tage of all available tools. The second leg o f th e research stool is b u ilt fro m th e first: contacts, contacts, contacts. D ocum ents co n tain n am es an d facts and opinions an d color an d b ackground a n d avenues th a t o th e r jo u rn a lists did n o t have the tim e or inclination to explore in p u ttin g to g eth er th e ir new s stories or o th e r w o rk . Use y o u r contacts for focus an d clarity. There is a ro m an tic no tio n of th e featu re w rite r show ing u p in to w n , going to th e local cafe, talking u p th e locals, a n d nailing th e s to ry over several h o u rs o f coffee. It do esn 't w o rk like th a t. Not b y itself. In th e early years o f m y w ritin g career, I w as in trig u ed by the w o rk of a N o rth D akota sp o rts editor nam ed Ed Kolpack, w h o m ade a m ission o f getting ju stice for a 1940s era basketball te am fro m th e w estern end o f his state. The Elbow oods te a m h ad finished second in th e 1942 sta te to u r n a ­

RESEARCH

—

119

m e n t b u t, for som e reason, w as n o t aw ard ed th e ch am pionship after the w inning te am w as discovered to have used an ineligible player. Kolpack spent years try in g to correct w h a t he perceived as an injustice ag ain st a te am th a t w as m ade u p largely of N ative A m ericans, an d it seemed like a good sto ry for m y n ew spaper to w rite about. One problem : Elbow oods no longer existed, having been flooded o u t as p a rt of a n engineering project. U sing Kolpack's w o rk , I set o u t to contact m em bers of th e te am w h o w ere th o u g h t to be living. I sent o u t letters w ith sketchy addresses, hoping they w ould get in to the rig h t hands and w ould be re tu rn e d w ith m em ories from decades earlier. I w as fo rtu n a te . Several letters cam e back, including one from a p lay er on th e te am w ho had ended u p in n o rth w e ste rn M innesota an d said he w o u ld be thrilled to visit w ith me. The o th e r replies offered up quotes and opinions and o th e r people w h o m ig h t have som e know ledge. A nd th ere w as th e official version of w h a t happened, w hich w as available th ro u g h th e governing body for high school sports in N orth D akota. These com prised th e second leg of th e sto o l— th e contacts. Those tw o legs led to the th ird an d finishing leg: th e interview s th a t m ade th e fea tu re m y ow n. Rem em ber th a t going to th e scene for this sto ry w as im possible because Elbowoods no longer existed. But th ere w ere people to visit an d records to review an d a quick trip to th e to w n th a t had been disqualified to m ake su re th a t nobody kn ew th e w h ereab o u ts o f the m issing trophy. But now , arm ed w ith th e w ritin g s of o th ers an d the con­ tacts th a t I had m ade based on those, it w as tim e to do th e interview s th a t w o u ld finish off th e research stool and allow me to w rite. This is w here good featu re w riters distinguish them selves, asking th e rig h t questions to w rite the sto ry th a t is ju s t w aitin g to be w ritte n an d take th e readers fu rth e r th a n th ey have gone before. Being th ere is th e fun p art, th e p a rt th a t m akes th e pulse race— m eeting y o u r sto ry subjects an d m ak in g the o bservations th a t w ill w rite a sto ry th a t separates y o u from y o u r co u n ­ te rp a rts. Good research provides good featu re w riters w ith so m u ch in fo rm atio n th a t th e trick for th e m o ften is to decide w h a t to use an d w h a t to discard, ra th e r th a n sitting a t th e keyboard try in g to figure o u t w h a t m ore th ey need to fill o u t th e story. T hey have th e d ata th a t will survive th e intense line-by-line sc ru tin y o f a copy editor and o th e r n ew sro o m bosses. Recently, I read 58 Degrees North, the M ysterious Sinking o f the Arctic Rose, a book by H ugo Kugiya, th a t sta rted o u t as a 3 -d ay n ew sp ap er series in Long Island Newsday (Kugiya, H. 2005. New York: B loom sbury Pub­ lish in g ). The series w o n th e n e w sp a p e r's to p in -house aw a rd in 2001 an d recoun ts the deadly sinking of a fishing b o at in th e Bering Sea, in w h ich 15 m en died quickly an d violently for reasons th a t, to th is day, no one can p in p o in t w ith to ta l certainty. The book is riveting in its tale an d in its detail. However, a n added gem is th e acknow ledgm ent a t the end, typically a place fo r a u th o rs to th a n k th e ir agents an d family. In th is case, the ch ap ter is a w o n d erfu lly in stru ctiv e tu to ria l for h o w to p u t tog eth er a featu re story. You can go th ro u g h this final ch ap ter w ith three

120

—•

CHAPTER 12

different-colored highlighters and pick o u t the legs of th e research sto o l— the original docum entation in the form of new s reports and official records, the contacts m ade by the a u th o r w ith the fam ily of the deceased and those w ho responded to the tragedy, and w h a t those interview s and observa­ tions yielded. There are letters from one of the dead fisherm en to his girl­ friend th a t came to light only because of the tru s t th a t Kugiya h ad w ith the fam ily members. There are the descriptive observations from a fish­ eries' observer and a form er engineer w ho w ere am ong the last people to spend tim e on the boat before it sank. There are descriptions of shipbuild­ ing and com m ercial fishing th a t come from a reporter show ing interest and know ledge in interview s th a t w ere gleaned from the o th er legs of the research stool. T hat acknow ledgm ent chapter outlines the entire package and, for a feature w riter-in-training, should be read before reading the rest of the book! In m y experience, 1 am certain th a t the old basketball player from Elbow oods w ould not have been nearly as forthcom ing if 1 h a d n 't been able to cite details about the state to u rn a m e n t w hen 1 first spoke w ith him . He knew I'd done m y research ab o u t som ething th a t happened long before I w as born, and he w as going to help m e w ith m em ories from a pre­ cious tim e in his life. So it w as, too, in the sto ry ab o u t one of th e school shootings cited earlier in this chapter— the reporter b ro u g h t credibility to her quest for a great sto ry by know ing the region's cities, its people, and the school in a w ay th a t earned the tr u s t of m a n y of those closest to the tragedy. T hat she knew the accom plishm ents of the senior w ho w as in the w rong place at the w rong tim e w hen the shooting started eventu­ ally yielded access to the family. It allowed her to w rite ab o u t the m o th er and father as they played host to one of the weekly gatherings th a t local teenagers held at their house, gatherings th a t served as a com fort to the parents and gatherings th a t m ade for a heartw arm in g and sad feature story. Later, after the trial in w hich the teenaged g u n m an w as sentenced to 42 years in prison, his parents w ere im pressed enough w ith the sub­ stance o f the rep o rter's w o rk to sit dow n w ith her and let her w rite about the grief they were feeling. Those kinds of stories d o n 't sim ply happen. T hey're the result of a feature w rite r's h ard w ork. Let me suggest a quick m ental exercise, sim ilar to som ething th a t 1 did to open this chapter. Take som ething im p o rta n t to you and describe it as best you can from the knowledge th a t's in y o u r head. Write things dow n. Then, w hen y o u 're done, go back and w rite how yo u knew each of those things. Your ow n recollection? Som ething yo u w ere told o r read? Some­ thing you think you know b u t w ould need to nail dow n fu rth e r before it m eets the threshold for a new spaper feature? In the case of the house I w rote ab o u t on M ichigan's Lake Gogebic, m y sources included DVD col­ lections o f photographic images and a scrapbook. It included odom eter checks for distances and m y ow n visual im pressions. I kn o w w here even sh o rt people can bum p their heads and how the small to w n dow n th e road has fallen on hard tim es. I know w h a t's 110% accurate and w h a t needs to

RESEARCH

121

be checked further before I can actually sit down to write a feature story about the old house and the generations th a t have lived there. But, mostly, I know that I've done enough work in building the first tw o legs of the stool for this story that the third would readily fall into place.

Chapter

Content Editing for Features

L au rie H ertz el Star Tribune

Here's the thing about feature stories: T hey're optional. Feature stories d o n 't break new s. T hey d o n 't necessarily contain inform ation th a t people need to know. N ew spapers d o n 't have to ru n them . And readers d o n 't have to read them . So w h y have them ? Because th e y 're fun. T h ey 're som ething different to read. T hey're illum inating. They entertain, or they provide context and back story, o r they tell a dram atic tale, or, like great fiction, they offer insight into the h u m a n condition. T hat is, new spaper features should do those things. The sad tr u th is th a t they only accom plish those things a sm all percentage of the time. M ost new spapers, unfortunately, are filled w ith boring or predictable feature stories. W hen stories d o n 't w ork, the problem does n ot lie entirely w ith the rep o rter—th e problem also lies w ith the editor. W hat w ere the ed ito r's expectations? Did he o r she m ake them clear? Or did the editor send the reporter o u t the door w ith no guidance? Features generally are not breaking stories, so in m ost cases there should be plenty of tim e to plan them . Use th a t tim e wisely. Keep in m ind th a t you as an editor of feature stories (or fu tu re editor) are the gatekeeper on these stories. It's y o u r job to w ork w ith the reporter to ensure th a t the sto ry th a t ru n s in the paper is fun, surprising, m oving, and entertaining. You ca n 't ensure th a t by ju s t giving an assignm ent. It takes w ork. This chapter expains how to m ake good features happen. W ork w ith the reporter on the fro n t end; know w h at y o u 're looking for. If it's ju s t a spot featu re— coverage of a single event, such as a cu ltu ral festival o r a school science fair or an im p ro m p tu p a rty w h en a fire h y d ran t

122

CONTENT EDITING FOR FEATURES

123

is opened on a h o t s u m m e r's d a y — you sh o u ld n 't expect an y com plica­ tions. These kinds of sp o t features are u su a lly lim ited in scope, often 500 w ords or less. But they should be w ritte n in such a w ay th a t m akes th em fu n to read. The rep o rter should know th a t he o r she can inject a little per­ sonal voice in to these stories. The strict rules th a t ap p ly to stra ig h t new s can be relaxed. Some reporters are su rp rised to h ear th is — rem in d th em th a t they have a bit m ore freedom in features. Profiles are th e bread an d b u tte r o f all celebrity and gossip m agazines an d continue to be p o p u la r o n th e features desk. You've read ab o u t p ro ­ files in a n earlier chapter, b u t assigning a n d editing profiles has its ow n set of rules. Profiles in a local new spaper typically are of solid, im p o rta n t figures, such as m a y o rs o r CEOs, b u t th e y can also be o f q u irk y o rd in ary folk, such as the w o m a n w h o sells flow ers in b ars or th e older g u y w h o is spending his retirem en t to u rin g the c o u n try o n his th ree-w h eel bike. Pro­ files can be d au n tin g for a reporter, so it's w o rth it to spend a few p a ra ­ grap h s here talking ab o u t th em . How do yo u condense a p erso n 's entire life, th eir psyche, th e ir in n e rm o st secrets, in to 40 co lu m n inches (about 1,500 w ords)? Well, of course, y o u d o n 't. So w h en y o u assign a profile, m ake sure y o u k n o w w h a t y o u 're looking for. It's seldom th a t y o u 'll w a n t a cradle-to -g rav e h isto ry o f th e p erson's entire life, so help th e rep o rter figure o u t w h a t th e focus sh o u ld be. W h at m akes th a t person interesting? W hat m akes th e person w o rth a profile? Is there a p articu la r angle th a t interests you? D uring th e 20 0 4 presidential race, Jodi W ilgoren o f The New York Times profiled candidate H ow ard D ean's wife, J u d ith Steinberg Dean. N ew spa­ pers alw ay s profile candidates' w ives. It's a sta n d ard assig n m en t d u rin g an election year. The trick is to find o u t w h a t's in terestin g a b o u t th e person. In th e case of Ju d ith Steinberg Dean, w h a t w as interesting w as th a t she w a s n 't a ro u n d m uch. She w a s n 't o u t on th e cam paign trail. She w a s n 't a typical adoring political spouse. Instead, she w as hom e in V erm ont, w orking. She's a doctor. W hen W ilgoren profiled her for The New York Times, th a t w as w h a t she zoom ed in on: Ju d ith Steinberg D ean as a candidate's u n u su a l wife (W ilgoren, J. 2004. "The E x-G overnor's Wife: The O ther D octor in D ean's House Shuns Politics," The New York Times, p. A l). The n u t g ra f m akes the focus of the profile clear: "In 23 years o f m arriag e, 18 of w h ich Dean has spent ru n n in g for, or serving in, office, his wife, Ju d ith Steinberg Dean, has developed an u n u su a l role: th e invisible political spouse." The profile covered th e typical aspects o f a profile— w h o she is, h o w th e couple m et, w here she w e n t to school, how m a n y children th e y h av e— b u t everything w as told th ro u g h th e focus of th a t n u t graf. Profiles can also be w ritte n as tales. The d ay -in -th e-life stru c tu re is useful for profiles th a t are m e a n t to be glim pses in to som eone else's life. W hen Tom H allm an Jr. of th e Portland Oregonian profiled d o o r-to -d o o r salesm an Bill Porter, he did it by follow ing Porter from early m o rn in g un til late a t nig h t. The sto ry covers ju s t one day, h o u r by hour. But Hall­ m a n 's story, like W ilgoren's, h ad a them e. Porter has cerebral palsy, an d

124

——

CHAPTER 13

every m in u te o f his day m eans overcom ing obstacles large an d sm a ll— fro m n o t being able to tie his o w n shoes to n o t being able to w alk v ery w ell to n o t being able to type his orders quickly. T h at becam e th e them e of H allm an's piece, an d every scene th a t he chose to pain t reinforced th a t them e. Every scene show ed Porter overcom ing yet a n o th e r obstacle: "His first stop today, like every day, is a shoeshine sta n d w h ere em ployees tie his laces. Twice a w eek he pays for a shine. At a n earb y hotel one of th e d o o rm en b u tto n s P o rte r's to p sh irt b u tto n an d slips on his clip-on tie. He th e n w alks to a n o th e r bus th a t drops h im o ff a mile fro m his te rr ito r y — a neighborhood n ear W ilson High School." ("Bill Porter: A Salesm an" by Tom H allm an Jr. Nov. 19, 1995, The Portland Oregonian, p. LI) W hen y o u r rep o rter sets o u t to profile som eone, encourage him or her to look for a them e in th a t perso n 's life. It will give th e sto ry m ore m eaning, m ore poignancy, o r m ore un iv ersal tr u th . It will help th e profile rise above a m ere recitation o f th e facts o f som eone's existence. There are o th e r kinds o f features y o u 'll assign. For exam ple, th e re are n arrativ es and y a r n s — stories told in chronological o rder th a t unfold m o m e n t b y m o m e n t and w hich have a larg er m eaning th a t tr y to get a t a g rea ter tru th . (M ore o n n a rrativ es la ter in th is chapter.) There also are n ew sfeatures (not to be confused w ith th e sim ple spot features described earlier). M ake su re y o u r rep o rters k n o w the difference. These are stories off the new s o r stories th a t get behind th e scenes o f a new s event. Like Jim m y B reslin's fam o u s 1963 co lu m n ab o u t th e grave digger a t Jo h n F. Kennedy Jr.'s funeral. H ere's th e opening p ara g ra p h : Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. His wife, Hettie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. “Polly, could you please be here by eleven o’clock this morning?" Kawalchik asked. "I guess you know what it’s for." Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast, and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. (New York Herald Tribune Nov. 1963) W hen y o u send a rep o rter o u t on assig n m en t, th e first th in g y o u should do is have a conversation. W here are y o u sending the rep o rter? W h at are y o u r expectations? W hat kind o f sto ry are y o u hoping for? Talk ab o u t th e possibilities. Talk ab o u t w h a t fo rm th e sto ry m ig h t take. All o f these th in g s can change as the reporting progresses, o f course. B ut it's helpful to talk a b o u t it in th e beginning so th a t y o u a n d th e rep o rter b o th have sim ilar expectations. If it's a n arrativ e, does th e w rite r u n d ersta n d w h a t th a t entails? Explain th a t a n a rra tiv e requires a deeper level o f rep o rtin g th a n a m ore tra d i­ tional feature. If it's a profile, w h a t do y o u really w a n t to k n o w ab o u t th e profile subject; w h y is th e paper doing a sto ry o n this p erso n a t this

CONTENT EDITING FOR FEATURES

125

time? Good w ritin g requires good thinking, so help y o u r reporters th in k it through. After the reporter gets the assignm ent, take tim e to chat w ith him or her. Ask the reporter open-ended questions. You're n o t necessarily looking for answ ers at this point, b u t yo u are try in g to help the reporter keep b oth his or her approach and y o u r expectations in m ind. Here are some questions you should ask before sending a reporter o u t to do a narrative or a m u ltip art series: W hat are you looking for? W ho's y o u r m ain char­ acter? How are y o u going to tell it? W hat tone will it take? W h at kind of story will this be? Is there a conflict, a tale? W here is the tension? W hy will someone w a n t to read it? W hat one sto ry do yo u w a n t to tell? Tell y o u r reporter th a t y o u 're not looking for a roundup; y o u 're looking for a tale, som ething he or she w ould tell buddies a t the bar at the end of the shift, som ething he or she w ould tell Mom over Sunday dinner, or tell a friend to m ake her laugh, or m ake her gasp, or m ake the hair stand up on her neck. This technique of debriefing a reporter w orks for sim pler stories, too. If you send a reporter o u t to w rite a feature about the state fair, for instance, y o u do not w a n t the reporter to come back and w rite som ething broad and vague, such as, "The sun shone S aturday on a happy group of m om s, dads, and kids w ho strolled the m idw ay, visited the cow barns, and chowed dow n on greasy ju n k food." Would y o u read th a t sto ry if you didn't have to? Readers already know w h a t th e state fair looks like. They already know th a t it attracts m om s, dads, and kids. They already know th a t people go to the fair to eat Pronto Pups and m ini-doughnuts. So tell y o u r reporter to avoid generalities and, instead, find som ething specific. Ask him or her to tell you a story' about th e fa ir— mayrbe a story' about one fair-goer, or one carny, or one aspect of th e fair, such as the hog barns or the quilt exhibit. Ask the reporter to go to the fair and take the reader, m ake it interesting, spin a yarn. Back in the late 1980s, D etroit Free Press reporter D uane N oriyuki w as dispatched to cover the state fair. He came across a hefty gu y w ho w as sitting on an overturned plastic bucket. It tu rn ed o u t th a t this guy brings the bucket w ith him w herever he goes, in case he w an ts to sit dow n. Nori­ yuki had him self a quirky little feature. He w rote the following: "This is the sto ry of a m an and his bucket. The m an is Donald Schram m , 50, of Detroit, a barber and substitute teacher. The w hite bucket is m ade of plastic and held five gallons of dish detergent before it started holding 300 pounds of Schram m , w ho is 5 foot 7." ("M an and Bucket Go to the Fair" by D uane N oriyuki, Detroit Free Press, Sept. 1, 1988, p. 3A) It tu rn ed into a little color story. A goofy story, a fu n story, an unexpected delight. W hen I w as dispatched several years ago to w rite a state fair feature for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I gave it some th o u g h t before heading out. I w as interested in the food displays. (I am p retty m uch alw ays interested in food.) It occurred to me th a t I had no idea h o w the food is judged, w h at criteria are used. I couldn't w rite ab o u t all state fair food exhibits—there's hom egrow n and hom e-baked and hom e-pickled and hom e-preserved, and

126

CHAPTER 13

I knew I h ad to n a rro w m y topic even fu rth er. I th o u g h t, "I lo w do th e judges do w h a t th e y do? H ow you k n o w a good p o ta to w h en yo u see one? D on't all green beans look alike?" And th a t becam e the focus of m y sta te fair story, "Judging the Perfect Green Bean." The sto ry sta rted like this: You might assume that all green beans look alike—and that would be a reason­ able assumption—but Dee Ann Roberts knows better. Some green beans are lumpy. Some are spotted. Many are curved, or pale, or limp, hone of those are acceptable characteristics for a prize-winning bean. What you want in a prize-winning green bean is consistency. You want a nice, straight bean, not too mature, no spots, stems intact, and then you want it lying on a tray next to 24 other green beans exactly like it. Roberts knows this because she’s been exhibiting vegetables for years—both successfully (one year she and her husband, Duane, won the State Fair Vegeta­ ble Sweepstakes award) and not so successfully (another year her beans were dis­ qualified because Duane, in his zeal to help, neatly trimmed off all the stems). She also knows this because she is this year’s State Fair Vegetable Judge. (‘Judging the Perfect Green Bean” by Laurie Hertzel, Aug. 31, 1999, Star Tribune, p. IE) The f eatu re becam e a profile o f a ju d g e an d a tale o f h o w she w o rk ed her w a y m ethodically fro m tr a y o' beans to tr a y o ' beans, looking for a w inner. W heth er y o u r rep o rter is w ritin g a sp o t feature, a new s feature, or a long n arrativ e, th e rules o f editing are the sam e. In th e first place, th e s to ry sho u ld be w o rth doing. Beyond th a t, it should be su rp risin g , engag­ ing, entertain in g , an d fun to read, an d it's also nice if th e reader can learn som ething along th e w ay. The stru c tu re should be ap p ro p riate to the to p ic— it's a rare featu re th a t should be w ritte n as an inverted p y ram id , fo r instance. The length should also be ap p ro p riate. All of th is advice so u n d s v ague, I k n o w (w h at do I m ean b y "appropriate"?), b u t th is is w here y o u r n ew s ju d g m e n t as features editor com es into play. E ncourage th e w rite r to m ap th e sto ry an d find a them e. Chip Scanlan of the P oynter In stitu te (a school for jo u rn a lists, fu tu re jo u rn a lists, an d teachers of jo u rn alists) recom m ends doing th e first read as a reader, w here you d o n 't actually edit th e sto ry b u t instead m a rk on th e h ard copy w h ere y o u g o t confused, w here y o u g o t bored, w h ere y o u w ere delighted, w h ere y o u th o u g h t th e sto ry got off track, w h ere it picked up again. T h at kind o f first-reaction read is v e ry helpful to th e w rite r an d lets h im o r her solve som e o f the problem s. This advice is p articu la rly useful w h en editing n arrativ es. At th eir sim plest, n arrativ es are ju s t stories th a t follow a chronological o rd e r— this happened, th en som ething else happened, and, finally, h ere's h o w it ended. M ost n arrativ es y o u 'll assign can be told in one in stallm en t. O ther n arrativ es w ill sp an several days. W hen th e y do, each section o f th e tale should sta n d on its o w n b u t should also lead y o u to th e n ex t d a y 's in stall­ m ent.

C O N T E N T ED IT IN G FO R F E A T U R E S

—

127

N a rra tiv e s a re m a d e u p o f scenes a n d su m m a ry '. To h elp y o u r w r ite r c o n s tru c t a n a r r a tiv e , y o u n ee d to te a c h h im o r h e r th e d ifferen ce b e tw e e n th e tw o . Scenes a re th e b a c k b o n e o f n a r r a tiv e . Scenes a re w h e re th e a c tio n o f th e s to r y ta k e s place, w h e re th e p lo t u n fo ld s . W h e n w ritin g a scene, r e p o rte rs w a n t re a d e rs to feel like th e y 'r e r ig h t th e re . Scenes s h o u ld u n fo ld m o m e n t b y m o m e n t. I t's h e lp fu l to th in k in te rm s o f m a k in g a m o v ie o r s ta g in g a p la y : T he c u r ta in rises, th e scene b eg in s, th e c h a ra c te rs w a lk o n to ce n te r sta g e , a n d th e re 's a c tio n . T he c h a ra c te rs m o v e th r o u g h th e scene, ta lk in g , fig h tin g , e a tin g , w h a te v e r. T h e c u r ta in goes d o w n , a n d th e scene is over. S u m m a rie s co v er sp a n s o f tim e . T h ey s titc h scenes to g e th er, g e ttin g re a d e rs f ro m o n e to th e n e x t. T he s u m m a ry ' is u su a lly ' s h o r t. It's less sp e­ cific a n d m o re glo b al th a n a scene. A s u m m a r y h elp s sk ip re a d e rs a h e a d in tim e a n d fills th e m in o n s tu f f th e y need to k n o w b u t d o n 't n ec essarily need to see in detail. If a m in o r e v e n t leads u p to a n im p o r ta n t scene, th e w rite r s h o u ld u se s u m m a r y fo r th e first e v e n t a n d let th e im p o r ta n t ev en t u n w in d as a scene. H ere is a scene fro m a lo n g n a r r a tiv e a b o u t a te en m u r ­ derer. It w a s w r itte n b y L a rry O akes, a w r ite r f o r th e S ta r Tribune: Darryl Headbird remembers getting a good grip on the bat and adjusting his stance. He stood next to the bed in the darkened room. His father's eyes were closed. Darryl could hear his rhythmic breathing and see his chest rise and fall. Darryl, 14, raised the bat above his head. But a sudden twinge of concern stopped him. What if he doesn't die after the first swing? He lowered the bat and thought. Then he tiptoed out of the little house where he lived with his father on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation. The night was black; it was well after midnight on May 25, 2001. Darryl whis­ tled their chained dog over to where he stood and patted its head. The nameless brown dog lay down at his feet in the dark. Darryl took a step back and swung the bat. The sound of the dog's skull splin­ tering reminded him of the noise a cracker makes when bitten, he said later. More significant to him, though, was the way the dog collapsed and died without a whimper. He dragged the warm, limp carcass through the back yard and heaved it into the brush. Then he walked back into the house, bat in hand. ("The Lost Youth of Leech Lake" by Larry Oakes, Star Tribune, p. 1A, April 25, 2004) N otice h o w O akes u n fo ld e d th a t scene m o m e n t by' m o m e n t, u sin g a c tio n (th e c h e st rises a n d falls, th e b o y lo w e rs th e b a t a n d tip to e s o u t o f th e h o u se ) a n d ta c tile d etails (he d ra g g e d th e w a r m , lim p c a rcass a n d h eav ed it in to th e b r u s h ). A nd h ere is a s u m m a r y fro m th e sa m e s to ry : The Leech Lake Indian Reservation is a place of breathtaking natural beauty. Majestic stands of pine ring three of Minnesota’s largest lakes. Tourists com e here to fish, hunt or snowmobile in a place where bald eagles soar above sugar-sand beaches. But in the midst of this tremendous beauty, there is tremendous misery. Here, alarming numbers of Indian children are lost to alcohol, drugs, prison and vio­ lence. Leech Lake is not the only Minnesota tribe facing such problems. But lately the reservation has become an especially violent place, where murders are no

128

——

CHAPTER 13

longer surprising. The Leech Lake Reservation is, statistically, among the worst places in Minnesota to grow up. xNotice h o w th is section sum m arizes im p o rta n t in fo rm atio n . It gives you th e context y o u need to u n d ersta n d the reserv atio n w h ere D arry l grew up. A nd th e n y o u go back to D a rry l's story, w hich is rich in scenes, details, telling quotes, an d m ore. If y o u r rep o rter is w ritin g in scenes, help h im or h er m ake su re th a t each scene accom plishes so m e th in g — th a t th e rep o rter isn 't giving m o m e n tb y -m o m e n t details th a t are m eaningless o r d o n 't advance the story. M ake sure th e rep o rter picks his scenes judiciously. Explain th a t he o r she sh o u ld th in k in te rm s o f steppingstones ra th e r th a n a sidew alk— th e read er will follow ; th e rep o rter d o esn 't have to lead th e reader every step o f th e w ay. D o n 't let th e w rite r tell everything, ju s t th e im p o rta n t stuff. H eart-h ead is a useful stru c tu re for tre n d stories. Briefly, th e h e a rt refers to th e h u m a n elem ent an d em otion in a sto ry ; th e head refers to th e expert quotes an d in fo rm atio n the rep o rter includes. It's sim ilar to the focus sto ry stru c tu re o utlined in a n earlier chapter. H ere's h o w h e a rt-h e a d w orks: Find a person w h o represents y o u r tren d an d tell his or h er sto ry in chronological order (e.g., h o w som eone lives on m in im u m w age o r h o w a g ra n d m o th e r is raising h er gran d ch ild ren ). Also do research o n th e larger s to ry — th e context o f th e trend, th e b ack g ro u n d , the new est d ata. Break th e h u m a n tale in to chunks. These are y o u r "heart" sections. A ltern ate th e h ea rt sections w ith "head" sections— th a t is, sections th a t co n tain th e experts, context, and statistics. The h e a rt sections pull th e reader th ro u g h th e story. T hey keep th e sto ry h u m a n an d relevant, w hereas th e h ead sec­ tions m ake it relevant. S ta rt w ith h e a rt a n d end w ith h eart. H ere's a n exam ple o f h e a rt-h e ad fro m a s to ry b y Josephine M arco tty of th e Star Tribune. M arcotty''s sto ry is a b o u t a n ew tre a tm e n t fo r h ea rt attacks. She h u m an ized th e tren d by finding som eone w h o h ad gone th ro u g h th e tre a tm e n t. Here is the h ea rt section: "Rick Abeln w as m ow ing th e law n in th e a fte rn o o n h eat on Sept. 3 w h en he felt a fam iliar pain deep in his chest. Even afte r he stopped to rest, th e ache d id n 't go aw ay. He knew w h a t th a t m eant. He called his w ife, Bonnie, an d told h er to m eet him a t the hospital in H utchinson, w h ere th e y live. He w as h aving a h ea rt attack , he told her. A nother one." ("Treated in a H eartbeat" by Josephine M arcotty, Star Tribune, p. 1A, Sept. 18, 2004) This w as follow ed by a head section, giving context an d in fo rm a tio n on th e tren d itself: For heart attack victims such as Abeln, speed is everything. He was about to experience a new fast-track treatment that rushed him from Hutchinson to Minne­ apolis and opened the blocked artery in his heart within 90 minutes—in plenty of time to prevent major damage. Abeln is one of 360 patients from two dozen community hospitals who have benefited from the new system, which is credited with reducing the number of heart attack deaths in Minnesota. Spearheaded by Abbott Northwestern Hospital

CONTENT EDITING FOR FEATURES —

129

in Minneapolis, it's becoming a national model for succeeding at something that many experts thought couldn’t be done. It gives rural and small-town patients access to the most advanced emergency treatment for heart attacks, something community hospitals usually can’t offer. The treatment includes angioplasty, a procedure that opens clogged heart arter­ ies, and the placement of drug-coated stents to keep them open. A nd th en a n o th e r "heart" section: For Abeln, 48, the clock started ticking when he arrived at the Hutchinson Hospi­ tal emergency room at about 3:45 p.m. Within the next 30 minutes, his condition was diagnosed, and he was medicated, dressed in a patient gown and rushed out to an air ambulance. A half-hour later, the helicopter was landing at Abbott North­ western Hospital in Minneapolis, more than 60 miles from home. It took medics six minutes to get him off the roof and into the basement. There, in a brilliantly lit room ringed with video monitors, doctors threaded a tiny catheter through an artery from his groin to his heart. When a contrasting dye was injected, the clot showed up instantly on the overhead video monitors, and within minutes it was pulverized with a tiny inflated balloon threaded through the cath­ eter. Then, using the same route through his body, doctors inserted two cagelike stents to keep the artery open. Total time for the procedure: 20 minutes. When Abeln's wife finally arrived at Abbott about 6:15 p.m., frustrated by traffic, scared and near tears, he was lying in his room, perusing the dinner menu. “He’s going to have dinner,” said Bonnie Abeln, 48. “And I’m falling apart.” It's a good to give y o u r w rite r several sam ples o f th is stru c tu re before expecting him to w rite som ething sim ilar. It's n o t a difficult concept in principle, b u t it takes practice to learn to do th is skillfully. Some w riters are gifted. T h ey 're n o t ju s t good sto ry tellers; th ey also have a n eye for detail and a n ear for great dialogue. O n the features desk, you w a n t every w rite r to be a star. At m o st new spapers it's som ething o f a rew ard to be assigned to th e features desk. M ake su re y o u r rep o rters know the expectations will be high. But you, as an editor, w ill n o t be able to ju s t sit back an d relax as y o u r b etter w riters c h u rn o u t aw a rd -w in n in g copy. Besides helping y o u r w rite r a t th e fro n t-en d w ith sto ry shape, focus, and com position, y o u w ill also get dow n to th e level o f line editing. You w a n t to m ake su re th a t every sentence soars. Take details, for exam ple, w hich w e touched on briefly earlier. The b ea u ty of featu re stories often is in th e details, b u t n o t all details are useful. Help y o u r rep o rter determ ine th e difference betw een a ran d o m detail and a m eaningful detail. Details w ith m eaning advance th e story, give insight in to th e character o r th e situation, an d reinforce th e them e. Telling details m ean m ore th a n th e y first appear. T h at som eone in y o u r sto ry to o k a long d rag o n a M arlboro m ay feel like a cool detail for y o u r rep o rter to include in a story, b u t does it m ean a n y th in g ? Does it tell an y th in g a b o u t th e character? For instance, is the ch aracter a 6 -year-old child? A cow boy w an n ab e? E ighty-seven years old and dying of lung cancer? Or is this ju s t ran d o m detail th a t d o esn 't really

130

—

CHAPTER 13

reveal a n y th in g ? As a n editor, be ru th less: If a detail pokes o u t o f the sto ry an d seems odd to you, ju m p on it. Ask th e w rite r w h y it's included. M aybe th e rep o rter h ad a reason, b u t th e detail needs to be set u p b etter o r finessed. M aybe y o u can help th e rep o rter find a b etter w a y to use it. Or m aybe it needs to be plucked fro m th e story. W hen Jo n F ranklin w ro te "M rs. Kelly's M onster," his P ulitzer P rizew inning featu re sto ry a b o u t a b rain su rg eo n , he told us in the second sen­ tence th a t the surgeon ate breakfast b u t had no coffee. So w h a t? In the third sentence, he revealed w h y th a t detail m attered : "In th e cold h o u rs of a w in te r m o rn in g Dr. T hom as Barbee Ducker, chief b rain su rg eo n at the U niversity of M aryland H ospital, rises before daw n . His w ife serves him w affles b u t no coffee. Coffee m akes his han d s shake." ("M rs. Kelly's M onster," by Jo n Franklin, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 12, 1978, p. C l) T hat detail show s F ranklin's m eticulousness, his atte n tio n to detail, his scru p u lo u s dedication to his craft. (And th e lead also w o rk s well w ith th e s to ry 's ending, w here, afte r th e surgery, Dr. D ucker sits d o w n to lunch.) As yo u read th e first draft o f a n y re p o rte r's story, ask yourself: Does it hold m y atten tio n ? Do th e characters com e alive? Does th e sto ry m ake m e feel like I w as right th ere a t th e event, as F ranklin achieves in his copy? You k n o w a lo t of th is already, b u t these po in ts are all w o rth rep e at­ ing. As y o u read th e re p o rte r's story, m ake su re he or she did th e follow ­ ing tasks: • Powerful verbs. Do they entice, tickle, delight? Or do th ey ju s t lie there like lum ps? Can th e y be strengthened? • Show don’t tell. Put me there. M ake th e scene unfold. Let me w atch th e ch aracters m ove. P ut th e m in m otion. • Sometimes tell but don't show. Som etim es all th a t action needs context. Som etim es y o u need s u m m a ry to explain clearly to the reader w h a t all of those scenes add up to. • Look to your endings. Does the w rite r end sentences on a stro n g w o rd and p a ra g ra p h s on a stro n g sentence? Does th e sto ry end w ith a m em orable scene o r a stro n g q uo te o r an im age th a t will stick in th e re a d e r's m ind? If readers rem em ber th e ending, th e y 'll rem em ­ ber th e story. • Use dialogue, not quotes. To keep th e sto ry lively and to keep f rom breaking the scene, y o u r rep o rter should q u o te people conversing w ith each o th e r ("in-tim e quotes"), n o t an sw erin g questions posed by a rep o rter ("out o f tim e quotes"). • Look at pacing. Slow dow n for crucial m o m en ts. Speed u p for rapid action. Vary sentence length. • Avoid journalistic cliches. Go on a search an d d estro y m ission for m elodram atic one-sentence grafs; lam e and overused tran sitio n s, such as "he is n o t alone"; overpacked sentences th a t cover w a y too m u c h g ro u n d an d are stuffed w ith w a y too m u ch in fo rm atio n ; ja rg o n ; and journalese.

CONTENT EDITING FOR FEATURES

——

131

• Be collaborative. Try to figure o u t how the w riter likes to w o rk and adapt y o u r style to it. Discuss y o u r edits w ith the reporter, and be open to letting him or her find an o th er w ay. Be ruthless b u t be gentle. Let th e reporter experim ent and explore, b u t rem em ber th a t you are the safety net. • Remind the writer to have fun. If the rep o rter's having fun reporting and w riting the story, the reader will alm ost certainly have fun reading it. You are also the boss. If som ething doesn't w ork, d o n 't let it get in the paper. Remember the reader— th a t's w ho this is really all about. W ithout readers, w riters are unheard. Finally, m ake sure y o u r w riters u nderstand alternative m ethods of doing features, such as photo essays, question and answ er (Q&A), o r first person (to be used sparingly and only w ith per­ mission, of course). In the past 5 or 10 years, new spapers have borrow ed heavily from m agazines, using m ore graphics, photos, text blocks, and other visually appealing, quick-to-read w ays of telling stories. Let's examine three alternative m ethods here. Q&As can be irresistible and revealing. But they are not as easy to do as y o u r w riters m ight think. They can easily sound stiff or boring, and if the questions are lengthy, they can sound self-serving. Take a look a t the "Questions For" feature th a t runs in The New York Times Sunday M agazine; they do this type of feature very well. Feature Q&As w o rk best if they read like a snappy conversation between the reporter and the subject. This is tricky to do, and there are ethical con­ siderations th a t you and y o u r reporter w ill have to discuss: Is it OK to change the order of the questions? Is it OK to boil dow n the responses to a pithy sentence or two? The short answ er is d o n 't deceive the reader. If you change the order o f questions or trim the responses, m ake sure you note in the introduction th a t the answ ers have been edited. The best, sim plest advice an editor can give in regards to a Q&A is this: Keep the questions short and punchy, d o n 't let the source drone on, and only ru n the interesting quotes. A nother alternative is a list. You know these: "Top 10 Films of All Time" or "The 10 Best Weekend Trips" or "The 10 Best Sum m er Reads." This kind of story form isn 't com plicated and doesn't require am azing w riting skills, b u t readers enjoy the change of pace. And face it— some stories ju s t don't have to be told in a traditional form . Lists should, however, be well reported. For example, a list of best weekend vacation destinations can be told th ro u g h a couple o f outstanding details, plus a phone num b er or Web site for m ore inform ation. A nother popular w a y to tell a sto ry is to break it into elem ents— m aybe into several sm aller stories. A feature on rudeness th a t ran in a m ajor m et­ ropolitan new spaper w as broken into five separate elem ents— the in tro ­ duction or precede ("You see the signs of rudeness all aro u n d you: Shop­ pers blocking aisles in the grocery store w ith their carts. Movie p atrons w ho talk constantly during a screening. Je rry Springer"; "Mind Your Own

132

CHAPTER 13

M anners" b y Abe Aamidor, Indianapolis Star, Aug. 21, 2005, p. J 1 .), plus bulleted advice from a psychologist on how to avoid escalating a situation, plus a list of rude things people do every day, plus a bulleted su m m ary of a m ajor n ational survey on rudeness, plus a list of personal anecdotes w ith thum b n ail photos of people sharing their nig h tm are experiences of rude behavior in som e detail. This approach had m uch m ore appeal on the page visually, provided several en try points for the reader, and avoided any kind of didactic tone th a t m ight have come w ith a longer, single n a r­ rative o r essay. Helping y o u r w riter produce good copy, no m a tte r the kind of story, is a m ajor p a rt of y o u r jo b as an editor. And y o u r jo b is never done u ntil the presses are rolling and it's too late to m ake changes. But by then, of course, y o u 're w orking w ith your staff on the next story.

C hapter

Copy Editing for Features

S ta c e y M a n n M ississippi State University

W hen I began m y career as a jo u rn a list, I could w rite o n a deadline. I could research a n y topic, interview a n y subject, a n d th e n bang o u t a sto ry in no tim e. I kn ew m y stories w ere good, b u t I also acknow ledged th a t as a w rite r I could alw ays use som e im provem ent. In m y first position as a m a n ag in g editor a t The Greenville Advocate, I w as told I w ould have a copy editor to assist m e w ith editorial content. I w as quite excited, because a copy editor w as a lu x u ry I had n o t been afforded a t previous new spapers and m agazines. However, I th o u g h t this lu x u ry w ould only rip up m y rep o rters' sto ries— boy, w as I w ro n g . M y new copy editor, C. H. "B uster" M acguire, w as a lo n g -tim e editor of one o f A labam a's largest dailies. A fter his retirem en t, he d id n 't w a n t to give up th e new s business, so he w orked p a rt-tim e a t th e tw ice-w eekly, reading copy, w ritin g headlines, and, in general, m ak in g o u r stories better. B uster quickly becam e m y m entor. He ta u g h t m e h o w to m ake a good sto ry b e tte r— n o t necessarily th ro u g h co n ten t o r o rg an izatio n b u t sim ply th ro u g h b etter use of language. I learned m ore in 6 m o n th s o f w o rk in g w ith a skilled, experienced copy editor th a n fro m th e co u rsew o rk in m y u n d e rg ra d u a te p ro g ra m . A lthough th e degree ta u g h t me th e basics, B uster w as tr u ly m y teacher. A copy editor can be y o u r best friend o r y o u r w o rst en e m y — depend­ ing on y o u r a ttitu d e an d ego. M an y y o u n g w rite rs com e in to th e n ew s­ ro o m o r the classroom th in k in g th e y are th e best, an d no im p ro v em en t is needed— the m o st detrim en tal m istake o f y o u n g w riters. The w ords of advice I often offer— "If y o u w a n t to be a good w riter, learn to tak e con­ structive criticism . Befriend a n experienced copy editor."

133

134

—

CHAPTER 14

M ost reporters will agree th a t a copy ed ito r can o ften be a best frie n d — o r a w o rs t enem y. G ary M assaro, w h o has been w o rk in g a t D enver's Rocky M ountain News for 18 years, agrees. "We had a n in te rn here one sum m er, and I took her by th e copy desk to look so m eth in g u p in a m etro m ap. A copy editor quit doing w h a t he h ad been w o rk in g on to help. The in te rn w as a bit nervous." "You actu ally ta lk to th e copy editors?" she asked. M y reply w as in stan t: "We alw ay s m ake friends w ith the copy desk." M assaro explained th a t copy editors do m ake m istakes, b u t w h en th ey save yo u , y o u 're forever th a n k fu l. "I've been here 18 years and c a n 't co u n t on one h an d how m a n y tim es th ey goofed on one o f m y stories or colum ns. I c a n 't count h o w m a n y tim es th ey saved m e b y finding m is­ spelled w ords, a w k w ard sentences, double entendres. And I alw ay s th a n k th e m big-tim e w h en th ey save me." The jo b of copy editors is to m ake b lan d copy exciting, sim ple language colorful, an d choppy copy flow. M any tim es, the copy ed ito r m akes the w rite r's sto ry better. M errill Perlm an, director o f copy desks a t The New York Times, said, "The copy desk is a safety net. It d o esn 't m a tte r h o w good a rep o rter y o u are or th in k y o u are, th e copy desk jo b is to m ake y o u look better. T hey d o n 't get th e ir nam es in th e paper; it's m ore o f a quiet sa tis­ faction of w alking by a n ew sstan d a n d seeing y o u r headline there." For som e jo u rn a lists, being assigned a featu re sto ry is a lu x u ry . M ost jo u rn a lists are required to w rite q u ic k -a n d -to -th e -p o in t stories, m a n y req u irin g little th o u g h t an d falling in to fo rm u la w ritin g , such as th e inverted pyram id. As a n ew spaper jo u rn a list, I covered local an d sta te politics. Twice a m o n th I attended c o u n ty com m ission m eetings, w e n t back to th e office, a n d w ro te a story. Five h o u rs later, th e story, along w ith th e paper, w ould go to press. So, if I w an te d a quote for th a t story, I spent 5 m in u tes w ith one of th e com m issioners a fte r th e m eeting an d headed back to th e office. But every once in a w hile, I attend ed one o f th e m eetings a n d cam e o u t w ith a n am azin g idea for a fe a tu re — one th a t could r u n an y tim e, one th a t I w o u ld n 't have to w rite th a t p articu la r day, a sto ry I could spend tim e on so th a t w h en it g o t to th e copy desk it w a s n 't ripped ap a rt. To som e jo u rn a lists th e feature is a w elcom ed gift because th ey k n o w th e y w ill have m ore tim e to develop a solid, creative tale. Features require m ore tim e for w riters to w o rk on th e ir language, ideas, o rg a n iz a tio n — aspects copy editors tend to pick a p a rt. Some m ay say copy editors are h a rd e r on features th a n o n new s stories, an d th o u g h th a t m ay be tru e in som e circum stances, copy editors tend to look for sim ilar aspects of a story , w h eth e r it is new s o r feature. To u n d e rsta n d the role a copy editor plays a t an y publication, th e copy e d ito r's duties should be cry sta l clear. A lth o u g h th e pet peeves of a copy editor m a y differ fro m one to a n o th e r an d th e rules m a y v a ry fro m p u b ­ lication to publication, som e duties never change. But acq u irin g a solid u n d ersta n d in g o f th e basics can be th e difference in g ettin g a sto ry p u b ­ lished quickly o r sending it back to th e w rite r for m o re corrections.

COPY EDITING FOR FEATURES

—

135

One of the m ost im p o rta n t aspects of a good copy editor is a com pre­ hensive understanding of language. W hen reading stories, copy editors analyze single w ords, com binations of phrases, an d w hole p ara g ra p h s— the w rite r's chosen adjectives, their use of expressions, the construction of w ords chosen to create a story. Nick Patterson, associate editor of South­ ern Living m agazine, said copy editors m u st be "passingly fam iliar w ith com m on idioms, expressions, quotations, and o th er literary m atter." A good feature sto ry is based on solid use of language and b o th Patter­ son and Perlman agree: to be a good editor, y ou have to understand lan­ guage, and to understand language, you have to read. "The m ore y o u read different kinds of w riters, the m ore y ou understand language," said Perlman. "You ca n 't help language unless you understand it. You c a n 't tune up a car w ith o u t understanding how the pistons w ork or how the engine w orks, and you ca n 't help language unless you read and understand it." At the beginning of each semester, I give m y feature w riting students the Web site for the Pulitzer Prize (w w w .pulitzer.org). I tell them th a t if th ey w a n t to understand good language to find a Pulitzer-Prize-w inning feature story. I usually direct them first to 'Angels and Demons," w ritten by Thom as French of the St. Petersburg Times, w h o w on the Pulitzer for feature w riting in 1998. French has a grasp for language m an y w riters strive for. He has the ability to w rite a sim ple phrase and create em otion as if the reader is there w ith th e subject. He uses language to m ake the reader feel w h at the subject feels. French uses simple w ords to create pic­ tu res every reader has seen in life b u t never really' paid atten tio n to. Here's a sam ple of French's "Angels and Demons", w hich first ran in the St. Peters­ burg Times from October 26, 1997-N ovem ber 9, 1997: They were on their way to the Magic Kingdom. The highways were filled with them. Couples in subcompacts, debating the wisdom of stopping at Stuckey's for a pecan log. Tour groups in tour buses, fleecing their companions at gin rummy and keeping an eye on their driver in case he nodded off. Myriad config­ urations of moms and dads and stepmoms and stepdads and napping toddlers and whining third-graders and sprawling teenagers in full sulk and mothers-in-law with pursed lips and embittered outlooks, all struggling for peaceful coexistence inside the air-conditioned confines of their minivans. (http://www2.sptimes,com/ Angels_Demons/sunset.3.html) A lthough n o t all w riters are Pulitzer Prize w inners, a copy editor w ho m asters the use of language can help w riters become better a t their craft.

KNOW ASSOCIATED P R E S S STYLE A lthough not all publications use every rule set by the Associated Press (AP style), copy editors m u st have a basic understanding of the guidelines. M any jo u rn alism students become quite fru strated w hen learning AP style

136

—

CHAPTER 14

because the rules are often different from those set for essay w riting in British lit class. Some notable differences include the following: • AP style requires one space between sentences rath e r th a n tw o, w hich is th e guideline ta u g h t by English teachers. • W hen using state nam es, only certain states use zip code abbrevia­ tions, such as Georgia, w hich is w ritten as GA for zip codes, b u t Ga. for AP style. Five states, including U tah and Texas, are w ritte n o ut completely, using no abbreviations. • A lthough som e com panies or organizations can be abbreviated a t all tim es, such as CNN, others m u st be w ritte n o u t fully the first time, such as Internal Revenue Service, w ith the abbreviation IRS used on second reference. • Courtesy titles are not used, and w hen referring to a person, give both first and last nam e on first reference, and th en refer to the person by last nam e only. A lthough AP m a y seem confusing a t first, once a jo u rn alist is fam iliar w ith the style, it becomes a hard habit to break. I often tell beginners to look up every questionable w o rd th ey have w ritte n because even after 15 years of w orking w ith AP style and frequent editing papers, I still d o n 't have the m anual m em orized. Copy editors n o rm ally pride them selves on having a th orough understanding of the style, and th a t know ledge can tu rn a good sto ry into great one.

KNOW THE HOUSE STYLE “A copy editor's jo b involves rem oving gram m atical, p u n ctu atio n , and sy n tax errors from the stories reporters, w riters, and editors tu r n in," said Patterson. "They need to k n o w — eventually becom ing experts in — the house style of the publication. They m ake good use of style books by the Associated Press, The University of Chicago Press, and others, b u t a good copy editor tends to know the details by heart." The style of the publication, w hether based on AP, Chicago, or some o ther style, becomes im p o rta n t to a copy editor because consistency is a necessity. Trying to use m ore th a n one style a t a n y one publication w ould become confusing not only to the editorial staff b u t also to the reader. Richard D. Cam eron, chair of the dep artm en t of jo u rn alism a t Cerritos College in N orw alk, California, said, "The AP stylebook is often called the Bible of new sw riting. W hile organizations and big new spapers m a y have their ow n style books— the L A Times has its ow n, for instance— these others often use th e AP Stylebook as their base; th ey sim ply add th eir ow n local rules." Thus, it's im p o rta n t th a t style and house rules are second n atu re to copy editors. But, if editing for various publications, copy editors should rem em ­ ber th a t the style o f one publication is n o t alw ays the style of others.

COPY EDITING FOR FEATURES

137

Perlman said The New York Times has its ow n house style, and th a t 'AP is m ore of a style guide— th a t is, do this, d o n 't do th at. The Times style m anual is m ore of a usage guide." She noted the following differences betw een Times and AP: • Courtesy titles. W hereas AP's guidelines require dropping courtesy titles, the Times keeps them , such as, "I agree w ith the president w hen he said he expects the people w ho w o rk for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct," Mr. Reid said. • False titles. The New York Times also does n o t use false titles, such as Restaurant M anager M ary Jam es or A uto Technician Joe Smith. "We use the 'good m orning test'," said Perlman. "That is, if it is aw k ­ w ard w hen you say, 'Good m orning, Actor Brad Pitt,' then drop the title." • Capitalizations. Perlman said for the use of acronym s, the Times has separate rules for acronym s, depending on the nu m b er of letters included. For four letters or fewer, all capital letters are used, w ith periods noting abbreviations, such as C.I.A. W ith m ore th a n four letters, the first letter is capitalized, b u t the rem aining are not. An example w ritte n in Times style is the w ord Cobol, a program m ing language, w hich AP w ould suggest to w rite as COBOL. Finally, an example I often refer to w hen talking ab o u t "house style" is the use of cutlines, also know n as captions, w hich are the descriptions of photographs th a t m ost copy editors w rite. At one publication for w hich I worked, no g ro u n d rules w ere set for cutlines; all th a t w as needed w as a simple description. W hen I accepted a new position at a different publi­ cation, th ey had strict rules for cutlines— no picture w as to ru n w ith o u t nam ing every person in the photo. The difference w a s n 't AP style; it w as house style. M any times, copy editors have their ow n style th a t follows the rules set by the publication, but, a t tim es, the rules are m erely pet peeves. Good copy editors have pet peeves, and following them alm ost alw ays make a sto ry better.

UNDERSTAND LAYOUT AND DESIGN Style doesn't m erely encom pass the mechanics of w riting or the rules for cutlines. It includes the design o f the publication— the placem ent of photos, the num ber o f colum ns used for text, the fonts used for headlines, pull quotes, and subheads— the overall look of the publication, an aspect copy editors should know and understand. M arcela Cartegena, copy desk chief for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, said a copy ed ito r's duties at the Daily Journal include assisting in the lay o u t and design of the daily paper. In fact, Cartegena said, "not all copy editors do ju s t editing. M any w ork as page designers as well,

138

CHAPTER 14

depending on th e size o f th e new spaper. The Northeast M ississippi Daily Journal is 3 8 ,0 0 0 circulation, a relatively sm all paper." Here are som e of the duties th e Daily Journal requires o f th eir copy editors: • • • • • • • • •

A ssisting in th e la y o u t a n d design o f the daily paper C reating a ttractiv e designs in a tim ely and efficient m a tte r Editing w ire copy' for g ram m atic al an d fact erro rs Editing a n d c u ttin g w ire copy' to m ake stories fit Editing local copy as needed A ssuring th a t local new s get published in each d a y 's p ro d u ct Selecting state, n atio n al an d in te rn atio n a l stories an d p h o to g rap h s A ssuring pages are published error-free A ttending daily' budget m eetings

O ther su p p o rtin g task s include: • • • •

U nderstanding Daily' Jo u rn a l an d AP style Being flexible d u rin g tim es o f sh o rtag e H aving stro n g new s a n d p h o to ju d g m e n t M eeting deadline requirem ents

So, a t som e publications, copy editors a re n 't ju s t reading all d a y — they often are w o rk in g on the la y o u t o f the publication and deciding h o w the sto ry will fit in to th e design as w ell as m aking it eye-catching to the reader, m uch o f w hich involves choosing the rig h t p h o to to r u n w ith a story. U n fortunately, m any' tim es copy' editors do not see the im p o rtan ce o f a p h o to and, if ru n n in g o u t o f space, th e g raphic gets cut. O u r society' is v isu a l— one in w hich w e are m ore likely to believe so m eth in g if w e see it. Copy editors have to rem em ber th is w h e n choosing a photo. In his book The Newspaper Designer's Handbook (Fifth Edition, 2 0 02, p. 100, M cGraw -H ill publisher), Tim H arro w er gives six basic guidelines for ph o to jo u rn a lism , w hich copy' editors should also u n d ersta n d : • Every photo should have a clean, clear center of interest. Photos should lack confusion and distractions and should pull the reader into the story. • Every photo should look natural. Don't make your subjects pose—get them in action, doing what they do. • Every photo should have a outline. Harrower says, “Never assume readers are as smart as you are—or that they even intend to read the story. Identify every­ thing: all faces, places and activities.” • Every photo should be bordered. Don’t let the picture fade into the white space of the page. Make sure it has at minimum a 0.5-point frame. • Every photo should be relevant. Photos are not decoration! They should be meaningful to the story and to the reader. • Every face should be at least the size of a dime. “If you want images with impact, shoot individuals, not crowds," advises Harrower.

COPY EDITING FOR FEATURES

—

139

Once a copy editor u n d ersta n d s these basic guidelines, it's ju s t a m a tte r o f tim e before solid p h o to ju d g m e n t begins to develop. Learning to choose th e perfect p hoto is n 't som ething copy editors pick u p in th e classroom ; they' learn it in th e new sroom . "The ability to h ave stro n g p h o to ju d g m e n t com es w ith experience," said C artegena. "The designer has to be able to select stro n g p h o to g rap h s th a t are com patible w ith th e story. The p h o to ­ g rap h an d the headline also have to connect; it helps th e reader u n d erstan d w h a t th e sto ry is a b o u t m ore quickly." As m entioned previously, if copy editors see th ey are ru n n in g o u t of room , th e first elem ent of a sto ry package th ey cu t is th e p h o to . The second elem ent they cu t is th e sto ry itself— often from th e b o tto m u p — and m an y tim es w ith o u t even reading th e story. Feature w ritin g is n o t like n ew sw riting, w here jo u rn a lists live and die by the inverted p y ram id . F eature w riters w rite u n til the sto ry is done. They do not org an ize it so th a t th e m ost im p o rta n t in fo rm atio n is a t the to p and th e least im p o rta n t a t th e bottom . Feature w riters tell sto rie s— stories th a t a re n 't th e sam e if th e copy editor cuts a little here, a little there, or especially entire final p ara g ra p h s. However, som e copy editors live by inverted p y ram id style a n d often ju s t cut from th e b o tto m . This can be d etrim en tal. M any features, like good novels, build to a conclusion. If a copy editor cu ts fro m the bo tto m , th e w hole idea of th e story' m a y be lost. Copy editors m u st u n d ersta n d th a t features a re n 't w ritte n in inverted pyram id style. Read th e story! It's OK to cu t som e of th e featu re to fit the space, b u t d o n 't lose th e context o r the tale. One o th e r aspect copy editors focus on in la y o u t a n d design are head­ lines. A variety of headline ty'pes are used for stories. H arro w e r defines seven m ajo r types of headlines in The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook: (Fifth edition, 2002, p. 24, McGraw-Hill) • Banner headlines are headlines th a t su m m arize the sto ry an d m ay use a deck or subhead to fu rth e r explain. • Kickers lead into headlines by using a w o rd o r p h rase to label topics o r catch y o u r eye. They are m uch sm aller th a n th e m a in head, set in co n tra stin g style an d w eight. • Stammers contain tw o p arts. The first is a boldface w o rd o r phrase follow ed by a co n tra stin g m ain headline. • Raw wraps are recom m ended because th e headline d o esn 't cover the entire space of th e text, ju s t one colum n. A lth o u g h som e ra w w rap s present som e advantages, it d o esn 't create a good package an d can confuse th e reader. • Tripods are headlines th a t contain three p arts. First is a boldface w o rd or phrase, often in caps, w ith tw o lines o f deck o r subhead. These are mainly' used for features because m a n y copy editors o r page designers say th ey look gim m icky. • Sidesaddle heads let y o u place th e headline beside ra th e r th a n above th e story. H arro w er says it's best for squeezing a story, preferably' one th a t is boxed, into a h o rizo n tal space.

140

CHAPTER 14

A good copy editor understands the im portance of the headline and how packaging, th a t is, grouping the story, headline, photo, and deck, can m ean the difference betw een the sto ry being read and being overlooked. Packaging also includes the size and font of the headline, w hich m an y tim es depends o n the type of story. Most features never ru n a 72-point headline w ith a bold font, such as seen on the fro n t pages of new spapers on September 11, 2001, because those point sizes are used for g ro u n d ­ breaking news. Feature headlines norm ally blend, b u t the packaging, the layout of the headline, the photo, and the sto ry are w h a t should pull the reader in. A lthough not all copy editors w ork on lay o u t and design, it is im p o rtan t to know and u nderstand how to get the atten tio n of the reader, w h eth er it is th ro u g h a big headline, a captivating photo, or the overall look of the story. To learn how to package stories, copy editors m u st read and examine all types o f publications. If som ething looks aw k w ard to you, th e n it probably will appear so to the reader.

KNOW THE READER M any tim es, the design depends on the type of reader targeted for th e p u b ­ lication, w hich is also som ething a copy editor m u st u nderstand. "Because the choices th a t copy editors m ake often determ ine the final form o f a story, th e y need to have clearly in m ind the 'voice' of their publication," said Patterson. W hen constructing a feature, one of the biggest problem s w riters often face is becoming too attached to the s to ry — too fam iliar w ith the content so th a t they understan d w h a t the sto ry is about, b u t the reader do esn 't understand w h y the sto ry is significant. A lthough the w riter m ay u nder­ stand the point of the story, it's the reader th a t the copy editor should be concerned w ith. "The m ost im p o rta n t jo b of a copy editor is to look a t content," said Perlman. She added th a t w hen m aking changes to a story, copy editors should consider if "the context is pushed so far dow n th a t the reader doesn't know w h y they should be reading the story." So, for the copy editor to know if the reader will un d erstan d or even be interested in the story, it becomes highly im p o rta n t to have a clear idea of w ho the reader is, w h a t the reader 's interest is in the publication, and w h a t type of stories the reader will find inform ative, helpful, or entertaining. Paul Ivice, w ho has been a freelance w riter and reporter for various m agazines an d new spapers for 28 years, said, "Every w riter, and his or her editor, should have a n intended audience in m ind, w h eth er th e w o rk is a new s article, novel, short story, or w hatever. W riting for a p articu lar audience helps the w riter focus his w o rk in term s of tone, lexicon, level of vocabulary an d detail, and even length." Ivice added th a t, to appeal to the w idest possible audience, editors a t daily new spapers believe they m u st dum b dow n the w ritin g so th a t

COPY EDITING FOR FEATURES

—

141

average readers can understand articles w ith o u t having a dictionary at their side. "In m y w o rk for business and legal publications, I believe I can w rite to a higher level of readership, w hich m akes it easier to w rite about complicated subjects w ith o u t having to oversim plify m y w riting." A lthough dum bing dow n usually is a bad idea in an y forum , m aking sure th a t the w riting is accessible to a layperson is not a bad idea. A health and medical story, w hich is a staple of features departm ents, should be devoid of ja rg o n and Latin term s b u t should be technically correct. A sto ry on football w idow s, a com m on fall football season feature story, should define all sports term s used. For the copy editor to k n o w if the reader will understand or even be interested in the story, it is im p o rtan t to have a clear idea of the reader, his or her interest in the publication, and the type of stories he or she will find inform ative, helpful, o r entertaining.

WRITE EFFECTIVE HEADLINES Headline w riting m ay be at the top of the list of the m o st im p o rtan t duties perform ed by copy editors. I have th e following th ree pieces of advice: D on't prom ise som ething in the headline n o t delivered in the story, use active voice (unless using a "creative" title w ith a subhead), and use lan­ guage th a t makes the audience w a n t to read. For features, headlines have to be creative to pull readers in, b u t the inform ation in the headline has to give the reader a reason to read. Readers d o n 't read features ju s t to get inform ation as th ey do in news (though socalled service stories and h ow -to stories are g reat and grow ing exceptions to this rule). Features are read in people's spare tim e so, remember, the headline is the first hook. Here are som e examples of catchy headlines, w hich w ere recognized by the Texas Press Association Better N ew spaper Contests (BNC): • "Shopping's not over until the f a t man flies": Last minute shoppers are ju s t finishing up as Santa's getting ready fo r takeoff." This headline, w hich appeared in The Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, w o n first place in the BNC for Division 2 Dailies. The Press Association said the headline w as "clever" and effective because the "deck head supports the creative head so the reader isn 't left w ondering." (h ttp ://w w w .te x asp ress.c o m /c o n test/tx b n c .0 5 / headlines/headlinew riting.htm ) • "Itching to win, local man scratches o ff $177,000 prize." The Texas Press Association said the use of the w ords itching and scratching worked well for this sto ry ab o u t a lottery w inner, w hich w o n the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal second place in the 2004 Headline W riting Contest of the 2004 BNC for Division 2 Dailies, (h ttp ://w w w .te x asp ress.c o m /c o n test/ tpabnc04/headlines/index.htm l) • "Burger King settles beef w ith woman fo r $35,000": 'Where's the beef?'" A lthough a cliche, the Texas Press A ssociation said this tim e it w orks, and w orked well. The Odessa American w o n first place in th e 2004 Fleadline

142

-----

CHAPTER 14

W riting Contest for Division 2 Dailies for this sto ry ab o u t a Burger King franchise th a t settled a civil suit w ith an employee w h o said a m ale m anager forced her into a strip search, (h ttp ://w w w .te x asp ress.c o m / contest/tpabnc04/headlines/index.htm ) But not all headlines get attention for being catchy; som etim es head­ lines get attention for the w rong reasons. In fact, m ost com plaints received by new spapers from the public involve som ething to do w ith headlines— misspelled w ords, bias, or even incorrect inform ation. Here are a couple of actual headlines th a t were featured on HeadlineHum or.com th a t could give the w rong idea or even give a little laugh: Tiger Woods plays with own balls, Nike says Psychics predict world didn't end yesterday Sun or rain expected today, dark tonight Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25 A lthough a t first glance these headlines m ay sound a little funny, m an y of th em can be explained if the reader reads the story. One thing readers have to rem em ber is th a t all new s can t come directly from the head­ line— you have to read the story. But the job of the copy editor in w riting headlines is to pull the reader in and give as m uch in fo rm atio n as possi­ ble. Ju st remember, w hen w riting headlines, th in k ab o u t it b o th in context and out.

CHECK THE FACTS AND UNDERSTAND LIBEL A nother m ajor goal of a copy editor is to ensure the inform ation in the sto ry is correct. For example, I had a stu d en t w h o w as w ritin g a travel article ab o u t Canada. One of her m ain points w as th a t Canada is n o t very crow ded and th a t the population of the co u n try is only about three million people. I th o u g h t this figure w as quite odd, so I quickly tu rn ed to a credible source on th e Internet, w here I found the population of Canada is ju s t over 30 million. That one zero can m ake all of the difference in the w orld. Once a reporter establishes a repu tatio n of not being th o ro u g h and being inaccurate, it's next to impossible to achieve credibility again. This h u rts no t only the w riter b u t also th e publication. Not too m a n y years ago I had a reporter w ho gathered inform ation about a m an w h o had been charged w ith several m urders, w as released early, and allegedly killed again w ithin a m a tte r of weeks of being released. She passed the in form ation she g a th ­ ered to me, and then in S atu rd ay 's paper m y editorial, w hich argued th a t convicted crim inals should not be released early, w as published. On M onday, I ran into the district attorney, and he inform ed m e th a t m y inform ation w as incorrect. I w as concerned— very concerned. I con­ fronted m y reporter and asked w h a t or w h o w as the source o f the infor­ m ation, hoping she had gone th ro u g h public records as instructed. I hoped

COPY EDITING FOR FEATURES

—

143

her source could prove th e district atto rn ey him self to be incorrect. "A police officer told me. He rem em bered w hen it all happened," she said. Needless to say, the police officer's m em o ry failed him , as m y reporter failed m e by n o t checking public records. I, along w ith the newspaper, could have been sued for libel because the m an w as accused in the editorial of com m itting crimes he did not com m it. In the next issue, I ran a correc­ tion and an apology, and several fam ily m em bers phoned to th a n k me. My copy editor happened to be o u t th a t week, and I learned a valuable lesson— y o u r reputation is all you've got; check the facts. Fact checking, then, becomes one of the copy editors m ost im p o rtan t duties. Libel is defined in the Associated Press Stylebook as "injury to rep­ utation" and AP distinguishes libel from slander in th a t libel is w ritten, w hereas slander is spoken. Once a jo u rn alist is found g uilty of libel, cred­ ibility is lost and becomes difficult to obtain again. So, as a copy editor, if an y th in g w ritte n seems odd, double-check. It could m ean the difference betw een sitting at the copy desk or sitting in a court room . From fact checking to headline w riting, the various roles of a copy editor m ay change from one publication to the next. But no m a tte r w here a copy editor calls hom e, it is im p o rta n t to have a solid grasp of all aspects th a t can affect a story, w hether a misspelled nam e or a simple style rule.

Chapter

Freelancing

S u s a n F adem St. Louis Woman Magazine

Journ alists probably w eren 't the first ones to exclaim, "This is so m uch fu n th a t I ca n 't believe th a t I'm getting paid for it." But face it. We take pride in o u r craft. M ost o f us adore w h a t w e do and c a n 't im agine doing an y th in g else. Plus, there's a bonus: Nearly as thrilling as seeing y o u r nam e in print is receiving a check in th e mail. Short of being hired for a full-tim e job, freelance w riting can be y o u r ticket to expanded h o ri­ zons, even during a college career. Very few people m ake a full-tim e living from freelance w riting, b u t m an y supplem ent th eir income this w ay, and countless others find a legitim ate o u tlet for their creative juices and their need to express themselves in print. O thers view freelancing as a steppingstone to a full-tim e job, and th a t's often the case. If y ou have realistic expectations, good self-discipline, and, a t times, a thick skin, then free­ lancing m ay be for you. But how do you get started? The old adage, "Write ab o u t w h a t you know ," holds tru e for freelancing, too. Are y ou an avid skier w ho know s the best slopes in the upper M idwest, a region of the c o u n try n o t w ritten about as m uch as the fam ous Colorado ski resorts? Are y ou an expert on fan tasy football leagues? Did y o u r grandm o th er teach yo u all the tricks of n a tu ra l gardening? You have a leg up on a n y generalist w ho m ight w an t to w rite about such topics. Your first m arkets should be those m agazines you like m ost and, w hen y o u r schedule perm its, read m ost faithfully. This is because y o u 're m ore likely to know their editorial policies— w h a t th ey like to publish, ho w long stories m u st be, w h a t their deadlines are like, and so on. You'll also save tim e by n o t pitching sto ry ideas th a t th ey 'v e recently covered in print.

144

FREELANCING

145

And w h en you do w rite a query letter or m ake y o u r pitch (we'll discuss the mechanics of these later), you'll be able to d em onstrate good fam iliar­ ity w ith the m agazine in question. Editors like th at; they do not like to feel yo u 're subm itting the same, generic query letter to a m ass of com peting publications. D on't ru sh this process. W hether your intended topic is a struggling m usician w ho finally screwed up his courage and opened y o u r city 's only 2 4 -h o u r school of rock, or a college-age M artha S tew art w annabe whose lavish dorm room resembles a brocade-filled French chateau, do your research, even before you w rite y o u r query letter or m ake y o u r form al proposal. If y o u 're subm itting a proposal to a m agazine y o u 're n ot fam il­ iar w ith, check back issues or an y suitable directory to m ake sure th a t the sto ry h a s n 't already been w ritten. Make notes. Begin a file. Also, you'll w an t to com m unicate, a t least briefly, w ith a key person involved in your intended story. Yes, this does sound like y o u 're com m itting to the story even before y ou've racked up the sale, b u t you have to do it. This will help avoid p u ttin g you in an em barrassing position later: You've sold a sto ry idea to an editor (woohoo!), b u t suddenly you have no sources o r people to interview, or even good leads. In general, because you have no assurance yet of publication, it's best th a t this initial contact not be a full-blow n interview. Be up fro n t: "I'm vitally interested in such-and-such topic. I w a n t to m ake sure there's enough m aterial for a story, w hich I hope to sell to a m agazine o r new s­ paper. W hat do you th in k about this and this and . . .7 " You'll need to do a reality check, too, before com m itting to o deeply to a sto ry o r project. You w a n t to be reasonably confident th a t y o u r idea has appeal. You, as the w riter, are ju s t one person. But if y o u 're inter­ ested in som ething, m ake an assessm ent w hether there are enough people o u t there w ho are ju s t as a passionate abo u t the subject as yo u are, or w ho w ould be ju s t as fascinated in this or th a t personality or slice-of-Iife h u m a n interest sto ry as you seem to be. You ca n 't actually do a scien­ tific survey of opinion, of course, b u t you can seek o u t opinions o f others you tru st. Good new s ju d g m e n t is hard to teach, b u t if you've got it, then y ou'll be m aking sales. In the preparing-your-ideas phase, and depending on y o u r topic du jour, potential interviewees will likely be pleased by y o u r atten tio n . In all probability, this will be tru e w hether y o u 're including the sources in a sto ry pitched to a local new spaper or a city or national m agazine. Your interviewees m ay even supply ideas on potential m arkets. W riting, after all, is a tw o -w a y street. Not only can you help catap u lt to prom inence w hatever or w hom ever y o u 're w riting about, b u t also y ou will gain per­ sonal know ledge and credibility for a job well done. In a u th o r E. Annie P roulx's The Shipping News (1993), w hich w on both a Pulitzer Prize and a N ational Book Award, th e m ain character, Qiioyle, is a hack w riter. For him , a b reakthrough occurs w hen one o f his col­ leagues on The Gammy Bird, the new spaper in N ew foundland w here he

146

CHAPTER 15

w rites new s about ships (hence, the title), advises him to envision stories as headlines. Before w riting your query letter, hone y o u r ow n focus in the sam e way. In oth er w ords, it's n o t ju s t "Dolls in W heelchairs" o r "M usician Opens School." Rather, rev u p y o u r m usings: "Disabled Kids W ant Dolls to M irror Their O w n Reality" or "M usician Decides to Rock A round th e Clock." Then the first p aragraph of y o u r query letter will be the anticipated lead to the actual story or perhaps it will be the n u t g raf or the su m m ary of the sto ry in a little m ore detail. Editors like to th in k th a t if they' w an t to read past the first few sentences of w h a t you have to say, then may'be their readers will, too. Conversely, they feel th a t if the opening of y o u r q u ery is boring or vague, readers will find y o u r w riting boring and vague, too (and you w o n 't get the sale). Now, determ ine the proper recipient of y o u r q uery or proposal. Job titles w ithin m agazines, as well as new spapers, can be deceiving. W hereas som e publications have a designated articles editor, others may' prefer th a t ideas be subm itted to the assistant editor or to the midlevel em ployee w ho renders a first judgm ent. Should you pick the w rong recipient, th ere's no g uarantee th a t y o u r idea will be rerouted. So d o n 't take a chance. While the W riter’s Market, available a t libraries, bookstores, an d online is a Bible for inform ation on subm issions, there are also many' Web sites, including h ttp ://w w w .fre ela n ce w ritin g .c o m /g u id e lin e s/p a g es/in d ex .h tm l, w hich may' even provide sam ple query' letters to model. Many' m agazines post their subm ission guidelines o n their Web sites, th o u g h y'ou may' have to h u n t a little. Here's specific advice on subm is­ sions from Skydiving m agazine: "Your w riting should be clean, concise and direct. Use the shortest w ords and sentences to state each point." You should find nam es and addresses for subm issions, and you m ight see a p ay m en t schedule. It doesn't h u rt to call before subm itting, th o u g h , ju s t to m ake sure the intended recipient of y o u r query still w orks at the m ag a­ zine (turnover can be very high, and sudden, in the publishing business). If the publication of your dream s does not accept unsolicited m a n u ­ scripts o r even queries, set y o u r sights elsewhere, at least until y'ou become fam ous. This is one reason local city m agazines and special interest publi­ cations (Skydiving, e.g., or a needle crafts magazine, or an adventure vaca­ tion magazine) are best bets for new bie freelancers. Guidelines on queries v ary considerably. Based on an Internet search, I found th a t the prestigious A tlantic M onthly m agazine will not even answ er queries "unless they are accom panied by a post-paid, self-addressed, retu rn envelope." A num ber of o ther publications, however, accept e-mailed queries, w hich m akes life easier for everyone b u t does raise questions of security' (is anyone going to steal y'our idea?). Policies can be vague, though. M ust y'ou subm it only' one idea per query'? T hat depends. Ann Scales, deputy living editor of the Boston Globe new spa­ per, says, "I prefer queries by e-mail, and it's best to include several story' ideas." Speaking for others, Jim Ry'gelski, editor of the St. Louis Review, the p rim a ry publication of the Catholic com m u n ity in St. Louis, counters, "I

FREELANCING

147

prefer one sto ry idea per e-m ail." W h at do y o u do? If y o u 're aim ing for local o r o th e r sm all m ark ets or publications th a t still allow y o u to pick u p a phone an d get a h u m a n voice, ask to ta lk to som eone in th e d ep a rtm en t in w hich y o u p lan to su b m it y o u r ideas. D eterm ine his o r h er preferences. Also, verify the spelling of th e intended recipient's first an d last nam es. It's n o t u n u su a l for an editor to im m ediately discard, w ith o u t reading, queries in w hich th e recipient's nam e is misspelled. A fter all, w h a t m ig h t th is indi­ cate a b o u t th e sen d er's overall regard for accuracy? Now, com pose y o u r letter. W hether y o u decide to include one idea o r m ore, guess w h at? The letter will show case far m ore th a n y o u r ideas. Basically, th e q u ery letter should n o t be longer th a n 1 o r 1.5 pages, if y o u 're proposing one sto ry only, and m ig h t give th e first couple o f p a ra ­ g rap h s o f y o u r proposed subm ission. Also, include a sta te m en t identify­ ing th e intended readership and w h y this sto ry belongs in the ta rg e t p u b ­ lication an d include a v ery brief su m m a ry o f y o u r qualifications to do th e story. Indeed, th e letter will likely be an e d ito r's first w in d o w in to y o u r w ritin g . Poor style can in sta n tly knock y o u o u t of co n ten tio n . Likewise, editors w h o adm ire y o u r style, based o n y o u r q u ery letter, m ay assig n y o u an article of th e ir choosing, even if y o u r original suggestions d o n 't quite fit th e ir lineup. Or editors m ay end u p b uyin g y o u r s to r y even if it w a s n 't originally in th e budget, strictly because th ey find y o u r style com pelling. Polish y o u r w ords. Reread and edit. A gain an d again. You m u s t literally sell the editor. Give him or her reason to find y o u r sto ry irresistible. For exam ple, St. Louisan Carole Buck, w id o w of Jack Buck, th e Hall of Fame sp o rts broadcaster, w as featured recently in St. Louis Woman M aga­ zine. Jack died in 2002. Carole, as she had done d u rin g h er decades-long m a rria g e to Jack, had rem ained figuratively o n th e sidelines even after his passing. So how could a freelance w rite r convincingly pitch a sto ry on Carole (not to m ention, get Carole to sit for a n interview o r tw o)? The w riter w en t stra ig h t to th e h eart. Speaking to Carole by telephone, she m en ­ tioned her idea o f "Life A fter Jack." Carole hesitated. "I d o n 't w a n t to look back," she said. 'And I'm getting ready for a trip . 1 d o n 't have tim e to look fo rw ard ." The w rite r persisted, b u t gently so. "It w o u ld be w o n d erfu l," she said, "to include y o u r advice to w idow s an d to o th ers w h o 'v e lost som eone th ey love dearly. Please th in k a b o u t it and call m e in a few days." To th e w rite r's shock, Carole called back. For w h ate v er re a so n — here, th e w rite r saw no reason to p ro b e— Carole agreed to th e story. Elated, an d w ith som e In tern et research to back h er up, th e w rite r e-m ailed a q u ery to th e editor of th e publication she h ad in m ind: Carole Buck was married to one of America's most celebrated broadcasters. During 33 years of marriage she seemed to want nothing more than to live in his shadow, to keep him happy. And that's what makes her second act all the more poignant. When Jack died in 2002, Carole was forced to take her place among the legions of women whose lives must go on, but without their leading men. It’s a sorority in which Carole, whom Jack affectionately called "Blondie,” never sought membership. (St. Louis Woman Magazine, September 2005, Weiss Communi­ cations)

148

CHAPTER 15

The editor pounced on the idea. The story, "Life After Jack," ran as a cover story. Once y o u r topic is accepted, it's rarely appropriate to haggle over pay, especially on a first assignm ent an d m aybe even subsequently, too. M any m agazines have ann u al budgets. These num bers have no th in g to do w ith y o u r rent check, y o u r need for spending money, and so on. W h at's more, realize th a t the dollar figure offered m ay or m ay n o t have an y th in g to do w ith the num ber of w ords assigned. Once upon a tim e, w riters penned stories for publications nicknam ed "penny dreadfuls." The nam e derived from the fact th a t the publications paid one penny per w ord. Years later, better endowed publications paid $1 a w ord o r m ore. Today, pay scales v ary considerably. A new spaper m ight p ay $100 for a 350-w ord feature sto ry (neighborhood o r su b u rb an zoned sections are the best bets for hom etow n new spaper freelance sales). A special-interest, lim ited-circulation m agazine, even if national in scope, m ay offer a sim ­ ilarly sm all am o u n t for a com parable w ord count and expect y ou to furnish a photo to boot. Some regional m agazines, in contrast, m ight offer $450 for 3,000 w ords. And th en along comes a splashy, eye-popping, tru ly national m agazine, and the editor pays $1,200 or m ore for ju s t 650 w ords. The a m o u n t given to w riters likely has to do w ith circulation and advertising rates (the latter is based on the form er), paper quality, profit m argin, or ju s t plain trad itio n — all factors over w hich yo u personally exert no control. A nother thing: Divas and their m ale co u n terp arts are n o t welcome in th e feature-w riting business. It's one thing, o f course, if y o u 're a best­ selling author, com m issioned to w rite a guest article. Then, >r the priv­ ilege of ru n n in g y o u r nam e and y o u r prose, editors m ay tolerate, albeit begrudgingly, y o u r w hining and com plaining. O therw ise, being high m aintenance is a turnoff. Days are too sh o rt for editors to p u t u p w ith y o u r shortcom ings. Be a pain and th e y 'll probably never give you a sto ry again, w hether at their present publication o r a t an y of the others w here they continue their career. A ssignm ents, in general, are followed by snail-m ailed contracts. Even if you fancy yourself an am ate u r lawyer, resist the urge to detail a contract's perceived inadequacies to y o u r editor. In the freelancing w orld, squeaky wheels d o n 't get the grease. More likely, th e y 're tossed in the nevercontact-again pile. So, if you w a n t to w rite the assigned sto ry an d possibly others, im m ediately sign and re tu rn the contract. Your editor will provide w ord counts and m ake o ther suggestions. Take them very seriously. At the same tim e, d o n 't sacrifice com m on sense. Let's say y o u 're given 500 w ords to fulfill y o u r task. But tr y as you m ight, you c a n 't nip and tuck th e sto ry into anything under 511 w ords. D on't w o rry ab o u t it. Unless a sto ry bla­ ta n tly ru n s on, revealing itself a t a glance to far surpass th e given w ord count, I've yet to m eet an editor w ho counts before reading. Plus, you'll feel aw fully stupid if y o u r editor or copy editor contacts y o u later w ith a question, based on the exact inform ation y o u deleted because it took y o u r sto ry a couple of w ords above the allotted count.

FREELANCING

149

In general, suggestions passed along by editors should n o t be regarded as casual hints. M ost editors expect them to be followed implicitly. For instance, y o u 're assigned a sto ry on the 10 best nightclubs in tow n. Lists, by the w ay, are ever-popular form ats, easy for readers to decipher and also tem pting show cases for creative graphic designers. W ith y o u r list, ju s t because you feel unable to lim it y o u r choices, d o n 't assum e yo u can autom atically expand the sto ry to 13 items. One com prom ise w ould be to do a m ain sto ry w ith y o u r top 10 picks and then a sidebar w ith the three run n ers-u p . T hat w ay you've soothed y o u r conscience, plus gone above and beyond w ith a sidebar th a t m ay or m ay n ot run. Deadlines are major. Never set o u t to miss them . Never th in k y ou'll im press an editor by tu rn in g in a sto ry late. Yet editors can be u nder­ standing. If y o u r deadline is approaching, w h eth er for a m agazine or even a newspaper, and y o u 're having trouble getting a source to re tu rn a call or y o u 're still w aiting for a verification, d o n 't surprise y o u r editor w ith a last-m inute excuse. Let her or him know, a t least a day o r m ore in advance, th a t y o u r sto ry is com ing along well b u t th a t you still need a critical fact. Be tru th fu l. Be up front. Some editors, realizing th ey w ere overly optim istic in assum ing th e y 'd read a p articu lar sto ry on a given day, m ay give you a short extension. Ju st d o n 't push it. D on't m ake a practice o f it. Also, should you tu rn in y o u r sto ry and th en receive an e-m ailed au to reply tersely inform ing you th a t y o u r editor is aw ay from th e office, d o n 't be shocked. Editors have pressing needs, too, w hich m ay take them aw ay from w ork. Feel good, at least in the sh o rt ru n , th a t y o u r sto ry is w ritten. But d o n 't celebrate quite yet. Q uestions m ay be forthcom ing, w hich brings up a key survival tool for an y freelancer: A ttem pt to divorce y o u r­ self of ego. W hat you w rite is n o t strictly for you. It's for the greater good of the publication th a t gave you the assignm ent. The show y phrases we toil over m ost m ay be the first ones cut. D on't take it personally. Every m ag a­ zine has its ow n style and quirks. Editors have quirks, too, some of them aggravating. It's all p a rt of the g etting-to-kno w -y o u stage of freelancing. Some editors apparently feel they hav en 't read som ething unless they've made changes. The best you can do is to retain y o u r original copy, com pare it to the published version, and tr y to understan d every alteration. Best-case scenario: You agree th a t the edits have im proved the piece. More likely, you can 't fathom w h y some changes w ere made. This can get touchy, b u t it boils dow n to diplomacy. There's no sense arguing over w hether a com m a belongs before the and a t the end of a series or how m an y sentences constitute a paragraph. These are m atters of individ­ u al m agazine style. "D on't sw eat the small stuff," as stress co n su ltan t an d a u th o r Richard Carlson cheerfully suggests in his Don't Sweat t h e . . . series. But if it's the bigger stuff, the m ore serious changing an d rea rran g ­ ing of y o u r m aterial, th a t bothers you, th en view y o u r sto ry as a learn­ ing experience. You can tactfully and w ith o u t attitu d e ask y o u r editor to explain w h y a specific sentence or p aragraph w as rew ritten. Be judicious. D on't nitpick. Ju st as you learned not to cross-exam ine every decision