"Just an observation, not a post" post

I just took a minute to read back through some of my posts and realized something. I could really use an editor. Or more time to work on things.
... I wonder which one is easier to get. ...

The Curious Case Of...

"Whatever you do, don't ever lose your curiosity."

That was some advice given by Jim Schoettler, a reporter for "The Florida Times-Union". In class, we had the opportunity to watch a video of Schoettler giving a guest-lecture for a previous class of my professor's. It was interesting to listen to a veteran reporter talk about some of the experiences he had and the process that he went through to write a story.

I agree with him that a natural tendency towards curiosity is helpful for a journalist and/or reporter. It is often this trait that allows a reporter to shed light on something that may have been hidden. Of course, there is always the risk that the light won't uncover something that people want to see. In fact, it may be down right disturbing. ...

It's possible that thought crossed Schoettler's mind when he was reporting on "The White House Boys" and working with photographer/videographer, Jon Fletcher, to develop his video about the torture that the boys endured at the Florida Industrial School for Boys in the 1950s. However, whether you believe that the purpose of journalism is to hold a mirror up to society or to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, there are times that the truth uncovered will not always be pretty or easy to tolerate.

That's one of the paradoxes of curiosity, I suppose; and something that we all run into in life. We ask questions because we wander about something. Sometimes what we learn can be beneficial or fascinating (you can get moisture out of a cell phone by leaving it overnight in a bag of rice?! Really!), and sometimes it can be scary or hurtful, despite the fact that it may be needed. Sort of like re-breaking the nose that is crooked from a childhood fall in order to allow the individual to breath through it again.

I guess the risk (or benefit, depending on your perspective) of doing this as a journalist is that the implications can be so much bigger than just you or a couple people in your life. The light that a journalist gives has the potential to impact entire communities or society as a whole, as well as an individual. It can be a sobering task to consider.

Of course, in the end, what people do with that information and the light that is shed is beyond the reporter's control. ...

Sticks and Stones

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

It’s a lie.

The basic premise of this statement, one that many people learn during rough days of childhood taunts, is that words can’t really have an impact on you. They’re just words. Any good student of journalism should understand that this is just not the case. Words CAN impact you, and often in surprising ways. And you can impact others by the words that you choose.

I’ve found that you never really know how even one word choice can effect someone that you’re talking to. I was reminded of this recently while taking a client to a doctor’s appointment. She’d seen this doctor three or four times already and, although a professional doctor and reasonably nice guy, he’d never come across as particularly empathetic to her. I’d even witnessed him in conflict with a nurse over scheduling issues for about 15 minutes in the middle of a pre-op room at the hospital because neither of them could seem to accept the other’s point of view. However, at this particular appointment, my client mentioned that she’d recently had to deal with the death of one of her beloved cats. The doctor stopped his chart review and looked up at her.

“What?!” he asked, “One of your cats died?!”

I was completely taken aback by his sudden display of emotion. He seemed truly upset by this. He went on to explain that he had two cats and couldn’t imagine how hard it would be for him to deal with when one of them passed away. And just like that, he became a real person. There was a change in his voice in the way that he spoke with my client from that point on. All because of “cat”. Who knew?

It helped me think about the interviews that we’d conducted on Monday night and the way that simple word choices may have influenced the direction that answers took. I think I saw this most clearly by being interviewed as opposed to doing the interview. One question in particular that was asked of me was along the lines of “how did growing up in South Carolina help in shaping you into the person that you’ve become?” I’m not sure if this was one of the original questions that was planned or if it was an afterthought. It’s not a bad question at all. However, the initial negative reaction that I had to it was a surprise to me. It wasn’t until later, when I had a chance to process that, that I understood why I may have had the internal reaction to the question that I did.

As a result of the phrasing of that particular question, I think I felt like my answer had to portray the impact of growing up in South Carolina as being positive because of the word “help”. In all honesty, I appreciate that the question did make me think about the positive side of growing up where I did, because I’m typically a lot more likely to focus on the negative and out of place feelings that I had while growing up there. However, even though I did answer the question in a positive way, I’m not sure I did the best job of giving a really accurate picture of the entire impact that growing up in South Carolina may have had. All because of how one word led me to interpret the question, whether it’s what my interviewer intended or not.

As I looked back over the questions that I’d asked during the interview, I could see that I’d also made assumptions and phrased things in a way that may have led my interviewee towards a specific direction. I hope that this lesson will be a good reminder to re-read questions that I come up with for any future interviews in order to look for leading words or assumptions. It’s always good to remember that there are things that interviewers or question askers can do to elicit certain responses, for good or bad. But even with this lesson, I know that it is still not always possible to predict how a person may respond to something. As I said before, you never really know what kind of response a specific word or phrase may get, no matter how unbiased or general you try to make it.

For example, had the subject of MY cat come up at the doctor’s appointment earlier this week, I’m not even sure it’s the cat I would have focused on. At this point in time, it’s more likely to be the lizards that we are finding on a daily basis in the house as a result of the cat.

…or at least, what’s left of them.

Just Asking...

Okay. I have to admit something: I’m really excited about the interview stuff that we’re working on in class right now. Last week we went over some information about conducting interviews and are preparing to put that in to practice tonight. My experience with the process of interviewing and writing up the resulting story, assessment, etc. is one of the major factors in influencing my decision to return to school for a journalism degree. I love getting an opportunity to hear someone’s story about their perspective, experiences, life in general.

When I worked for an outpatient mental health agency in St.Louis, MO, I had around 35-55 clients at any given time with everything from personality disorders to major depression or schizophrenia. One of the things I enjoyed most about the job was the opportunity to conduct the annual interviews with my clients. As we talked about the steps of interviewing in class, I thought back to my experience in these interviews.

Keeping control of the situation when you’re in a psychiatric ward with a client telling you what she’s hearing the news anchor on the sitting room television really saying; or leaning back in his chair, eyes shut, to serenade you with his best rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” at the top of his lungs, can be a challenge for the best interviewer. I had one of those situations happen early on in the job and one about a year later. I’m not sure I really made much of a change, right or wrong, in handling those situations, despite having more experience.

However, there are many other areas of interviewing in which I could clearly see a progression. Although the assessments covered specific areas, there weren’t necessarily specific questions to ask, leaving some flexibility for the case manager conducting the interview. As I became more experienced, I learned what type of questions to start off with in order to build some trust before moving on to questions that would be more difficult to open up about.

For example, I would typically try to start with questions that asked about some basic background info, what they did in their free time, how they were feeling physically before moving on to areas such as specific psychiatric symptoms or sexual issues, despite the order in which these things came up in the assessment itself. I learned to listen and write without appearing disconnected from the interviewee. I learned how to move people back to the question at hand when they went off on some (often very random) tangents. I learned when to be quiet, when to be empathetic, when not to react, and when to try to gently prod for more information. One of the biggest things I learned about interviewing is that it is truly an art. I think it could quite possibly take a lifetime of practice to perfect.

Some of my favorite programs revolve around more of a storytelling form of journalism, such as “This American Life” or “Fresh Air” on NPR. My husband’s natural ability as a storyteller was one of the things that initially attracted me to him. People crack me up. They do. And I love trying to get at WHY they do the things they do.

While this might also help explain why I decided to get a degree in psychology and counseling, I have since realized that I didn’t necessarily want to pursue people’s ‘why’s’ in that particular setting. However, I know that within journalism interviewing can take a range of forms from briefly talking to an eyewitness about a car accident they just saw to a feature article similar to what I’ve been talking about above. I’m looking forward to getting more opportunities to experiment with this particular art form, in whatever aspect it may be!

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut...Graf...

And sometimes you just don’t….

Over the last couple of weeks, my class has focused on the inverted pyramid style of writing. I’ve already mentioned the “lede” sentence or paragraph, which provides the reader with the most important information of the story right up front. However, it often doesn’t answer every one of the “what, when, where, why, or how” questions. That’s where the next most important paragraph of the story comes in: the nut graf. According to Wikipedia, it’s also known as the nut graph, nut 'graph, nutgraph and nutgraf; a contraction of nutshell paragraph, from the expression "in a nutshell".

Blogger Chip Scanlan elaborates on the definition of a nut graf as he explains that, “The nut graf tells the reader what the writer is up to; it delivers a promise of the story's content and message. It's called the nut graf because, like a nut, it contains the "kernel," or essential theme, of the story.” He goes on to mention that reporters and editors at “The Philadelphia Inquirer” refer to the nut graf as the "You may have wondered why we invited you to this party?" section.

The lede and nut graph function as an important element of the inverted pyramid style of news writing and its purpose of getting information to the readers quickly and enabling them to move through the story easily. Or to help them decide whether or not to move through the story at all.

In his explanation of the purpose of the nut graf, blogger “Tei” states that,“In my experience, frequently the nut graf is where one of two things happens: either you get really psyched about what you’re about to learn, or you find out that you were suckered by the lede and this article isn’t about what you thought it was about.”

Along with allowing the reader to decide quickly whether or not they want to continue on with any given story, the inverted pyramid style of writing also organizes information in a way that allows the reader to be efficient. It puts the most important and up to date information at the top of the story and progressively leads to the least important information. This also allows for editing to occur by simply chopping off the from the bottom of the story, should space end up being an issue in the layout of the paper.

But back to my initial statement at the beginning of the blog…Although I understand the point of this style of news writing and can see how it functions well for the purpose of getting news out quickly, there is a part of me that takes issue with it. As I’ve been thinking about this, I can’t decide if I’m simply getting frustrated because I don’t feel particularly comfortable with learning a new form of writing, which can obviously change with practice and education. Or if this style of writing is simply not what I’m cut out to do. I don’t feel like I have a clear enough idea of myself as a journalist to be able to answer that question completely. That being said, the issue that I have with the syle itself is the fact that, along with allowing for the reader to be more efficient, it also enables the fast paced, immediate form of news distribution that has become the norm in our society. As efficient as the inverted pyramid style of writing has been, it has allowed for people to become used to getting important information quickly without needing the patience to read through an entire story. It has enabled the attention-deficit form of news reporting that our society is so used to at this point. Trying to get someone to read through an entire article to get to a point at the end would seem like asking too much. The difference in people’s ability to stay focused, particularly when receiving information through lecture or writing, from years ago to today can be pretty disturbing. As more and more people turn to the internet to get quick, “sound bite” information, I can’t help but wonder if newspapers shouldn’t consider a return to more in-depth, storytelling style of writing to get the attention of those people that still appreciate a good book or longer, more informative article.

Or, like I mentioned ealier, maybe it’s just me and all I need to do is get more comfortable with that particular style of writing. Especially since I’d never really had an issue with it before actually thinking about it with these classes. I guess I’ll just wait and see…