#4 Why Journalism Matters, The Sounds of Silence and a Dark Mirror
What’s the point of being a journalist today?
I decided to tackle the question after a journalist friend posed it recently.
The profession is under attack by millions of Americans who believe that the hard work of reporters and editors is ‘Fake News.” Readership figures are abysmal. There are so many communities without newspapers or with publications so devoid of local coverage that they constitute a “news desert.”
In many newsrooms, slashed budgets mean smaller staffs who are expected to pick up the slack, doing the work of former colleagues along with their own. For too many journalists, the pay is so low they have trouble paying rent, let alone owning their own home, and, for some, the situation is so dire, that on some nights ramen noodles is dinner.
I deeply sympathize with their plight and remember those days when I started out. Even so, there’s no better or more vital time to be a journalist, however dismal some of its trappings. Not when the profession — and truth — are under attack, in the most vile ways, and from leaders who should understand, and respect, the First Amendment in a democracy.
Now’s the time for journalists to work their tails off to ferret out the truth, whether it’s writing stories about corruption at City Hall, trying to make a go of it on a farm or small business, working three jobs to go to college. the wonders of birth, the sadness death brings, what my editor Joel Rawson used to call “the joys and costs of being human.”
I hope you saw The New York Times exposé this week that proved Russian planes are bombing hospitals in Syria. Without those journalists, the Russians could go on denying they don’t target hospitals. That story makes you realize why we need committed journalists more than ever.
I can hear the retorts already: that’s the Times; they’ve got the money, resources. I’m supposed to do four stories a day and social media and carry my own camera and audio recorder. And even if they gave me the time, I could never do anything that ambitious.
I call bullshit.
Even on a small scale, journalists have the power to do important work. Mark Bowden, who wrote “Black Hawk Down” as a series for The Philadelphia Inquirer only to see it become a book and a blockbuster movie, advised young reporters to always work on something their editors didn’t know about, until it was so fully formed they had no choice but to give them time to finish it. Even the most budget-conscious editors know a good story when they see it.
Sometimes you have to make an investment in yourself. Early in my career, after just twp months at a new paper, I spent nights and weekends, on my own time, working on a story I was passionate about. After the editors decided to run it on Page One, I asked a friend if he thought I should put in for overtime.
Go ahead, he said, but don’t expect to get another chance like this. And then he said something I’ve never forgotten: “You get paid in ways other than money.” He was right. Not long after that story ran, I got a promotion and started my career writing longform narratives. Do the work, however difficult the sacrifice may be. The rewards can be unimaginable.
Journalism has the power to reveal important truths and the capacity to change things for the better, wherever you work. It can also pave the way for your own professional and personal development.
I’m one of those people who believe that journalism is not just a job, but an immense privilege, and that a press pass is a passport to places and people the rest of us can’t get to. It’s a calling. I’m not saying you should take an oath of poverty, but if that’s not worth the occasional dish of cheap noodle soup, I don’t know what is.
CRAFT LESSON
If I had to pick the most important reporting skill, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. Learning to listen, the focus of this week’s Craft Lesson, “The Power of Silence.”
Because I used a tape recorder early in my reporting career, I was forced to experience the many times when I stepped on a subject’s answer, interrupting them in mid-stream and costing myself a good quote or solid information that would have made for a better story.
So it was encouraging to learn that Robert A. Caro, the indefatigable biographer of President Lyndon B. Johnson, has notebooks full of “SUs,” to remind him to shut up. I had a sign like that on my desktop for years.
"In interviews, silence is the weapon, silence and people’s need to fill it," Caro writes in "Working," in which he describes his methods of interviewing, researching and writing. It’s a master class from a master craftsman.
In this week’s Craft Lesson, you also learn about the difference between “contemporary quotes” — the journalism staple, spoken in answer to a reporter’s question — and “narrative quotes,“ uttered as dialogue or snatches of a character’s speech.
Contemporary quotes have their place. In many cases, the only way reporters can get a quote from President Donald Trump is to ask a question and capture his shouted response over the din of whirring helicopters blades on the White House lawn.
But narrative quotes are much more revealing and require a reporter’s listening ear that is capable of snatching the butterflies of dialogue as they float through the air. Good stories combine the two types. The only way to get each of them is to “SU!’
TIP OF THE WEEK
“Tip of the week” is a new feature of Chip on Your Shoulder. This week’s focuses on quotes and the high bar that writers should set before using one. Too often, we let sources rattle on when a judicious trim and paraphrase would aid story flow. Rule of thumb: if it takes more than one breath to read a quote aloud, it’s too long.
INTERVIEW
Journalism, by its nature, trains its eyes on the foibles of the human condition. Crime and justice beats expose journalists to “the dark side of human nature: Greed, power, rage,” veteran crime reporter Noelle Crombie of The Oregonian told me recently.
Twisted urges like these propelled the crimes behind “Ghosts of Highway 20,” a five-part series about a serial killer and rapist who prowled the forests of rural Oregon for decades without detection. Crombie wrote the series, working in tandem with photographer Beth Nakamura and videographer Dave Killen.
Crime news makes for natural, compelling narratives. But covering crimes means that reporters are constantly in contact with unspeakable tragedies and the unmistakable presence of evil. That’s why Crombie chose a “dark mirror” as a metaphor to describe her life as a reporter.
Readers can look away from these morbid reflections; journalists don’t have the choice.
Writing about victims also taught Crombie the importance of empathy, one of ten tools crucial to a journalist’s success that I described in a recent post.
“It’s humbling to be trusted with someone’s story, especially if it involves sexual assault,” she said. "I’ve written a lot about victims of sex crimes and other crime victims still coping with deep trauma and an unsatisfying criminal justice system...Trusting me, a journalist and stranger, with their accounts is a big leap of faith and a reminder of the critical role we play as truth-tellers.”
WRITERS SPEAK
If you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than John le Carré who just finished his 25th spy novel as he approaches his 88th birthday. He has no intention of slowing down either, he told The New York Times. “I have no real leisure activity,” le Carré says. “I am dismayed when I’m not writing, completely content when I am. I also find, thus far, that I’m unaware of any relaxation of my talent.” Would that we all had his stamina.
Anyone who writes can recognize what the renowned playwright Arthur Miller (“Death of a Salesman") is talking about when he says, “The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always. It’s inevitable."
Whether you’re writing a raw personal essay, trying a new voice for a short story or putting your byline on a news story, you’re always exposed, open to ridicule or rejection. Vulnerability comes with the territory. Embarrass yourself today.
A Bonus Quote from MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist David Finkel ("Thank You For Your Service"):
"If you talk to someone long enough, you find common points. These things come out, and you ask for them. If I ask too early, they won't come through. But if we talk long enough and they feel they can trust me, then they hand over things."
BOOKBAG
During the Depression, women librarians riding pack horses and mules carried books, magazines and newspapers to impoverished Appalachia. They were known as the "book women," Anika Burgess writes in Atlas Obscura. Children, above, gather around one, eager for the reading material that she’s delivering astride her mount.
A powerfully told story reported from a tiny African-American community in the Deep South by Stephanie McCrummen of The Washington Post, notable, says Berkley Hudson, a professor at the University of Missouri Journalism School, for its ‘use of narrative, scene, dialogue, character & structure.”
A fascinating read about a country doctor fighting some of the rarest diseases on earth among Amish families in rural Wisconsin. By Pulitzer winner Mark Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who humanizes health reporting, transforming complex issues into compelling narratives.
CHIP IN YOUR EAR
"The Fade Out Line," by Phoebe Killdeer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqwU7nv3hTM
“The Sounds of Silence,” by Simon and Garfunkel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0
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May the writing go well!
Credits:
Snowy Newsstand/ Matt Popovich/Unsplash
Tip Jar/Sam Truong Dan/Unsplash
Silence/Kristina Flour/Unsplash
Quote Marks/PNG Mart "Bookwoman"/Kentucky Libraries and Archives
"The Fade Out Line &"The Sounds of Silence"/YouTube