Chip's Writing Lessons #37
IN THIS ISSUE
Writers Speak | Brenda Ueland on Growing in Understanding and Honesty
Interview | Mastering the Other Side of the Story: 4 Questions with Bill Marimow
Craft Lessons | 8 Steps to Better Interviewing
An Answer to Savor | Nick Cave on Surrendering to the Fear of Running Dry
Tip of the Week | Stop at Success
WRITERS SPEAK
“Don’t be afraid of writing bad, mawkish stories for that will show you many things about yourself, and your eye and taste and what you really feel and care about will become clearer to you. If you write a bad story, the way to make it better is to write three more. Then look at the first one. You will have grown in understanding, in honesty. You will know what to do to it. And to yourself.”
—Brenda Ueland, “If You Want to Write”
INTERVIEW | MASTERING THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY: 4 QUESTIONS WITH BILL MARIMOW
Bill Marimow/Elizabeth Robertson, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Bill Marimow, a two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient, has led three news organizations—The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Baltimore Sun as editor-in-chief and National Public Radio (NPR) as the vice president of news. As a reporter at The Inquirer, Marimow received the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1978 for stories he wrote with a partner on criminal violence by Philadelphia police, and again in 1985, for his investigation of the Philadelphia police K-9 unit. In addition, Marimow received two Silver Gavel Awards from the American Bar Association and two Robert F. Kennedy awards—the first, for his work as an Inquirer reporter and, the second, for his work as vice president of news at NPR. He was editor-in-chief of The Inquirer from 2006 until spring 2017–with one year off teaching at the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State University. He is a 1969 graduate of Trinity College, from which he received an honorary doctorate degree. Marimow studied First Amendment law at Harvard Law School as a Nieman Fellow. After retiring from The Inquirer in January 2020, Marimow joined Brian Communications as a senior adviser to Brian Tierney, the former publisher of The Inquirer.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned as an editor?
On stories about a controversy or a subject of sensitivity, do whatever is required to master the other side of the story. This is especially critical in investigative stories. Not only is it the right thing to do, journalistically, but it also will prove very valuable if you’re ever sued for libel. It would be very difficult for a plaintiff in a defamation case to prove that a reporter has written a story “with a reckless disregard of the truth” if the writer has done everything possible to master and communicate the other side of the story. Equally important, once a writer has secured both sides of the story, it will lead to writing with more nuance and authority.
What’s been the biggest surprise of your editing life?
Writing about how civil service exams for aspiring police commanders were compromised, I received dozens of phone calls from officers who had taken the sergeants, lieutenants and captains tests, explaining in detail what I had missed and pointing out specific test takers whose results were highly suspicious. The callers offered dozens of leads and thanked me for exposing what appeared to be a pattern of preferential—and illegal—treatment for some officers. These stories were published just a few years after my colleague Jonathan Neumann and I had written a series about criminal violence by the Philadelphia police, and we were considered “public enemies” by the mayor Frank L. Rizzo, a former Philadelphia police commissioner. A typical call from one of the police tipsters began this way: “Marimow, I never thought I’d be calling a newspaper. Especially not The Inquirer. And especially not you. But, pal, you’re telling it like it is, and the Police Department wants to thank you.” Before ending the call, the tipster would often supply the names of specific officers who had failed the civil service tests in the past and were suddenly ranked in the top handful of more than 5000 cops who had taken the sergeants test.
If you had to use a metaphor to describe yourself as an editor, what would it be?
A Haverford Township sanitation engineer, a job that I had one summer in college for $1.80 an hour: Like an editor, I took pride in my work; I got to know my colleagues and the people who lived on my route. I’ve always tried to focus on the fulfillment of a job well done—whether making a difference through our stories or hauling trash on the streets of Havertown. In the case of my summer job, the fulfillment came in knowing that the trash was off the streets until the following week; I was getting into excellent physical condition, and I learned that everyone—especially my full-time colleagues on the sanitation crew—had great life stories to tell.
What’s the single best piece of editing advice anyone ever gave you.
I think the best advice I ever got about writing was from Gene Roberts, who used to say that every good story should be brimming with “color, quotes and anecdotes.” As I recall, one of Gene’s first editors at the Goldsboro (NC) News-Argus was blind, and he demanded that Gene’s stories make him see. And as with all Gene Roberts’ kernels of wisdom, he delivered it in his inimitable North Carolinian drawl.
CRAFT LESSON | 8 STEPS TO BETTER INTERVIEWING
Every day around the globe, journalists pick up the phone or head out of the newsroom. They meet someone, a stranger or a familiar contact. They take out a notebook or turn on a recording device. And then they perform two simple acts. They ask a question and they listen to the answer. An interview has begun.
Interviewing lies at the heart of journalism. It is the critical path to building an information base that produces a fair, complete and accurate story. Yet too few journalists have ever received education or training in this critical skill. For most reporters, the only way to learn is on the job, mostly through painful trial and error.
How do you walk up to strangers and ask them questions? How do you get people—tight-lipped cops, jargon-spouting experts, everyday folks who aren’t accustomed to being interviewed—to give you useful answers? How do you use quotes effectively in your stories?
Step One: Get smart.
If you want to flop as an interviewer, fail to prepare. All too often, journalists start an interview armed only with a handful of questions scribbled in their notebooks. Take time, however short, to bone up on your subject or the topic you’ll be discussing. When former New York Times reporter Mirta Ojito interviewed experts, “I try to know almost as much as they do about their subject, so it seems we are ‘chatting,’” she said. A. J. Liebling, a legendary writer for The New Yorker, landed an interview with notoriously tight-lipped jockey Willie Shoemaker. He opened with a single question: Why do you ride with one stirrup higher than the other? Impressed by Liebling’s knowledge, Shoemaker opened up.
Step Two: Craft your questions.
The best questions are open-ended. They begin with “How?” “What?” “Where?” “When?” “Why?” These are conversation starters and encourage expansive answers that deliver an abundance of information.
Closed-ended questions are more limited but they have an important purpose. Ask them when you need a direct answer: Did you embezzle the city’s pension fund? Are you a member of the Proud Boys? Closed-ended questions put people on the record.
The worst are conversation stoppers, such as double-barreled (even tripled-barreled) questions. “Why did the campus police use pepper spray on student protesters? Did you give the order?” Double-barreled questions give the subject a choice that allows them to avoid the question they want to ignore and choose the less difficult one.
Craft questions in advance to ensure you ask ones that start conversations rather than halt them in their tracks. Stick to the script, and always ask one question at a time. Don’t be afraid to edit yourself. More than once, I’ve stopped myself in the middle of a double-barreled question and said, “That’s a terrible question. Let me put it another way.”
Step Three: Listen up.
The 1976 movie “All the President’s Men” focuses on two Washington Post reporters investigating corruption in the Nixon White House. At one point, Bob Woodward, played by Robert Redford, is on the phone with a Nixon fundraiser. Woodward asks how his $25,000 check ended up in the Watergate money trail. It’s a dangerous question, and you see Woodward ask it and then remain silent for several agonizing moments until the man on the other end of the phone finally blurts out incriminating information.
The moral: Shut your mouth. Wait. People hate silence and rush to fill it. Ask your question. Let them talk. If you have to, count to 10. Make eye contact, smile, nod, but don’t speak. You’ll be amazed at the riches that follow. “Silence opens the door to hearing dialogue, rare and valuable in breaking stories,” says Brady Dennis of The Washington Post.
Step Four: Empathize.
A long-held stereotype about reporters is that they don’t care about people, they just care about getting stories. If you can show sources that you have empathy—some understanding of their plight—they’re more likely to open up to you. “Interviewing is the modest immediate science of gaining trust, then gaining information,” John Brady wrote in “The Craft of Interviewing.”
“I am a human first,” said Carolyn Mungo, vice president and station manager at WFAA-TV in Dallas. “People have to see that journalists are not just a body behind a microphone. Even if you have five minutes, don’t rush, let them know you care.”
Step Five: Look around.
Good interviewers do more than listen.
“I always try to see people at home,” said Rhode Island freelancer Carol McCabe, who filled her newspaper and magazine feature stories with rich details gathered during interviews. “I can learn something from where the TV is, whether the set of encyclopedias or bowling trophies is prominently displayed, whether the guy hugs his wife or touches his kids, what clothes he or she wears at home, what’s on the refrigerator door,” McCabe said. Weave these kinds of details for a richer story.
Step Six: Capture how people talk.
The most powerful quotes are short, sometimes just fragments of speech. In a story about a two-car collision that killed two Alabama sisters traveling to visit each other, Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times used simple quotes that illustrated what the Roman orator Cicero called brevity’s “great charm of eloquence.”
“They weren’t fancy women,” said their sister Billie Walker. “They loved good conversation. And sugar biscuits.”
Just 11 words in quotes, yet they speak volumes about the victims.
Don’t use every quote in your notebook to prove you did the interviews. That’s not writing; it’s dictation. Put your bloated quotes on a diet. Quotations, as USA Today’s Kevin Maney once said, should occupy a “place of honor” in a story.
Listen for dialogue, those exchanges between people that illuminate character, drive action, and propel readers forward.
Step Seven: Establish ground rules.
You’ve just finished a great interview—with a cop, a neighbor, a lawyer—and suddenly the source says, “Oh, but that’s all off the record.”
That’s the time to point out that there’s no such thing as retroactive off the record. Make sure the person you’re interviewing knows the score right away.
When a source wants to go off the record, stop and ask, “What do you mean?” Often a source doesn’t know, especially if this is their first interview. Bill Marimow, who won two Pulitzer Prizes exposing police abuses at The Philadelphia Inquirer, would read off the record comments back to his source. Often, he found that many sources changed their minds once they’d heard what they were to be quoted as saying.
Step Eight: Be a lab rat.
Record your interviews. Transcribe the questions as well as the answers. Do you ask more conversation stoppers than starters? Do you step on your subject’s words just as they’re beginning to open up? Do you sound like a caring, interested human being, or a badgering prosecutor? To be the best interviewer you can be, study yourself and let your failures and victories lead you to rich conversations and richer stories.
AN ANSWER TO SAVOR | NICK CAVE ON SURRENDERING TO THE FEAR OF RUNNING DRY
Artist and Austin Kleon’s blog of his top-10 favorite things from the week is a rich source of inspiration. It was through him that I discovered musician Nick Cave’s blog, “The Red Hand Files.” It’s populated with questions he fields from his myriad fans. This one, about inspiration, caught my eye. It’s eloquent, compassionate, wise and ultimately positive about the fears most writers have: what if I run dry?
Marko of Zagreb, Croatia, asked, “What do you do when the lyrics just aren’t coming?”
“Dear Marko,” Cave answered. ”In my experience, lyrics are almost always seemingly just not coming. This is the tearful ground zero of song writing—at least for some of us. This lack of motion, this sense of suspended powerlessness, can feel extraordinarily desperate for a songwriter. But the thing you must hold on to through these difficult periods, as hard as it may be, is this—when something’s not coming, it’s coming. It took me many years to learn this, and to this day I have trouble remembering it.
“The idea of lyrics ‘not coming’ is basically a category error. What we are talking about is not a period of ‘not coming’ but a period of ‘not arriving’. The lyrics are always coming. They are always pending. They are always on their way toward us. But often they must journey a great distance and over vast stretches of time to get there. They advance through the rugged terrains of lived experience, battling to arrive at the end of our pen. In time, they emerge, leaping free of the unknown—from memory or, more thrillingly, from the predictive part of our minds that exists on the far side of the lived moment. It has been a long and arduous journey, and our waiting much anguished.
“Marko, our task is both simple and extremely difficult. Our task is to remain patient and vigilant and to not lose heart—for we are the destination. We are the portals from which the idea explodes, forced forth by its yearning to arrive. We are the revelators, the living instruments through which the idea announces itself—the flourishing and the blooming—but we are also the waiting and the wondering and the worrying. We are all of these things—we are the songwriters.”
Favorite bits:
“This lack of motion, this sense of suspended powerlessness, can feel extraordinarily desperate for a songwriter. But the thing you must hold on to through these difficult periods, as hard as it may be, is this—when something’s not coming, it’s coming.”
“We are the revelators, the living instruments through which the idea announces itself—the flourishing and the blooming—but we are also the waiting and the wondering and the worrying.”
TIP OF THE WEEK | STOP AT SUCESS
Wrap up your writing session when things are going well is a piece of advice that has stuck with writing teacher Jane Harrigan. “If you quit when you’re stuck, she says, you’ll never want to go back. Ernest Hemingway lived that approach. “I learned,” he wrote in “A Moveable Feast,” “never to empty the well of my writing. but always to stop when there was always something in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.” He would sometimes halt writing mid-sentence, but only when he knew “what would happen next.” There’s no sense banging your head against the keyboard when you’re stuck. Stop when you’ve reached a point where you know your story is leading. You can can pick up where you left off, primed to continue.
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