Put a face to your story. Find the human element. Personalize your writing.
It’s something we’ve had pounded into our heads since our first days at Medill. And rightly so. Exploring a broad issue through the eyes of a single individual undoubtedly makes for a more compelling tale.
Chicago’s cornucopia of cultures and colorful neighborhoods made meeting someone with an interesting story and an inclination to tell it relatively straightforward. All you had to do was go for a late-night stroll through Uptown (recommended) or Little Village (not recommended).
The headaches in the Windy City came more from getting ahold of official sources – shady aldermen, cantankerous CPS spokespeople, distrustful state agency heads. Whether it was Medill’s reputation or just a raging year-round case of seasonal affective disorder from Chicago’s winters, something prevented these people from returning calls in a timely fashion, if at all.
So, by necessity, our stories became about the little people. The ones historically without a voice. I can’t begin to count the number of times people actually thanked me for interviewing them, instead of the other way around (to be honest, I really lost count because my memory’s fading, but I assure you it was no small number).
After having reported from D.C. on national issues for national clients over the last few months, it strikes me to look back at how different the stories I produced in Chicago were.
In May, most of the events I covered came from the Chicago Radicalendar – a listing of the latest protests, marches, lectures and film premieres being held by members of the city’s radical leftist community. If I was lucky, the headliner might be someone like Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers (who, may I add, still appears in my G-chat buddy list).
Now I scour happenings in the exalted AP Daybook – a resource we weren’t privy to in Chicago. And if all of an event’s scheduled speakers don’t at least have their own Wikipedia page, then screw ‘em. I ain’t going (usually).
In Washington, there are no little people. At least none that I’ve met. Here, the people you interview have been quoted in more stories than I’ve ever written. Sources are more likely to knowledgeably remark on the specific make of my video equipment than be in awe of speaking on camera.
Here, it seems, talking to the media is a necessary evil accepted by the powers that be. As expected, some people and agencies are more responsive than others (curse you, GSA). But all have acted professionally and treated me with respect. That’s more than I can say for some of the “officials” and their spokespeople whom I had the pleasure of getting chewed out by in Chicago.
What’s notably tougher here, though, especially when writing for a national audience, is to find that person through which to tell the bigger story. I’d often sit down to write, dozens of pages worth of transcribed interviews at my disposal, only to realize that all of them were with officials and experts. Where was my human element? Would I be able to find someone?
The answer was often no. I didn’t know where to look. So I did without.
It wasn’t all bad. Rather than invoking the finer elements of Shakesperean drama in my humanized ledes, I got practice using other approaches. Namely humor, imagery and posing thought-provoking hypotheticals (like,” imagine a day that I spent less than 12 hours at the newsroom”…but I digress).
My difficulty in finding everyday people to speak to was in part due to my national scope and choice of beat — the fields of science and technology aren’t typically chock-full of “normal people” (unless you also went to MIT). Nor was my general source for story ideas, the AP Daybook, necessarily awash in “normal people” events and activities.
Still, I’m convinced that had I been in Chicago, I would’ve had an easier time of it. For the first and probably only time I think I have to agree with Wasilla’s venerable Sarah Palin. This city’s nothing but a bunch of stinking elites and insiders. Not that that’s a bad thing…unless you’re looking for a human face.
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Zak Koeske covers health and science issues for Medill News Service in Washington. Before coming to Medill, he wrote general assignment pieces for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and features for the Pittsburgh Sports Report. He will be graduating with a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in December.