The final days anywhere are a fruitful time for reflection. That may be obvious but, without honest reflection, fond memories can cloud important lessons. Reflecting (and writing about it) is one way I remember.
The CNN experience has been a 10-week blur, filled with inspiring job shadows, a new-found pride in hearing “This is CNN,” and, of course, coffee. While it was summer and I was more than 800 miles from the classrooms of Marquette University, my education did not stop. Except, the lessons did not come from books but from people. I was taught through experiences. Here are some of the lessons I would like to pass on. More than an editor My editors were, arguably, the biggest blessing of the experience. There is an old journalism saying that says if you are not fighting with your editor, you are doing it wrong. I cannot believe that anymore. CNN published more than 40 articles with my byline, each of them going through one of two features editors. The majority of the time, they would walk me through changes they made before publishing. Doing that was a major time commitment but priceless for improving my writing. Beyond infusing CNN style, they pushed my writing to be more conversational. I started the internship with hard-line writing, the stoic this-happened-then-this-happened kind of style that makes people hate reading the news. Having my editors explain why they moved grafs around or re-worded sentences taught me in real time how to evaluate my own work. It is one thing to look at a published piece and see how it is different. It is quite another to have an explanation and be able to ask follow-up questions, which is why I am especially thankful for the commitment of my editors. Make the phone call My typical, walking-and-whistling-down-the-street nature is non-confrontational. My newsroom, pen-and-paper-in-hand nature is the opposite. Thanks, CNN. If forced to identify when I changed, it would be the article about Atlanta’s NAACP chapter calling for the removal of Confederate symbols at a nearby, state-owned tourist site. In brief, the group did not want taxpayers supporting places that glorified Confederate symbols. Upon further research, though, I discovered that the site was not maintained by taxes. Since this was the brunt of the NAACP’s complaint, I had to bring it up in the interview. At first, the group’s president dodged the question so I brought it up again. Only then did he address that their complaint included properties that were, at one time, paid for by tax money. The truth came out. Pure and simple: If you do not ask, you do not get an answer. Sure, it was not a Frost-Nixon moment. But it was empowerment enough to remind me that every viewpoint should be challenged -- ask the tough questions. As a journalist, you owe it to the public. Word of warning: That mindset does not have to be the same in every case. A story about puppies does not necessarily require the same hard-hitting questions as interviewing an oppressive dictator. Write, write, write Granted, I already wrote about this (meta, I know) but writing consistently is the best way to cement malleable journalism skills. My boss at the first reporting job I ever had taught me this through a story of a ceramics teacher with a unique grading scale. In the class one group of students was graded on the weight or quantity of pots they made. The other group was graded on the quality of a single pot, so they only needed to create a perfect pot. At the end of the term, the group that was producing for quantity actually made better quality pots than those trying to craft one perfect pot. The lesson here is that trying to be perfect does not work. Rather, repetition and learning from mistakes is the ultimate lesson. The author of the article, James Clear, presents the it in a succinct proverb: "If you ignore the outcomes and focus only on the repetitions, you’ll still get results. If you ignore the goals and build habits instead, the outcomes will be there anyway." So, start writing. Then, write some more. Get dirty. Make mistake. Learn. Bear in mind that this requires a solid foundation of skills to start, but the lesson rang true at the first job and continues to ring today. Keep writing, keep practicing. No successful artist ever spent a career in the planning stage. Walking away It was bittersweet walking out of the newsroom for the last time. These lessons are only the tip of the iceberg. My journey in human rights journalism is just beginning and, as one chapter comes to an end, another begins. The next stop on the path may be the classroom, but it is an opportunity to share this experience with Marquette and Milwaukee friends, along with anyone who is willing to listen. Please, contact me if you would like to discuss journalism, human rights or, really, anything. Would love to connect!
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My Facebook newsfeed is plump with articles about numbers. From Vox to FiveThirtyEight, data journalism is all the rage. The template is simple: Stories need numbers to be supported; those numbers need studies to create them; and those studies need massive sample sizes to be legitimate.
Somewhere, amid the abstracts and peer reviews, humans become a number. That can be overwhelming, which is why I was found comfort in a blog by a friend working in Guatemala. Amid one description of life as a researcher, was the phrase, “Statistics are human beings with the tears removed.” Those words reminded me why I am pursuing human rights journalism. Not to discredit the power of data journalism, but a percentage point rarely keeps me up at night. What does haunt me is the former alcoholic who was kicked out of his rehabilitation program weeks before completion after one weekend's mistakes. It is the friend who, as a young girl, had “the talk” with her father – not a talk about sex but about being targeted because of her skin color. Those are not numbers, those are people. People suffer and rejoice. They raise their arms in celebration and wrap them around others in mourning. Most importantly, though, the example of their lives and their stories create action. Malala Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt in Pakistan after opposing the Taliban’s ban on girls attending school. Her example of peaceful resistance to violent oppression literally created schools for girls around the world. Her story sparked that movement, not that the literacy rate for Pakistani women over 15-years old is less than 60 percent. Recognizing and validating the millions upon millions of people whose lives are broadcast in the form of a number is a daunting task, sure. Yet, unless people know what is happening in the world and recognize that it is happening to people whose humanity parallels their own, change will not happen. When people become numbers, they are easy to ignore and scroll past as though life is a newsfeed. Putting a face and a name to that number -- returning a tear to that statistic, if you will -- may be just enough to catch attention. It is the reason to place hope in a story's power to create change. The past month has been a blur due to my internship at CNN, so apologies for not writing a post sooner. New job, new city and new responsibilities kept me from upholding this responsibility. Time to get back to teaching as I learn.
Here is a quick but golden nugget of journalism advice from a reporter with less than a year's experience: Write, write and, when in doubt, write. Working at CNN has challenged me to write about a multitude of topics, many of them unfamiliar. Whether it is about Riley Curry's rise to fame or Katy Perry's legal battle with nuns, writing is what matters. Practice makes perfect and, while no one is a perfect writer, every article is a chance to improve. My inclination, prior to this internship, was to wait for the perfect story. It was about covering just what I wanted to cover. Instead of writing and learning different reporting styles, my mind was in a journalism holdout for the perfect story. Looking back, that was the worst thing to do, the absolute worst. Spoiler: Waiting for the perfect story will have you unprepared when it comes. The better, no best, option is to write as much as possible. Cover topics that are foreign. Volunteer your skills to as many projects as possible. Who knows, you might even be sent to the Atlantic Ocean as result. During all of this, polish up the skills in ethical, balanced journalism. It all adds up in experience. So, when that perfect story does come along, there will not be a moment of hesitation. You will be ready. And we are all excited to see you cover it.
If there has been one takeaway over the past months creating a profile on Jeremy Ault, it is this: He is very busy. From working as the director of international fundraising for Diaconia to raising a new baby to playing weekends in a band, Ault does not stay in one spot for long. Which is why setting a time to do a sit-down video interview with him was pivotal for the project.
A 45-minute bus ride took me to his office, located inside Plymouth Church United Church of Christ. Arriving early was an opportunity to shoot some b-roll outside the office. Camera turned on, tripod steadied, the first shot was perfect, until I pushed record. The screen revealed a haunting truth: "No memory card." Problems with technology haunted me earlier this year. Again, I failed to check my equipment before leaving. Memory cards were usually included in the past and I was rushing to catch a bus, so I had not double-checked. The entire project, profiling an alumni of Marquette University's Trinity Fellowship Program, hinged on the video component. This was a chance for audiences to hear directly from Ault about his mission and his family. Without a memory card, there was no other option other than to improvise. My experience using my iPhone 6 was limited but it was the best, and only, tool available. There is a joy in reporting that my battery did not die, either. The mission of the piece remained the same: Convey the tension and uncertainty of Ault's work and allow him to speak about his mission. Instead of setting up a camera and tripod, then walking away, I braced my iPhone on the tripod with one arm and sat to the side so that he was not looking directly at the camera. Again, thankful that the phone battery survived a 25-minute interview. All the footage in this video, apart from a church visit earlier this year, was done on the iPhone. It came with much anxiety but the experience proved invaluable: The story will not stop and wait for you, sometimes you just have to make due. Fight it as much as you want, journalists, but the digital world is not leaving any time soon. That was the message of Mira Lowe, senior features editor for CNN Digital. "All of you have to be digital journalists," she said.
Lowe discussed some of the programs CNN uses to measure user engagement, as well as ones she uses to monitor news trends and get the jump on emerging stories. These are tools all journalists can, and should, use. The first was Chartbeat Rising, a free program that ranks top topics being shared on social media across 30 countries. The trends show up in interactive bubbles. Second was Twitter Trends, which can be customized to specific locations, depending on what you want to know. This is a great way to see what people are tweeting about from Prague to Portland, Oregon. Facebook has a new feature that allows users to see stories that are receiving attention. This is shown on the right-side of the desktop screen and can be expanded to show more topics. With Facebook becoming more of a news- or blog-sharing site, this feature helps users stay up-to-date about what is popular. Bing was a surprising suggestion from Lowe. The search engine now features a row of top stories on the bottom of the homepage for ease of access. Finally, NewsWhip offers users the ability to track social trends and niche categories to see what is trending and what may soon be a top story. These programs were not all that Lowe presented. She also emphasized the need for a social media strategy in sharing writing. "You story doesn't end when it gets published," she said. In fact, after posting it online, engagement begins. Connecting with others online and getting your work shared means using hashtags, sending it to targeted readers and responding when people interact with your writing. Social media is part of the storytelling process, adding another step for journalists to raise awareness and keep the world informed.
The corner of 23rd Street and West Kilbourn Avenue is a short walk of seven blocks from my apartment. The area feels like a different world, despite its close proximity to my home. On a sunny afternoon, I stood at that corner with Vollie Nolen, a former resident of Avenues West neighborhood. The camera was recording as Nolen explained the disheartening reality of the area.
“This is one of the hardest hit areas as far as drugs," Nolen said. "You’re in a hell of an area because this is the 'hood." We walked through Avenues West, looking for residents willing to speak on camera. By the time I recruited Nolen to join me, I had spent two hours in the area without a single yes. In the two hours Nolen and I walked through the streets, one woman agreed to talk about her perceptions of boundaries. The premise of my JOUR-DOC is to highlight the hearsay of boundaries on campus. New students are often told not to go beyond a certain street for their own safety. Such perceptions further divide the most segregated U.S. city. The New York Times's Op-Doc series was the initial inspiration for this piece, as I wrote earlier. "Hotel 22" by Elizabeth Lo caught my attention and my video attempts to emulate the beginning with short sentences introducing the topic. Nolen should be credited with keeping moral high. It was difficult facing rejection again and again from residents not wanting to be interviewed. However, he kept pushed me to see the positive in getting one interview. The response of Mildred Johnson, an Avenues West resident, was telling. Her words underlined the need for more awareness concerning how Marquette University perceptions of safety divide neighborhoods. While Johnson does not feel a boundary, that sentiment is not reflected in Marquette students.
Newspapers and blogs cannot contain a picture to accompany every change in location, regardless of if it is across the street or across the globe. StoryMap JS addresses that problem. The digital storytelling tool allows users to create interactive maps where an audience can follow a story that traverses geography.
This type of location-specific storytelling has been used by all kinds of news stations for all kinds of topics, from The Washington Post's coverage of ISIS to a fan-designed map of a Arya Stark from "Game of Thrones." StoryMap JS lends itself especially well to stories that are historical or travel-based. My first crack at the program included building an navigable map for the story of Jeremy Ault, the alumni of the Trinity Fellows Program at Marquette University whose profile is part of the #loweclass semester project. Ault has lived in several states and the Czech Republic, so StoryMap JS's feature of moving across a world map worked well to show where Ault was and what he was doing. The interface for using StoryMap JS was shockingly easy for a complex finished product. After tagging locations on a map, a user can add text and pictures to provide color for each geographic shift. The most difficult part of the entire process was clicking between the edit and preview modes of the program to check each paragraph for widows or orphans. The tool was more user-friendly than Storify and, in my opinion, a more unique style of journalism. Stay objective. Get both sides of the story. Keep your opinion out of the piece. These declarations are uttered across newsrooms and journalism classrooms around the world. Yet, there are instances when journalists get to break those tenants and express their viewpoint by telling a story. The New York Times' series of Op-Docs provides that kind of freedom. The pieces are stunning.
These short video pieces come directly from the minds of the journalists, covering topics from the return home of a Guantánamo Bay prisoner to a 24-hour bus service that has become a homeless shelter. Emulating the powerful message each video holds is my main goal in creating my own piece. After watching many of the Op-Docs, here are four major takeaways. 1. The story, not the issue, is the lead Nadine Cloete's piece, "Miseducation," details the pervasive nature of violent crimes against children in South Africa. While this is eluded to, it is not until the closing seconds of the video that the audience gets the payoff of the statistic that more than 50,000 violent crimes are reported each year against children. Instead, the video follows 11-year-old Kelina through the streets of Cape Town, South Africa as she details the fear she feels. Before the audience knows the issue, they are hooked into Kelina's story and want to know why she is scared. 2. Show that an individual story is part of a larger issue New York's stop-and-frisk laws were implemented to decrease crime by allowing police officers to stop individuals if the officers believed the individual could be carrying a weapon. As Tyquan Brehon's story in "The Scars of Stop-and-Frisk" shows, however, this law is mishandled. Instead, it is used to profile minorities. Brehon estimates that he was stopped "60 to 70 times" between the ages of 15 and 18. The filmmakers, Julie Dressner and Edwin Martinez, do not stop there, though. They use statistics to show that Brehon's story is part of a larger issue with the laws, citing that 88 percent of those stopped in 2011 were not arrested or ticketed and that blacks or Latinos were 87 percent of those stopped. These numbers prove that the issue is a problem affecting more than Brehon. 3. Soundbites are more important than video Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway were unable to film the subject of their film, "Three Strikes of Injustice," because he was in a California correctional facility. Shane Taylor was imprisoned because of the three-strike law in California for nonviolent crimes. Getting around this issue forced the filmmakers to record a telephone conversation with Taylor, then use that audio alongside pictures of Taylor's family. Under the California law, Taylor says that he is serving 25 years to life in prison for possessing less than $20 of methamphetamine and the video shows the affects of Taylor's imprisonment on his wife and daughter. 4. But a powerful message does not need spoken word The piece "Lullaby" by Victor Kossakovsky shows the growing issue of individuals who are homeless sleeping near bank A.T.M.s in Europe. What makes Kossakovsky's piece is unique is that he does not have a single spoken word in the video. Instead, he uses powerful shots of people sleeping and bank patrons ignoring them or walking out of the bank to show the blind eye that is turned to the problem. This creative style offers a different way to take a stand. There is a lot of learn from these Op-Docs. With more than four seasons, these takeaways only scratch the surface of all the great examples. Thinking about my own piece, I am considering ______ What did you think of the Op-Docs? Which was your favorite? Have a story you think should be told in the Op-Doc style? If so, let me know! |
A chance to see the world from the perspective of a 6-foot-2, aspiring human rights journalist. Will include lessons learned and reflections.
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