Emotional interviews, Part 2

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Jim Killam

Back to our conversation from last week, about ethics and interviewing.

At Crossfield News, our interdenominational mission news agency, we’ve developed a set of ethical guidelines for reporting, based on three goals: We will observe without obstructing, we will report fairly and accurately, and we will do everything for the glory of God first.

Here’s the subtext under “Observe without obstructing”:

To report a story thoroughly, we get as close to a situation as we can without interfering with what’s happening. We will never knowingly compromise anyone’s dignity, ministry, or safety.

Too many relief agencies and yes, Christian ministries have been willing to compromise the dignity of those they serve, for the purpose of raising money to help those same people. Here’s an extreme example of what I’m talking about:

Playing to the audience’s base emotions certainly attracts attention. It’s the staple of a hundred awful reality TV shows. It’s also what has given journalists – mostly on TV – a bad name, even though those journalists would say they are only giving people what they want.

Let me suggest a different approach. Last fall in Jordan, Lincoln and I met many Syrian families driven from their country by war. Many were in dire straits and, with winter approaching, weren’t sure how they were going to keep their families fed and warm.

As we interviewed people (with an interpreter), we tried to keep their dignity at the forefront. First, that was asking them their names, where they’re from, what they did for a living there. Then it was asking them how they wound up here. To a person, they wanted to tell us their stories. Some of those stories were heartbreaking. Some were terrifying.

The key for us was, we let people tell us as much as they wanted to tell us. We asked gentle follow-up questions; but knowing what these people had been through, we let them set the pace.

In these situations, an interview is less an interrogation than it is just a guided conversation. That starts with respecting – and protecting – someone’s dignity and not playing their emotions for the sake of a sound byte.

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Keep asking until he cracks

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Jim Killam

If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympics this week, you probably saw that cringe-worthy interview of Alpine skier Bode Miller by NBC’s Christin Cooper. Cooper asked Miller about his emotions and about his late brother. Then asked again. And again, until finally Miller broke down and the camera zoomed in.

Here’s the interview, in case you missed it.

Cooper, a former world class Alpine skier herself, took tons of heat after the interview. Miller came to her defense the next day, saying he didn’t blame her at all.

That’s gracious and classy.

The interview bothered me because instead of simply reflecting the emotion that was already present, the interviewer prompted it – kept asking loaded questions until she got the response the producer in her earpiece wanted.

Let’s remove this from a prepackaged, made-for-TV spectacle like the Olympics and transfer it to something real: the scene of a school shooting. In 2007, after a gunman killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University, the campus was swarmed with reporters. As one TV crew interviewed a student, she broke down, stepped away, knelt and wept. The reporter said to the camera operator, “Get this!” And the camera zoomed in, to about the same distance the camera zoomed on Miller this week, so the world could see a distraught student weeping.

The person who related this story to me was also a journalist – the editor of the student newspaper at VT. She was appalled, as were others who saw this happen. The reporter might have said she was just doing her job, but I think most good journalists would agree she was violating a basic ethical tenet of journalism: Minimize harm.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics lists several points under that tenet, including:

  • Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
  • Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
  • Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
  • Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.

What NBC is providing from Sochi isn’t really journalism – it’s prepackaged entertainment – but I think these ethical principles still apply. They certainly apply in any missions reporting situation, where we often deal with victims of trauma.

More about that next week.

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A Tale of Two Boats

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Lincoln Brunner

ImageThe other day, on my way back from Haiti, I had the surreal experience in Ft. Lauderdale of looking across the channel at one of the most expensive pleasure boats in the world. It was Seven Seas, Steven Spielberg’s mega-yacht, which he reportedly purchased for $200 million. He doesn’t keep it to himself, though — if you’d like, you can rent it for $1.3 million a week.

The photo of the big boat, I took on my way home, but the bottom one was much more emblematic of my week and a half abroad. I don’t know what the name of that boat was — let’s call it Haitian Queen. I don’t know how much it cost, either. Let’s say $200 U.S. The Queen’s captain was offering rides to the island behind him — easily reached with a 10-minute swim, which is why I didn’t take the boat. I’m not sure what else he used it for, but I think he had a fishing net in it.

The question that comes to my mind is, “What stories do these two boats tell?” Seven Seas screams wealth and pleasure and success — the tale of her owner. Haitian Queen looks small and lonely. It says, “Struggle” in the same flat tone in which many people in Haiti told me of their situations. It might speak to her captains situation, too.

I find myself in awe of Seven Seas, but drawn to Haitian Queen’s simplicity, its bright colors, and the stories represented in it. I was doing my best to enjoy a day off from reporting when I shot this photo, so I didn’t take time to flag down the HQ’s captain (that would have required bothering someone else to translate). But I kind of wish I had, just to find out who he was and why he rowed that boat around the beach and what his life was like and was it getting better in any way at all? Those would have been questions worth asking. Those would have been stories worth digging up.

Apologies to Steven Spielberg, whose story I’m sure is full of interesting twists and turns. But I bet he’d have to scour Seven Seas bow to stern to find tales half as interesting as Haitian Queen’s. 

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The one-man band

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Jim Killam

Last Thursday was a good reminder to me of how much reporting has changed. I do some communications work for our local rescue mission, and Thursday I covered an event where they were receiving a major donation check.

368px-One_man_band,_CDV_by_Knox,_c1865Not that long ago, this would have meant taking notes to write a news story, and shooting a few pictures. This day, I brought along a 35mm DSLR camera that also shoots HD video; a tripod; an iPhone; a laptop computer; and a notebook. That’s basically everything you need to report a story and immediately broadcast it to the whole world from wherever you are.

For the event, I set up the camera on the tripod and shot video of the speakers. I’d periodically take the camera off the tripod and shoot B-roll of the audience, or still photos. When I needed to shoot a still photo while I was recording video, I used the iPhone.

As the event finished, I shot more still photos with the DSLR, did a quick interview with a couple of the organizers and took notes. (I could have used a voice recorder for this, but with short interviews I still just take notes – it saves time later.)

Then I drove to a nearby McDonald’s to grab lunch, and my car became my newsroom. As I ate cheeseburgers, I transferred photos and video from the camera to the laptop. I edited a couple of photos in Adobe Lightroom on the laptop and, using McDonald’s free wi-fi, posted those and a brief story to the mission’s Facebook page.

Now I had an hour before I had to be at an unrelated meeting. So I drove to a nearby public library where I could use a desk and plug in the laptop, and rough-edited the video in Adobe Premiere into a 2-minute story.

I’d finish the video when I got home that night and upload it to YouTube. While it was uploading and processing, I wrote a 300-word news story and edited three other photos in Lightroom. I posted the story and photos on the mission’s website, and embedded the video code on the same page. And finally, promoted the package on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

For the missionary wanting to report timely stories from the field, this all represents a fantastic opportunity. We possess the greatest set of story reporting tools mankind has ever known. Why would we not want to use them? Just being able to write, or shoot photos, or produce video isn’t enough. Ministries that want to effectively tell their stories will invest time and money to learn all of these skills.

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Cliches make bad stories

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Jim Killam

OK, maybe it’s a bit cynical, but this video about Christian cliches can be instructive to storytellers: Just don’t. If a phrase is commonly used, and sounds churchy, then don’t use it in your writing or your video.
Cliches are overused words and phrases that have lost their original meaning. A few of my favorites:

Love on — as in: we just spent the week loving on those kids. Sounds cooler than just “love.” Also sounds really creepy.

Awesome — means good. Covers anything from bean dip to God.

God showed up — um, I think God was there long before you were.

A hedge of protection — Means “safety.” But I have hedges, and they wouldn’t stop a stray cat.

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Die, monster!

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Jim Killam

destroy-all-monstersWe see a lot of missionary newsletters / prayer letters. Some are great. The majority are not so great. The writers don’t tell stories well, and we’re convinced that’s because they don’t put enough thought into the elements that comprise those stories. In “Go Tell It,” we discuss those elements and why they matter.

Our friend Dave Sherman, who teaches missionaries how to raise financial support, likes to talk about monsters. Specifically, he tells trainees to focus their presentations on the biggest, baddest thing that their ministries are trying to defeat.

Great news stories need monsters, too. Maybe it’s a piece of evil that needs to be defeated. Maybe it’s simply an obstacle that keeps the main characters from getting what they want or need. Basically, the monster is conflict – tension that keeps a story moving.

So let’s play a practice round of “Spot the Monster.” I’ll name a movie or TV show, and then the underlying conflict that drives the story.

Captain Phillips
Desperate criminals and a no-win situation

The Hunger Games
Survival in an unjust system

Breaking Bad
Pride and self-deception

This year’s Super Bowl
Something’s gotta give (best offense vs. best defense)

The Shawshank Redemption
Injustice and hopelessness

Destroy All Monsters
Monsters. All of them

As journalists or missionaries decide which stories to tell to their audience, a clear sense of conflict – a monster – should drive that decision.

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Why storytelling from the field matters

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Jim Killam

Culturally insensitive missionaries of the past always draw attention, but they’re not the larger story. The cover story in the current issue of Christianity Today reveals missionaries’ work as “the single largest factor in ensuring the health of nations.”

Without effective reporting by and about past generations of missionaries, we wouldn’t have known this. What mission work today is changing a corner of the world for the better, and how are those stories being told? Are they being told at all?

If you’re a Christian with journalism training, you could be part of the answer.

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A true story, told well

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Jim Killam

book_cover_unbroken_Sometimes I stumble onto great things late. Four years after its release, I’ve been reading Laura Hillenbrand’s best-seller, “Unbroken,” about the life of Louis Zamperini. A rising track star and 1936 Olympian, Zamperini’s life was derailed by World War II. In 1943, his B-24 crashed into the Pacific, where he and another crew member survived 47 days on a life raft … only to be captured and tortured in Japanese POW camps for the rest of the war. The book spares no details. At times it’s hard to keep reading. You keep expecting things to get better and then they get immeasurably worse.

Until the last section. There’s a surprise turn, then a lasting payoff that vividly illustrates the power of forgiveness.

After I finished “Unbroken,” I read a few interviews with Hillenbrand about how she accomplished it: Interview everyone. Verify everything. Embellish nothing. The story’s power lies in its truth. And, with Zamperini still alive today, any factual errors or exaggerations would have come to the surface.

The process is virtually the same today as it was 2,000 years ago. In “Go Tell It,” we discuss similar, painstaking research by the gospel writer Luke:

You never actually met Jesus face to face, so you’re going to have to construct the story second-hand. Divine inspiration will play a huge role, but you probably don’t know that yet. Many accounts of Jesus’ life – some credible, others not so much – were circulating during the first century. So your first task would be to read as many of those accounts as you could, and start formulating questions.

Then you’d put together a list of people you needed to talk to – people who were there, who knew Jesus at various times in his life. Credible sources. You’d interview those people at length – ask them who, what, when, where, why and how. You’d take careful notes, because the tape recorder will not be invented for another 1,900 years. Then you’d compile those notes into your story – choosing what to include and what to leave out based on whether it contributed to the overall point of the story.

Having done all that, you’d finally write a well-researched, orderly, credible account for your audience – the early church – so people could know what really happened and what it all meant.

A true story, told well, can impact the world.

Here’s a video about Louis Zamperini.

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Strength and cluelessness

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Jim Killam

anchorman30f-1-webI ran across a good essay in Leadership Journal. Writer Mike Erre talks about his debilitating anxiety and depression, and the all-too-common Christian response that the person just needs to pray and read their Bible more.

Toward the end of the piece, Erre shifts focus to feeling unqualified for the task God has set before us. That’s a particularly common sentiment in ministry … but it’s a really good thing.

God, he writes …

“…designs circumstances so that we are in over our heads. He chooses unlikely people so that he gets the credit and glory. He brings us to the end of our sufficiency so that we’ll rest in his. We hate this. We want to be seen as experts. Perhaps that is why the church is so infatuated with tools, techniques, and marketing. The American church often shares the surrounding culture’s obsession with glory and power. One of the reasons our ministries are so ineffective is because we don’t make room for God’s power, since we are so enamored with our own. We don’t make room for weakness—everything in our churches has to be dynamic and excellent. So we schedule things by the minute, rehearse our transitions and prayers, seek out the next killer series or curriculum or program. And all the while Jesus has moved on to people who have nothing other than him.”

As we wrestle with launching a journalism ministry that could have huge impact, sometimes a thought momentarily stops us in our tracks: We have no idea where God is taking this.

It’s a hybrid to a thought I tried to get my journalism students comfortable with for 17 years: that every good journalist I know quietly fears, “Today is the day everyone finds out I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Faith aside, that’s not a bad approach. It keeps us humble, helping us to ask “dumb” questions that lead to air-tight stories. We don’t put people off with bravado that masks cluelessness, a la Ron Burgundy. This is never about us.

Now add faith back into that and you have a trust and reliance on God. And that’s all you have. That’s surely not the most comfortable place. It’s the right place, though.

Jon Foreman of the band Switchfoot put it this way, in a 2009 interview with Relevant magazine:

“If you approach the world with the apron of a servant, then you are allowed to go places that you can’t go if you approach it with the crown of a king.”

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Write it the way you’d tell it

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Jim Killam

Here’s a fascinating TED Talk about the impact texting is having on our language. You’ll be surprised.

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk.html

Writers can learn from this. The best journalistic stories aren’t written in texting shorthand, but they’re not written in formal, English class prose either. They’re told. Think of how you would tell a friend what happened. Then write it that way.

Here’s the opening to a story we reported in 2011 about one of the bravest men we’ve ever met. Note the short sentences, simple language as we quickly build suspense.

To understand Isaac’s motivation for reaching people for Christ in northern Sudan, you have to understand the power of grace. And you need to hear about something awful that happened in 1983.

Isaac was 22. His brother, Kabouji, was 33. Their family was Sunni Muslim, as is most of northern Sudan. But Kabouji met a Christian pastor that year and became a follower of Christ.

At first, Isaac hated his brother for embracing Christ. Gradually, though, Kabouji talked with him and convinced him to place his faith in Christ, too. Isaac kept quiet about that at first, as Kabouji continued to boldly speak of his Christian faith among family and friends.

A month later, Kabouji paid.

You can read what happened here.

http://crossfieldnews.com/?p=252

 

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