Details

Anne Hull, a five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, said, “We didn’t think of narrative, voice, sequencing, empathy or storytelling” when they started. “But all these elements” found their way into their series. By immersing themselves in the squalor that wounded veterans endured, she said, they got the specifics that made the story “pop to life in the way traditional investigative reporting doesn’t.” Because they “lived and breathed the story for four months”, Hull said, they picked up telling details, like the mold and cockroaches limbless soldiers lived with, like the blue ribbon the wife of a brain-damaged soldier tied to his bedroom door so he’d know which room was his.

Jon Marcus, who led Boston Magazine to win national awards and who now teaches at Boston University and Boston College, also underscored the importance of details. He said he sees too much narrative journalism marred by lots of pretty words that don’t say anything.

“People who think of themselves as capital W “Writers” can produce “meringue – sweet but empty,” he said. “Great reporting is essential. If people don’t learn anything from a story, they won’t keep reading. The foundation of good narrative journalism is description. This is required today. We're competing with 24-hour news and the Internet – we live in a high-definition world. We need description: the color of the lipstick, the pattern of the wallpaper.”
Jack Hart, another advocate of detail, said it powers great narrative. “Newspapers need more real life stories about ordinary people.” How to get them? Hart recommends substituting narrative approaches for traditional news forms, even on deadline, on stories like the theft of a foam donut, a rescue of a woman pinned in a fiery car, the frantic search for a substitute pianist.
Before starting a narrative, he said reporters, with an editor’s guidance, must create a structural road map, answering questions like: What is this story about? Do you have a sympathetic, interesting lead character? Who struggles with obstacles (From “Journalism Made Simple)?

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11