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Steve
Buttry, Writing Coach, Omaha World-Herald, used this handout
in an American
Press Institute workshop for city and metro editors, Jan.
15, 2003.
Questions?
Call Steve at (402)444-1345.
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Helping
Reporters Improve Stories
Each reporter is different
and each story is different. None of these techniques will work in every
situation or with every reporter. Gauge the needs and personalities of
your staff and try these techniques as you think they fit the situations
and people. Remember that you are working not just to improve the story
at hand, but future stories as well.
Before
the reporter turns in a story
Talk early and
often.
However strong your word editing skills, that is the least effective way
to improve a story. From the idea stage through revision, talk with the
reporter about the challenges the story presents and how she is addressing
them.
Respect the reporter's
authorship.
Understand that reporters do their best work on stories where they feel
a sense of control and responsibility. When possible, allow reporters
to work on stories that are their ideas rather than your assignments.
When you have to assign, ask the reporter the best way to attack the issue,
engaging him immediately in shaping the story. Whenever possible, don't
rewrite a story, but discuss with the reporter the issues you want him
to address in rewriting. When you have to rewrite, respect the author's
style and voice and try to retain them. Never rewrite or insist on a rewrite
simply because the story wasn't written the way you would have written
it.
Discuss story ideas
with the reporter.
Many story weaknesses rest with the fundamental idea. The direction you
provide at this stage can save plenty of work later in the process. Whether
you are making an assignment or encouraging a reporter to pursue her own
idea, discuss it in some detail. Ask why we're doing this story now. That
forces the reporter to address two questions: Why are we doing this story
at all and why now?
Focus on the reader.
Ask reader-oriented questions early and often, to keep a strong focus
on serving the reader. Why will the reader care? Who is likely to read
this story? What will the reader tell others about this story? How might
the reader act on this story? What information can we give the reader
to help her act on this story?
Encourage specificity.
Often a reporter will propose "an in-depth look at (fill-in-the-blank)."
Encourage the reporter to be more specific, to narrow the topic, to identify
and explain the news peg, the local interest and the national or international
context.
Ask what the story
is about.
At various stages of a reporter's work on a story, ask what the story
is about. Sometimes the answer will change often from the idea stage through
the rewriting and asking that question repeatedly will help the reporter
maintain a focus during the story's evolution. Sometimes the answer will
remain the same and asking the question will help the reporter stay focused.
If the answer changes, ask why it has changed. You want to be sure it
has changed because the reporter has gathered new information or understands
the story better, not because the reporter has lost focus.
Help simplify.
If a reporter has trouble giving a story a strong focus, suggest techniques
to help simplify. Jack Hart of the Oregonian suggests a simple theme statement
of six to eight words. Bruce DeSilva of the Associated Press suggests
having the reporter write a headline. Bill Luening of the Kansas City
Star recommends boiling the story down to a three-word sentence: a noun,
an active verb, and an object: "These generally emerge as themes,
rather than a story focus, but they can lead to a theme statement. Maybe,
if the story is a narrative, you can get them to outline the complication,
development and resolution this way. The story of the Pied Piper then
would be, Rats Overrun City. City Hires Ratman. Ratman Kills Rats. City
Stiffs Ratman. Ratman Steals Children. Moral: Keep Your Word. Or...Flutists
Kick Butt."
Discuss reporting
challenges.
Ask what the reporter is learning. Ask what avenues he will pursue, what
people he will interview, what information might be available online.
Ask what obstacles he is encountering. Ask how he is overcoming the obstacles.
If he is not overcoming the obstacles, brainstorm where else he might
get that information.
Discuss records.
Ask what records the reporter will examine. Start with general questions
that push the reporter to consider where she might find records to help
with this story. If she doesn't identify some records you think might
help, follow with more specific questions that steer her toward specific
records. Know the federal, state and local open-records laws and push
reporters to gain access to records.
Discuss data.
Discuss where the reporter might find data that might help with the story.
Ask whether the data are available online or whether the reporter has
to obtain it directly from the agency involved. Discuss access issues
such as open-records laws, cost and which officials might be most likely
to provide the records promptly. Discuss whether the reporter has the
skills to analyze the data or needs some help from a colleague. Help the
reporter develop the skills if he does not already have them. Learn about
computer-assisted reporting yourself, if you haven't already, so you can
help the reporter more.
Seek parallels.
Encourage the reporter to find references from literature, history, culture
or everyday life that will help readers understand stories. When you see
possible references as you're discussing the story, suggest but don't
insist on them.
Debrief.
After an interview, ask the reporter how it went. What did she learn?
What surprised her? What did she hope to learn that the source would not
tell? Who else might have that information? When will the reporter touch
base again with that source? Encourage the reporter to start writing,
even if much reporting remains. Ask what the story is about.
Ask about the lede.
The reporter probably is thinking about the lede without prompting from
you, but talking may be helpful if the reporter is struggling with the
lede. After your discussions about the lede, forget about them. The reporter
may come up with something different, and if you force him back to an
old lede, you'll kill future early discussions about ledes.
Set short-term
writing goals.
As the reporter is starting to write a story, challenge her to focus on
improving a single skill. You can focus the challenge on past weaknesses:
For instance, if you noticed unnecessary passive verbs in the last story,
challenge the reporter to focus on verb usage this time and to use one
rewriting pass to concentrate strictly on making sure each verb is as
strong and active as she can make it. Or you can focus the challenge on
the story at hand: This one is complex and required the reporter to wade
through a lot of bureaucracy and regulation. Challenge her to find an
analogy from everyday life that will help the reader understand. Or build
on previous successes: I loved the way you made the reader see and hear
and smell the scene in the last story. Make sure you take the reader right
into the main character's kitchen in this story.
Suggest sidebars
and graphics.
Ask the reporter what facts you can tell better in graphics than in prose.
Ask what points should be told in sidebars, rather than bogging down the
main story. Can a photo make a point better than prose?
Suggest an outline.
If a reporter appears disorganized on a story, suggest that he outline.
If the reporter resists or has not outlined effectively in the past, talk
through an outline. You might write down the outline yourself as the two
of you identify main points.
Suggest writing
without notes.
Notes can distract a reporter. The story should be in the reporter's head.
Suggest that she review the notes, then set them aside and write without
pausing to find facts and quotes. When she's finished, she can return
to the notebooks and get the facts and quotes right. In the notebooks,
she'll find some things she omitted. Ask whether they're really that important
if she forgot about them. (They may be, but tell her to be especially
demanding of any passages she adds to the story.)
Study work habits.
Ask and observe how the reporter works. In some cases, you might be able
to suggest new habits that will help a reporter improve: writing as he
reports, writing from notes and then seeking quotes on the tape rather
than transcribing every interview, writing without notes, working harder
on revision. In other cases, you can tailor your suggestions to a reporter's
habits. Jay Wagner of Business Publications in Des Moines helped a reporter
come up with better story ideas by "shadowing her as she club hopped
(tough work if you can get it.) I wrote down all the story ideas that
I came up with from conversations she had with pals, etc. and from the
things we saw while making our rounds. I had her do the same. The next
day we went over my list and talked about why she hadn't thought of them
as stories. She says the best advice I gave her was: If it's something
you tell your friends about or talk about in work the next day, then there
may be a germ of a story idea in it."
Ask for a plan.
If a reporter has organizational problems or is taking on a story more
complex than he has tackled before, ask for a written plan. Have him outline
sources to interview, records to check and data to analyze. Deal with
sidebars, graphics and photos in the plan. Set deadlines, allowing time
for rewriting. The plan should be a collaboration, but more of it should
come from the reporter than from you. And you both should be flexible
when breaking news, inexperience and unexpected obstacles force changes
in the plan.
Share the joy of
discovery.
If you discuss the story early and often with the reporter, you and the
reporter and your fellow editors will develop expectations. You may commit
those expectations to budget lines, whether you write them or the reporter
does. As the reporter reports and writes, she will discover a story that
does not meet those expectations. It may fall short of them. It may exceed
them. It may go in a different direction. Share the joy of discovery with
the writer. Don't hold her to expectations you developed early in the
process or you will thwart early communication on future stories.
Encourage reporters
to write early.
Writing as they report is one of the best ways for reporters to improve
their performance in each skill. Encourage it generally and encourage
it in each story. While the reporter is gathering information, ask frequently
if he is writing yet.
Talk about story
elements.
To encourage storytelling by reporters, ask them questions about story
elements. Who's the main character? What's the conflict? How are you going
to describe the setting?
Encourage rewriting.
Perhaps the best way to see dramatic improvement in a reporter's work
is to encourage a reporter who turns in first drafts to spend some time
rewriting. Don't approach this as remedial work, but as professional development.
Even good stories benefit from rewriting. Even great stories benefit from
revision. Set a deadline for finishing the first draft, then another deadline
for finishing the rewrite. Talk about specific things to look for in rewriting:
strong verbs, sentence length, redundancy, etc.
After
you get the first draft
Encourage alternatives.
Encourage the reporter to try a different lede. Even if you both like
the first lede, encourage trying a different approach. Coaching should
not concentrate only on making bad work good, but on making good work
and even great work better.
Don't suggest or
dictate exact words.
As you discuss story approaches or ledes or as you edit, don't take over
the reporter's job, which is to write the story. Ask questions that stimulate
or direct the reporter's thinking. Suggest approaches to consider. Explain
problems you have with the first draft. When you hear words you like,
react enthusiastically and encourage the reporter to write immediately.
But when you suggest or insist on exact words, you discourage the reporter.
And you limit the story.
Ask the reporter
to read aloud.
If a lede is long or a story is laden with long sentences or does not
flow well, ask the reporter to read it aloud, to you or to herself. Often
that will help the reporter identify the fat sentences and weak passages.
Also ask the reporter to read aloud the passages you love. That will underscore
how well those passages work. Ask the reporter to imagine a reader reading
this passage aloud to a spouse.
Suggest areas to
condense.
Avoid cutting stories yourself. Instead, suggest that a particular passage
could be condensed, that a particular sentence seems too long. Ask what
certain passages add to the story. Ask whether the reader really needs
to know all the information in a particular section.
Count words in
the lede.
If a reporter has written a lengthy lede, count the words and ask whether
the story needs a 35-word lede. Or suggest that the reporter count the
words in this lede. Or suggest that the reporter always count the words
in every lede.
Don't rewrite the
lede.
Tell the reporter what's wrong with the lede. Suggest possible alternative
approaches. Demand a shorter, brighter or clearer lede. But make the reporter
rewrite the lede.
Don't insist on
your approach.
If you do rewrite the lede, or suggest a different approach, don't insist
that the story has to use your lede, or your approach. Explain why the
original version didn't work and explain the thinking behind your revision.
Then challenge the reporter to write something better than either.
Find examples.
If the story needs to be cut considerably, identify a few phrases, sentences
or whole passages to cut and explain why you think they are expendable.
Then challenge the reporter to find and make similar cuts.
Admit when the
hole is too tight.
If the story is good enough to run as written, admit that you're requiring
cuts because the paper is tight. Reporters should know when they have
to cut because they're telling more than the reader will want and when
they have to cut because you don't have room to tell all the reader will
want.
Challenge reporters
to raise standards.
Sometimes when you cut a story you cut substance. But sometimes you raise
standards. If a reporter has written a 25-inch story and you only have
a 20-inch hole (or think the reader will have only 20 inches of interest),
challenge the reporter to raise standards and keep only the best 80 percent
of the original draft.
Explain editing
changes.
Whether you changed because of style, grammar, clarity, brevity or some
other reason, explain why you changed a story. Those changes will help
the reporter turn in a better story next time.
Reduce attribution.
Ask the reporter whether he knows something as fact. If so, can you reduce
unnecessary attribution? Or maybe you can condense attribution when you
are attributing lots of information repeatedly to the same source. If
the reporter doesn't know something as fact, ask whether the reporter
can check other sources that will confirm or contradict the first source.
"How do you
know that?"
When the reporter states facts without attribution, ask how she knows
that. Perhaps you need to add some attribution.
Challenge every
fact.
For big stories or projects, consider "line-by-line-editing."
For every fact, the reporter has to present the supporting notes or documents.
Give feedback.
Ask the reporter what he liked about the story. If you agree, say so.
If you liked something else, tell what pleased you. Ask how the reporter
achieved the successes and discuss how these techniques might apply to
specific stories in the near future. Ask the reporter what he wished he
had done better. If you agree, discuss ways to improve in that skill,
if possible on the next story. If you wish the reporter had done better
in some way he didn't identify, present a challenge for the next story.
Don't present a laundry list of faults for any one story.
Apologize.
Maybe you were on deadline and didn't have time to consult with a reporter
on a story. Say you're sorry (even if you also have to encourage the reporter
to get future stories in sooner). Maybe you edited an error into the story.
Apologize. Even if you made the error in trying to clarify a muddled passage.
However bad the original copy was, you should have run such a change past
the reporter, so say you're sorry without excuses. Deal with the clarity
issue in the next story. An editor who doesn't apologize is either a perfect
editor or an editor who's damaging relationships with reporters.
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