Sit at Tom Hallman Jr.'s feet

Tom Hallman writes a column on narrative writing for Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. Read them all. Seriously. He doesn't often have standout pieces because they're ALL standout.

Hallman's column this month was over-the-top great. It highlights at least two rookie mistakes I was saving for a future post but I'll say now:

    1. Just because it's a feature doesn't mean it's OK to ramble. Tight, clear storytelling is needed in
        both news and news features.

    2. Telling a feature chronologically doesn't make the story more thorough, just more boring for
        readers.

Read his excellent column here: https://www.spj.org/quill_issue.asp?ref=1873

book recommendations

"The difference between where you are today and where you'll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you've read."   --Jim Rohn

The Personal MBA book list has been updated for 2012: http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/

This is one of the all-time best reading lists for success.  Even though I would rather have an MBA, I like his point -- you don't necessarily need a degree, you need the knowledge. You can get much of that through just the reading material.

I'm glad to see some of the popular but lame books aren't included on the list -- Rich Dad Poor Dad, Lee Iaccoca, etc.

Someday I may compile a Personal J-School book list.  But with journalism you still need good mentors/editors looking over your stuff to help you improve your storytelling craft.  Still, I'll think about it.  Let me know if you think it would be useful.

For now, check out the Personal MBA book list.  It's great.

The obituary photo

Show a picture of the person in their prime. That’s who they were and what their life represented.

Don’t show a picture of the person as they appeared a few days before their death. That’s not who they were.

It's fine when a family sends you a headshot picture of their loved one, but be sure to ask for some pictures of them in their prime doing what they loved and were known for. Ask for several, then you'll have more to choose from.

Remember, an obituary focuses on their life, not their death.

Great examples:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/gary-carter-hall-of-fame-baseball-catcher-dies-at-57/2012/01/25/gIQAJFpTIR_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/betty-skelton-fastest-woman-on-earth-dies-at-85/2011/09/03/gIQAyv83zJ_story.html

http://news.adventist.org/en/archive/articles/2012/02/14/remembrance-persuasive-bookseller-ramirez-93-was-first-hispanic-gc-director

For more on the subject of obits, see my three postings from September.

Organizations need to commit to content creation as much as delivery systems

It was a brilliant moment in the 2011 documentary Page One. A new-media proponent was taking the New York Times to task about how old and irrelevant they are. Times media columnist David Carr holds up a poster of that man’s news-aggregate site and demonstrates that all but just a few of his numerous postings merely shared traditional news stories.

Like I said in a previous post, you can pass around all the content through social media you want to, but someone created that content (story), and you’ll stand out if you can create good stuff.

People 80 years ago said newspapers were dying with the growing popularity of radio. Yet there is still a need for great content to go through the radio, or television, or, now, the Web. What has changed is simply the delivery systems.

Unfortunately, too often organizations make content an afterthought after a delivery system has been set up.

Like former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said (and I quoted in a previous post), there are lots of people who are good at technology and can set up information architecture, but the content creators are even more rare.  We need people who can write good, engaging stories. Eisner said we need to focus on people who can write a good narrative that keeps people’s attention, not just creating the delivery system.

People with social media and video cameras only have tools. They still need to be good story-tellers.

It doesn’t matter if you’re publishing or broadcasting on a social network, a blog, a radio station, a TV network, writing on a piece of paper, or chiseling on a clay tablet, it’s the message that is key.

The content creators who write engaging stories and keep a reader's/viewer's attention need support as much as the talented people who set up and maintain delivery systems.

Organizations need qualified people in public relations positions

The work has often suffered much by putting persons forward to do that which they were not capable of doing.

—Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White

3SP 265

Suppose you need life-saving surgery and you’re rushed to a hospital. But instead of the hospital hiring one of the many qualified surgeons in the world, you are now in the operating room with someone holding a scalpel who is not a doctor, has never been to medical school or even taken a college biology class. “Don’t worry,” you’re told. “We’re giving him on-the-job training.”

Ridiculous, huh?

Unfortunately that’s the way some organizations approach corporate communication in much of the world.

People who can’t write news copy well enough for even a small-market daily are put into jobs where they have no idea what to do. Granted, journalism and PR aren’t brain surgery, but it still takes time to learn how to do them well.

Not hiring qualified professionals may not kill patients, but that organization loses opportunities to put its message and mission into the news media (which one organization's co-founders, James and Ellen White, called for) and connect membership with each other worldwide. Continuing to behave this way means that the organization ignores members and loses the battle for public attention.

Fortunately there is a solution. In each of an organization’s world divisions, there are members who work in the news media and in public relations.

Hire these people.

They won’t need much on-the-job training and they’ll know what to do – create effective messages and images.

Bringing on qualified people will improve sagging subscription rates of magazines, land more copy on PR newswires and inspire members to replicate ministries they have seen in well-written news and feature stories.

At the Society of Adventist Communicators meeting in 2010, Hollywood producer and theologian Phil Cooke was asked what the church needed to do with its communication. He essentially said to stop the “safe” hiring and instead hiring the professionals – the artists, the writers, etc.  They’ll know what to do.

At General Conference Session in 2010, Paul Kim (the excellent producer of the president’s film) contacted me saying: “Ansel, who is this Edwin Garcia guy??!! Every one of his stories was STAND-OUT.”

Thanks Paul. Indeed, Edwin is a veteran journalist, having written for the Chicago Tribune, the Portland Oregonian, and 17 years for the San Jose Mercury News. I used to read his front-page features when I was in grad school (and probably the only student who still got a paper delivered to his front door each day). I still can’t believe he agreed to give up vacation time to come volunteer at Session. We also had Arin Gencer, of the Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun fame, who wrote great features for us. I even had a friend from long ago contact me and say she enjoyed the photography from Session.

See, good content stands out.

Ruben Gelhorn, public relations director at River Platte University in Argentina, once told me that the church should produce communication graduates that understand communication and public relations theory. Technology and delivery systems can be learned later. “Running a television camera isn’t communication,” he said.

This is similar to what former Disney CEO Michael Eisner told The Wall Street Journal Magazine in a 2010 interview. Eisner said, “The creation of content has never been more important.” He went on to say, “A lot of people can learn to write computer code and understand the inner workings of the technological revolution we’re going through, but if you’re going to be in content, I would rather you understand what makes a good narrative. To find people who can make you laugh or cry or smile or get upset or learn something about yourself. Those people are rare. They are rarer, frankly, than the others.”

With an organization’s many delivery systems – publications in print, online, TV and radio – I wish as much thought was put into the content and hiring people who create that content.

Still, in many parts of the world the challenge is getting people to understand the basics of the industry. It’s also a challenge to help executives learn that corporate communication isn’t something you can just put an unqualified person into and expect good results. One person in a communication department somewhere in the world once made it clear that they didn’t know it wasn’t OK to take a story from the local daily paper and pass it off as their own. Slap your forehead, right? And last week, my buddy Stals Kinborg received an email from the Communication director in his region. That person was essentially absolving himself from having to do anything, saying that all local communication departments should send their content directly to headquarters. How sad. People in that need to be connected and inspired with their own news service, too.

I asked Stals to email him back saying: “It’s not other people’s job to do your job.” We’ll see what the response is.

This is a song I’ve been singing for almost five years. Having more people hear it will help if it makes a change. I’ve had people offer all kinds of great suggestions of how to get around it, but those all fail. It simply comes down to whether an organization’s executives want to commit to doing communication well or not. Jamaican PR guru Nigel Coke said, “Communication either needs to be loved or it needs to be dropped.”

Hiring qualified people who are both passionate and talented in public relations would fill the void left silent by organizations not communicating. If executives commit to it, they’re less likely to keep losing opportunities and the trust of their members.

On grad school

A master’s degree in journalism can help propel your career, but the degree itself won’t necessarily make you a good reporter. It should motivate you to want to become good, as well as communicate to people – potential employers – that you are serious about doing so.

A master’s degree teaches you theory behind journalism, which can include how to create better stories, but not necessarily just how to write them. To do that, use techniques found in previous posts and find a good mentor/editor to spiff up your stories. Grad school is discussions, case studies, research papers, and you end up reading about a book a week per class.

One of my favorite writers, Michael Lewis, rails against the usefulness of a J-school degree. And he is right . . . because he's Michael Lewis. On the other hand, another person who is right is Matt Brown, who said he couldn’t get a job in journalism until he had the master’s degree. After J-school he worked his way up and went on to become a foreign correspondent for a top-tier news agency (more on him in a future post).

An advanced degree is valuable to immerse yourself in the journalism-learning environment. If you majored in journalism as an undergrad and had a good class on media law, you may already have enough training. But I found at least three classes are helpful, and in this order:

1. Media law. You need to know your boundaries, and it’s comforting to know that you know your boundaries. You’ll also learn just how amazing the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is and how Supreme Court rulings over the years set prescient to protect people like you and me as well as allow the National Enquirer can get away with what it does. Discussions on Federal Communication Commission may seem out of left field or irrelevant when you're just trying to learn about reporting, but it’s helpful to know about the regulation of a nation’s airwave spectrum. Also, delivery systems (paper, web, chisel on clay tablet) change but the rules on publishing and libel still apply. When I was in grad school, blogging was the new thing and some students said our school should offer a major in the subject. Can you imagine how silly that would be today? It’s still just journalism and writing but with a different delivery system. Social media is the new delivery system today, but the same old media laws still apply. One other rant: people can talk about social media all they want, but much of it points back to content, and that is often a well-written news story. Others can pass around all the media they want too, but you’ll stand out if you are a good content creator.

2. Communication Theory. It may be kinda boring, but you’ll come across all kinds of scenarios from recent and long-past history that still apply today, even though some delivery systems are now different. Years later you may be surprised how some of these will apply to on-the-job scenarios.

3. Journalism/communication history. It’s helpful to know how this profession evolved along with advances in technology and human understanding. I wrote a paper on the history of black newspapers in the United States. One of the things I learned from this is that 150 years ago all newspapers were launched by a cause. There was no notion of objectivity. Each special interest group reported news that was of interest to them and they were not ashamed to say so – the women’s paper, the Negro paper, the Democrat, the Republican, etc… It’s an important lesson for today. And each of my classmates who did a different paper in this class came away with their own historical lessons that can teach us something today. My favorite part was presenting my paper and having classmates offer feedback, some even suggesting lessons from my own material that I hadn’t thought of. 

Of course you might learn all this stuff just by reading books on journalism – I like the personalmba.com, which is a great reading list of subjects you'd encounter in business school.  Still, I would rather tell someone I had an MBA than say, "I've read the 99 books on the personalmba reading list." 

Yes you might have to sit through some boring discussions or hear professors whine about how much better the glory days were. I remember one professor lamenting that there was too much information out there now and it was better when we all had political discussions based on the same information as reported in the local daily newspaper and the big three network news broadcasts (yea right, as if they were reporting everything that was really out there). Overall, though, most professors at a decently rated J-school are helpful.

If you are considering applying, check out the ratings of different schools and weigh them with the cost to attend each. FYI, there are no Adventist universities that offer a master’s degree in journalism. If one claims to, please contact me first and I’ll offer you my perspective.

I don’t recommend going to grad school directly from undergrad. You need to take some work experience to grad school. It’s different than undergrad, when you’re still doing more learning of what’s out there.

If you go to school, save all your papers both electronically and in print. You may not look at them often, but you’ll be an expert in a certain area of journalism and you don’t want to forget the material years later.

List of schools here: http://journalismjobs.com/journalism_schools.cfm

Writer’s block? Two tips on getting started, two more on keeping it going

If you’re having trouble getting a story started, try a “feature-y” lede and start with either the word “When” or “For.” If you’re stuck halfway through a story, try using the first word of your next paragraph with either “Indeed” or “Still.”

I see these patterns constantly and they’re often well used. Just don’t use them too much or you might end up on the November 9 posting about clichés (I once saw that the front of The Wall Street Journal’s Marketplace section had no less than three stories that began with the word “When.”)

To start: “For” and “When”

For

One of my favorite simple openers was last year in the Journal’s Money & Investing section. It was a fun story on the late-night negotiations of the auctioning of Blockbuster Inc.’s assets. The story chronicled the bankruptcy court shouting matches, competing bids and accusations of stolen pizzas as each side took the first pie that was delivered to their deliberating room, regardless of which party had ordered it. The lede was simply:

For Wall Street lawyers and bankers, it was a Blockbuster night.

Here’s one from the Associated Press as printed in the Jacksonville Times-Union:

For Northeastern farmers long used to coping with all sorts of cold-weather problems, this winter presents a new one: snow and ice that’s bringing down out-buildings, requiring costly repairs, killing livestock and destroying supplies.

Here’s one from the Journal’s A-head feature on the bottom of their front page (these are always great):

For New Jersey’s legion of tax accountants, boom times come once a year. But local taxidermists can wait for years at a stretch for their biggest money-maker: bear-hunting season.

When

From The Washington Post’s Style section in December:

When Gary Clark Jr.’s right hand hits the strings of his electric guitar, it’s almost always a downstroke – as if he wants gravity on his side.

Here’s one from the Post’s front page:

When Elaine Cioni found out that her married boyfriend had other girlfriends, she became obsessed, federal prosecutors say.

You can even imply “when” by starting with a comparison timeline (from the Journal in December):

Three years after Siemens AG reached a record foreign-bribery settlement with U.S. authorities, the German industrial conglomerate is capitalizing on business from an unexpected place – the U.S. government.

Come to think about it, the first story I ever had published in a newspaper began with the word "When." It was a feature about poetry. "When" a local librarian had hosted a poetry reading for teens, only a handful of people showed up. But when he turned it into a competition – a la American Idol – kids showed up in droves with mini-vans full of accompanying family members.

To continue: “Indeed” and “Still”

“Indeed”

This word actually shows up in another blog's listing of clichéd words in journalism, but I don’t care. If used well and sparingly, it’s effective. I picked examples where it appears within the first five grafs, but it works well when it appears later.

From the AP, as printed in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/romneys-florida-victory-aside-gop-nomination-fight-expected-to-for-a-while/2012/02/01/gIQAbetfiQ_story.html

Indeed, some 46 states have yet to vote and only 6 percent of the delegates have been won.

From USA Today: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/mind-soul/doing-good/kindness/post/2011/10/itzhak-perlman-says-we-are-this-close-to-ending-polio-for-good/141014/1

Indeed, since taking polio on in 1985, Rotary has helped to immunize 2 billion children in 122 countries, slashing polio rates by 99%.

Still

The word “still” helps you show more than just one side of the story. It also serves as going back to an original premise that was later challenged in the story. Here are a couple of examples, first from the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-economy-20120201,0,381501.story

Still, the construction industry remains weak. Spending on all building projects in 2011 was just $787.4 billion. That's 2 percent lower than the previous year and roughly half the level economists consider healthy.

And from the Miami Herald, this intellectually stimulating story of the 80s rock band Foreigner:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/31/2615723/rock-of-ages-band-foreigner-insists.html#storylink=misearch

Still, much of Foreigner’s recent recorded output has been to cut new versions of old hits.

Go away for a while

Study abroad for a semester or a year, or serve as volunteer overseas (if you’re Christian, this is sometimes known as being a “student missionary”). It will give you great life experience by offering maturity, better understanding of a culture that isn’t yours, and help develop in you a servant’s attitude. You’ll also meet great friends that you wouldn’t have met had you stayed in your current small environment.

In fact, if you’re on campus right now, go over to your Colleges Abroad office or Student Missions office and make an appointment to talk. Do this even if you think you’re not interested. At least find out more information. I’ve never regretted checking out leads that I didn’t end up pursuing. That itself is life experience.

I NEVER thought I would be a student missionary. That was something only weirdos did. And yes there are some weirdos who do it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

It was not a decision I made quickly. I had heard about other people’s experiences and talked to a LOT of different people about it for more than 18 months. Then, after my junior year of college, I spent the next year volunteering as a high school teacher on the Pacific island of Yap, part of the four-island nation of Micronesia.

I learned I was a decent teacher. The fact that I could hold my own in front of rowdy high schoolers and even excel at it was better communication training than any communication class I could have taken. I graduated college knowing who I was and what I could do because I had been pushed. Otherwise I might have graduated thinking, “Yikes, classes are over, time to go test the real thing.” Yap is also where I found out I wanted to be a writer.

(Also, I still draw lessons from teaching expert Harry Wong. We had taken a day off school for teacher training and the last thing I wanted to do was sit around and listen to a 10-year-old cassette tapes series of a Chinese guy with an afro whose name was “Harry Wong” tell me how to be a better teacher. I was already doing fine. But wow, he improved my teaching 100 percent, particularly by empowering both students and teachers with excellent classroom management methods.)

Years later, in grad school I wasn’t that jazzed about a summer class in Thailand, but over time it increasingly appealed to me (mainly because it was worth extra course credit). I took it and that ended up being one of my best experiences, both fun and eye-opening.

These kinds of experiences also look good on a résumé. Potential employers may appreciate this kind of experience when looking over your experience, especially if they also spent time overseas.

Some people are eager to get out of school as if they’re in a rush to keep up with others. I’m telling you, taking a year off to serve others is worship to your Creator and it develops you faster. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be efficient about school. That was certainly me in grad school.

On a financial note, being a student missionary doesn’t cost anything – your friends, teachers, parents and church members will donate the money for your plane ticket.

Even U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black talks about the benefits of this type of experience in his excellent book “The Blessing of Adversity.” Imagine a kid from inner-city Baltimore taking a year off of college in Alabama and finding himself in rural Peru for a while.

While some people tout their experiences of short-term mission trips – which are good and offer great experience – I recommend a longer term, such as a semester or a year somewhere. A short-term, few-week trip doesn’t allow you to watch community life unfold over time. That’s where you learn the most.

I’ve never had anyone say, “I wish I hadn’t been a student missionary/Peace Core worker/studied abroad,” even from people who had more difficult experiences. Moreover, while in college I heard from people who hadn’t gone as a student missionary – several mentors, professors and business professionals would say they wish they had done something like that. This kind of talk made an impression on me all through my sophomore year: “Why is it so unanimous?” I thought. Now I know why.

And I want you to know why, too.

Take that first step. At least go and find out more information. Do it right now.