Real people make real stories

Just as I was writing this, along came an e-mail request from an old friend, Ottawa freelance writer Randy Ray:

I am researching a story about retired persons who have re-joined the workforce and who now work for their sons or daughters. The retirees could be the owners of a business that was        taken over by their children or retired persons who simply want some gainful employment …

This request for real people goes out daily in newsrooms across the country. Every reporter is looking for someone through whose eyes to tell the story. Editors demand it. Reporters demand it of themselves. Find a face for the story. Be a storyteller.

Of course, this is admirable. Human interest – real people – allow us to bring colour into our stories and add credibility. They “show” rather than “tell” readers the story.

Stories are often better when told through the eyes of those affected by the policies of big business or the statistics of big government. But deadlines and a demand to always have people in our stories can lead to settling for anyone who breathes. Does anyone know someone who had purchased a wedding dress over the Internet? Do you know anyone who has thought of purchasing a wedding dress over the Internet? Anyone who has dreamt of buying one via the Internet? Anyone who has used “wedding dress” and “Internet” in the same sentence!

The recent hostage crisis in Russia brought home again how desperate we are to find real people to tell a story. A TV reporter interviewed Russians living in Canada. None came from the town of Beslan and none said anything that any person – Russian or otherwise – wouldn’t have said. They expressed shock and horror. They added nothing to the story except their ethnic background.

In spite of the importance of getting human interest into stories, we need to protect ourselves from trivializing the personal element and resorting to the same old formula in every story. 

The closer we get to deadline, the more we are tempted or forced to settle for any warm body to serve merely as a prop – a one-dimensional character – to get readers into the story.

There are options to giving a dull story life, but they require courage and a conscious effort to avoid the routine. Here are a few thoughts.

DON’T SETTLE FOR THE OBVIOUS

In a recent discussion with a group of reporters, someone asked how to enliven a story about statistics. We picked a topic – rising divorce rates in Canada – and talked about having an hour or so to capture the human angle.

So the obvious person for our example was someone going through a divorce or recently divorced. But it became pretty obvious that a single person could not illustrate such a wide-ranging statistical story on divorce. Such a randomly-selected person might add only a predictable quote here and there.

These stories are always the same: Mary has gone through a messy divorce, “but she is not alone” (see how often you find that sentence after a superficial introduction of the warm body). Or: Mary is “among one million Canadians who were granted a divorce in the last 24 months.”

The discussion produced a number of standard options – talking to divorce lawyers, priests, a visit to divorce court. The one I liked best took a back-door approach – talking to a young couple contemplating marriage about how they expect to overcome the odds.

Still, the option most overlooked is to go with the news value of the statistics. Not every story benefits from bringing in the human element, especially when a single person cannot represent the whole.

Readers would be better served if writers reported what the information means to them. If teachers are on a work-to-rule campaign, what impact does that have on parents and students? It could mean they won’t receive report cards this term, the field trip to Quebec is cancelled and after-school clubs are on hold. When you don’t employ the human element, then look beyond the obvious for the tension, conflict, relief or joy in your story.

Writers must make a conscious effort not to accept the obvious and patented human interest lead all the time.

 CONSIDER SOMETHING OTHER THAN A PERSON

A Globe reporter used an inanimate object -- a car piston -- as the thread through his story to show the traffic delays at the Detroit-Windsor border crossing after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Here is how he opened his piece:

The journey of a humble piston demonstrates how much the auto industry – and a major chunk of Canada’s economy –  depends on a smoothly functioning border crossing between Windsor and Detroit.The piston starts its trip at a Daimler-Chrysler Canada Inc. factory in western Toronto, then travels along Highway 401 and across the border to an engine plant in Trenton, Mich., southwest of Detroit. There, it becomes part of a 3.3 litre,V-6 engine that comes back across the border into Ontario to the automaker’s Windsor Assembly Plant. Three times the lower piston traverses the world’s busiest border crossing. Three times it runs the gauntlet …

In a story about a redundant building, you could deal with the rich history, what it has meant to the community and the famous or infamous people who have passed through its doors. In a medical story, your thread could be how the disease works its way through  the body. The disease rather than the person becomes the character.

When Halifax was hit by Hurricane Juan in September, 2003, a writer could have told the story of a single tree to highlight the loss of thousands of trees in this, the “city of trees.”

CONSIDER PLACE AS A FOCUS RATHER THAN PEOPLE

It is the “where” of stories and it is too often overlooked because reporters are mesmerized by the “who.”

Readers need to know where they are in a story and writers need to take more time to make them familiar with the surroundings. Place can be a colourful alternative to character.

A story about Vancouver’s imbalanced city-wide electoral system used place to illustrate how city council was dominated by those from the rich side of town:

 Anyone driving east along King Edward Drive notices that past Main Street, splendour gives way to squalour. Lush, manicured gardens grow small and mangy. The centre-lane boulevard, with its towering fir trees, comes to an end and the street narrows. Large stucco and wood-frame homes shrink, as do their property values.Like a curtain drawn across the city, Main separates Vancouver’s haves from its have-nots so abruptly that the two areas might as well be two different cities.

 CONSIDER AN AVERAGE (TO REPRESENT A DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP) OR A COMPOSITE

It can be overdone, but I saw it used effectively to illustrate a Kingston Whig-Standard story on the extent to which Canada’s health care system is delivered by the private sector.

The reporter could not have found one person to illustrate every element of the story, so she used a fictional character to take readers through the health care system step by step. Her “character” gave readers a quick and clear picture of the public-private health care argument.

Charlotte leaves the doctor’s office and spends the next two days getting herself tested. She goes to the lab, the pharmacy and the MRI clinic … She received prompt service everywhere she went … Charlotte tells her husband over supper that evening how lucky they are to live in Canada where the public health system takes such good care of them.She couldn’t be more wrong. Charlotte, a fictional character who was created to make a point, was indeed lucky to experience the rosy side of  Canada’s health-care system … Virtually every health agency Charlotte visited – or had a prescription to visit – was delivered by the private sector.

WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU DO USE A PERSON

When you do have someone to illustrate your story, be sure not to give the person short shrift. The person should be an integral part of telling your story. Here are some suggestions on avoiding the warm body syndrome: 

n      Be sure to develop your human interest element beyond name, age and occupation. Let readers get to know and be engaged by those you bring into your story.

n      When you use a person, don’t eliminate her after the first three paragraphs. Let her comment throughout the story on different issues or topics you raise. Make the person a central part of the story, but be careful not to let the person dominate to the point where you lose the theme or purpose of your piece. In other words, it’s not a profile.

n      Make sure your person is a perfect fit for the story theme. The person has to know what she is talking about beyond clichés and generalizations.

n      Don’t allow someone into your story simply because you talked to him. Or worse, because you have no one else. A person who has nothing to say to advance your story should be omitted.

n       Ask yourself these questions: Does the person add to my story? Does the person help readers see and feel the story? Does the person answer questions you would expect readers to ask? Do I need this person?

n      Try to avoid the standard open-with-the-person, end-with-the-person. It’s a nice technique, but it’s better to bring the person in throughout your story. Why? Stories often bog down in the middle with too many statistics and too many talking head experts.

 U.S. writing coach Paula LaRocque once said: “Why assume that anybody at all is more interesting than an idea? The word “humanize” doesn’t mean simply to use something animate instead of inanimate; the word means to capture some human feeling, drama or condition. Sometimes facts and figures capture that drama.”

The simple fact is that reporters have to have the courage to avoid the perils of the warm body human interest angle. Even under deadline pressure, they must challenge themselves to get beyond the obvious and, if necessary, let the facts speak for themselves.

     ****

 Footnote: My friend Randy sent out about 50 e-mails. Initially, his request produced four potential subjects. One man in British Columbia didn’t want to be interviewed and another in Ontario wasn’t the right fit. “The folks in Quebec were perfect – a mother who worked for her daughter’s gift store and a father who worked at his son’s winery.” Seems like good digging on a story that had a clear focus and people who were a perfect fit.

(Don Gibb teaches reporting at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. He, too, has written the standard human interest lead too often, but is beginning to see the light. This article first appeared in the Canadian Association of Journalists' magazine "Media". It is reprinted here by permission of the author.)