Just For TV Teachers

An early August blog, just because…

Two years ago I had a conversation with a former professional journalist whose first, distinguished career had been in print. It was at the annual STN Convention, which I chaired from 2004-2008. My “source” now monitors scholastic broadcast journalism as part of her job, and she is about as sharp as any person I’ve ever met. She told me something then that still resonates today. She said, “Kids are learning to tell stories thanks to STN. Now they need to learn how to go out and gather stories.”

That has stuck with me ever since. I do believe STN’s convention, where our theme was simply, “Tell the Story,” helped focus teen journalists on having a beginning, middle and end to their segments. We also teach that at “Camp STN” every summer to teachers as well as kids. After that conversation about the gathering process, I began think about it. A lot.

We do need to teach our kids to go out and find the story. So I took that to heart and put my staff to the ultimate test with our recent spring break bus tour, where we journeyed 3,400 miles in ten days, finding stories wherever we were, and uploading them to our website. They are all still there in case you are interested: www.htvmagazine.com.

Getting kids to gather stories involves teaching them how establish instant rapport, and how to have conversations on the spot, often with adults who will be hesitant to open up. Gathering also requires research so you know where to go to actually do the gathering. Story meetings between teacher and student are invaluable as you prep your crews for their field work. We also have to teach our young broadcast journalists to be ready to respond to what they find. The expected often turns into the unexpected, so you have to be flexible in the field.

Maybe most of all, we simply have to get our students INTO THE FIELD. It’s hard if your school limits your class, confining it to the school building or campus. Even then, you can teach news gathering. Send kids to the science class where they are conducting an experiment, or have them cover the back-stage happenings at the school musical. The school can be our “field,” and there are stories to gather .

Now part two of this late-summer blog, inspired again by a former journalist who is now teaching broadcasting at the collegiate level. He is also a very sharp observer of high school TV practices, having judged national contests for STN and others. A point he made to me last fall was one I had to roll over in my mind a lot. He said he instantly picks up the sense that “this story was produced to win an award” when he looks at scholastic features. He talks about the way kids will find a story about suffering and disease, or a tragic injury or death, and milk it with dramatic music, slow dissolves, cheesy writing that screams “this is an important story” without adding much substance. Kids don’t get into the “why” or “how” as much as they do the “look-at-my-important-emotional-story, and all of my sad visuals…now give me my award.”

That was a conversation I took to heart as well. You can imagine in 20 years how many stories we have produced with those kinds of themes, but hopefully, not too much melodrama. But he was right, I think, about the “I’m-going-to-win-an-award-thank-you-for-sharing-your-sadness-and-suffering” approach. Kids come up to me all the time pitching stories about the family at church suffering through an illness or tragedy. (By the way, stories about church friends require less “gathering” challenges than other stories…there is a built-in trust there, and it can lead to a lukewarm piece because your reporters will tip-toe around the family’s feelings out of respect)

There is another point to make here. Ultimately, it falls on the judges of scholastic contests to weed out the story going for glory, especially if it is not real effective. But judges of high school TV competitions are not always in touch with high school TV, so they are easily won over with stories like the ones described above. They get overly impressed with the access the teen reporters got to a tough situation. Sometimes that access was easy to attain. Sometimes the teacher got that access for them. So judges really need to focus on the actual storytelling, and not speculate too much about the work that went into getting close to the story and its stakeholders. It goes back to the first part of this blog. Gathering the story is the job of the reporter. That is what they are SUPPOSED to do.

Do sad stories have a place in our shows? Of course. The world is full of sadness, and lessons learned from the suffering of a friend or family in your community can certainly uplift, and educate the viewer. It is in the telling of those stories that we find illumination, and golden moments that naturally impact us. When the production of the story is dressed to impress, with poor, state-the-obvious writing, overuse of effects, and all the elements you can find in so many teen features, then it’s not time to give it an award.

Comments Off