NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 55 NO. 3 FALL 2001 Five Dollars The Documentary and Journalism Where They Converge Newspaper Cutbacks: Is this the only way to survive? “…to promote and elevate the standards of journalism” —Agnes Wahl Nieman, the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation. Vol. 55 No. 3 NIEMAN REPORTS Fall 2001 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY Publisher Bob Giles Editor Melissa Ludtke Assistant Editor Lois Fiore Editorial Assistant Paul Wirth Design Editor Deborah Smiley Business Manager Cheryl Scantlebury Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Please address all subscription correspondence to in March, June, September and December One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, and change of address information to One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108. 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Vol. 55 No. 3 NIEMAN REPORTS Fall 2001 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 The Documentary and Journalism 6‘What the Hell is a Radio Documentary?’ BY STEPHEN SMITH Radio and the Internet 7Radio Diarists Document Their Lives BY JOE RICHMAN 10 Using the Web for an Interactive Documentary Project BY SUE JOHNSON 13 Radio Documentaries Take Listeners Into Dark Corners INTERVIEW WITH DAVID ISAY 16 Radio Storytelling Builds Community On-Air and Off BY JAY ALLISON 19 First-Person Narratives on Radio Document Historic Memory BY SANDY TOLAN 22 Exploring the Relationship Between Photographer and Subject BY DENISE KEIM Photography and the 25 Photojournalism at a Crossroads BY PETER HOWE Written Word 27 Photojournalism and Documentary Photography BY ANTONIN KRATOCHVIL, WITH MICHAEL PERSSON 32 Being Receptive to the Unexpected BY ELI REED 37 A Place for Words and Images to Call Home BY ROBERT COLES 39 Revealing Afghanistan BY CHRIS STEELE-PERKINS 41 A Photographer’s Journey Begins With a Coffin BY ANDRE LAMBERTSON 45 A Nieman Year Spent Pondering Storytelling BY ROBERT DREW Moving Pictures: 47 Documentary Journalism Vanishes From Network and Local Television BY PHILIP S. BALBONI Television and Film 50 Striking a Balance Between Filmmaking and Journalism BY MICHAEL KIRK 53 Where Journalism and Television Documentary Meet BY CARA MERTES 55 Using Documentaries to Move People to Action BY ELLEN SCHNEIDER 57 Documenting Social Ills With an Eye Toward Advocacy BY MARGARET LAZARUS 59 Long-Form Documentaries Serve a Vital Journalistic Role BY ROBERT RICHTER 61 Using the Drama of Cinéma Vérité to Tell Real Stories BY CHRIS HEGEDUS 63 Documentary Filmmakers Decide How to Present Compelling Evidence BY MICHAEL RABIGER Cover photo: Afghanistan, 1998. A young man on the doorstep of a tea house. Photo by Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum Photos.© 65 Journalist’s Trade Newspaper 66 A Feeling of Being Set Adrift BY THRITY UMRIGAR Cutbacks 67 The Philadelphia Inquirer: Cuts Jeopardize Quality BY JIM NAUGHTON 68 When the Cheering Stops and Anger Sets In BY CHUCK LASZEWSKI 70 Editors Need to Care About Words and Budgets BY DEBORAH HOWELL 71 Diversity Can Be Improved During This Economic Downturn BY WILLIAM W. SUTTON, JR. 73 Ownership Guides a Newspaper’s Mission BY JOHN MORTON 74 Newspaper Economics 2001: The McClatchy Way BY GARY PRUITT 76 Making Change Work Away From Public Pressures BY JAY SMITH 77 Newspapers Confront a Barrage of Problems BY STEPHEN LACY 79 Working Together, Journalists Can Have a Say in Corporate Policy BY GILBERT CRANBERG 82 News is Strategic in the Newspaper Business BY JOSEPH BOWER 84 Words & Reflections When 86 A Neighbor Wonders About Her Role as a Media Source BY AUDREY MCCOLLUM Journalists 88 The Chandra Levy Story BY KIM PETERSEN Arrive … 91 A Bullet, a Boy, a Story, and a Reporter’s Observations BY ROBERT SALLADAY 92 My Son Became a Voice the Media Relied on BY BARBARA SCHARDT 94 With Child-Care Stories, It Still Comes Down to Mothers BY BARBARA A. WILLER 95 Journalists Ask Questions, Then Refuse to Answer Them BY DAVID FOLKENFLIK 97 Viewer Dissatisfaction Understates the Anger at Local TV News BY IKE SEAMANS 99 Silencing Voices for Racial Change During the 1950’s BY CAROL POLSGROVE Books and 101 Journalism and Myth BY WILLIAM F. WOO Commentary 103 The Evolutionary Growth of Newspapers’ Look and Feel BY WARREN WATSON 104 Editorials: Pungent, Profound and Path Breaking BY NANCY DAY 106 Essays by a Mexican Journalist Explore the Americas BY DIANNE SOLÍS 108 A Journalist Allows This Story to Speak for Itself BY WILSON WANENE 109 He Displeased His Bosses, Not to Mention Those He Covered BY JOHN HERBERS 3 Curator’s Corner Narrative Journalism: A New Nieman Program BY BOB GILES 111 Nieman Notes: Nieman Fellows Take to the Road in Korea BY STEFANIE FRIEDHOFF 112 Class Notes COMPILED BY LOIS FIORE 113 End Note 2 Nieman Reports / Fall 2001 Curator’s Corner Narrative Journalism: A New Nieman Program Mark Kramer brings his teaching and narrative journalism conference to Harvard. By Bob Giles n its Fall 2000 issue, this magazine published a series of Journalism. Kramer joins the Nieman staff as director of the articles exploring the idea that narrative writing was program and writer-in-residence. He brings with him the Ireturning to newspapers. The lead article was written by annual narrative journalism conference, which will be held Mark Kramer, a writer and highly respected teacher of the November 30-December 1-2 under the Nieman/Harvard narrative craft who has directed a conference on the narra- banner. This fall, he will teach the narrative form to the tive form each year at Boston University, where he has been Nieman class and plans to offer courses to Harvard students. a professor and writer-in-residence for more than a decade. He will be available as a writing consultant to student “The basic assertion is simple,” wrote Kramer. “Newspa- publications, thus helping to fulfill the Nieman Foundation’s pers might both improve coverage and retain more readers obligation to serve the university community. by employing storytelling techniques to convey news.” Edi- Kramer’s presence will enrich significantly our program torial interest in narrative has been stimulated, he contin- and the fellows. As Stefanie Friedhoff, Nieman Fellow ’01, ued, “in the course of a search for remedies to widespread said in her note to the class of 2002, “Mark Kramer stuffed his current business problems: declining or stagnant newspa- students with ideas of how to convince colleagues and per circulation, aging readership, and decreased minutes editors that a long narrative story here and there can have an spent reading papers.” impact; how to go about narrative and do it in a way that is Narrative was on the list, he explained, “because it en- intriguing and convincing. Thus, narrative became visible as gages readers; in this age of mega-corporate media satura- one concrete tool to do a better job.” tion, Web sites and workaholism, readers still are attracted Kramer’s overview of narrative journalism is worth not- to stories in which people’s lives and decision-making are ing. “First of all, it’s not an invented thing, but one that is vividly portrayed.” evolving,” he wrote in reply to my query. “My observations Last winter several Nieman Fellows, who were among 750 on narrative derive from common practice, although I plead to attend Kramer’s narrative conference and who attended guilty to trying to influence that practice. his class at B.U., urged me to bring him to Lippmann House “Narrative describes events as they take place over time. to teach a narrative journalism class. Mark and I had lunch This splitting of event into process of course fully mobilizes and then a series of meetings that led to reinstating the journalists’ writing skills and judgment, which is why it can narrative course for the Nieman Fellows that had been serve readers well and excite reporters, but also why editors introduced the year before by Robert Vare (NF ’97), and approach cautiously. All reporting implies a selective eye. In much more. narrative accounts, the selection is fine-grained: What events Kramer laid out a vision for making the Nieman Founda- are central? Where in the tangled rush of events might a tion a center of activity in narrative journalism. He saw it as reporter slow action to catch moments and details and an opportunity to deploy the great strength of the Nieman persons, and where brush past events? The reporter gets to name and reputation by reaching out to the working press figure it all out and to chat with readers…. Narrative invites through discussions of reporting and writing practices; the reporting beyond the least common denominator, because role of editing; the ethics of narrative reporting, and rela- it acknowledges complex emotions, human situations and tionships of reporters with sources, with readers, and with consequences, moving conversation with readers beyond the culture and institutions of journalism. He described simple shared sentimentality.” formal and informal ways in which the Nieman program So, in a sense, this narrative movement in American could support the development of narrative work, both in journalism isn’t simply about storytelling, but about con- the United States and abroad through seminars and the necting with varied readers.