Associated Press Reporting Handbook

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Associated Press Reporting Handbook

• Re-creating Reality
• About Narrative Reconstructions
• Chapter 16

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• The stories DeSilva has in mind are the kinds
  of tales people tell each other in front of a
  fire.

• These stories have central characters that you
  can love or hate, but ______________.

• there has to be an emotional investment. The
  character has to be someone in whom the reader
  will be emotionally invested.

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• The central character has to have a ______.

• real problem that readers will take seriously.
  And the character must struggle to solve that
  problem

• So, what happens if the character solves the
  problem?

• If the character has a problem and he or she
  solves it, you have a paragraph. You dont have
  a story.

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• There are four things that make a narrative work

• 1. Character

• 2. Problem

• 3. Struggle

• 4. Resolution or Closure

• This is the bad news. Whats the good news?

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• The good news is an awful lot of things in life
  happen that way.

• If you start thinking in terms of storytelling,
  instead of reporting the news, youll see stories
  everywhere.

• Most of what we print in the newspaper are
  ____________

• endings
• We dont tell the whole story.

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• What we usually report are the resolutions to a
  much longer and very interesting story.

• This longer story involves human beings
  struggling with life.

• Information given to people in the form of real
  storytelling are more likely to be understood,
  read thoroughly and remembered.

• Its entertaining, interesting and in most cases,
  fascinating.

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• In storytelling, you are dealing with the texture
  of peoples lives and their struggles.

• This is lifes struggle, and it makes
  everything interesting. Its about relationship.

• Its like saying, OK, youre having trouble
  understanding this. Well, let me tell you a
  story.

• The banking and real estate market collapse told
  through the eyes of a hot-dog vendor.

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• The reporter learns the character through action
  and dialogue.

• Dialogue is not a quote or two, it is what people
  are saying to each other in real life. Thats
  what we want to reconstruct.

• Quotes are for those things that could reasonably
  be expected to be remembered.
• Oh mercy me, Ive been shot with a handgun,
  illegally purchased on the street. The rest is
  just paraphrased.

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• Just like in a movie, you must have a setting for
  telling a story.

• Nobody would think of making a movie set in
  Nowhere.

• A sense of place means reporting what its like
  there, what you see and hear and smell and the
  taste that creates that sense of place on the
  page.

• You have to report action, and you can only write
  scenes through detail.

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• What do you see, smell and hear and taste?
• This is a small town 440 people, filling
  station, bank, post office, tavern, blacktop
  street, grain elevator. Beyond lie rolling
  meadows, ripening corn, redwing blackbirds, fat
  cattle, windmills and silos a scene off a Sweet
  Lassy feed calendar.

• People who write narrative have to relearn how to
  report so they can help the reader experience the
  world through the senses instead of just telling
  them what happened.

• You just need to ask the right questions.

• You have to ask people what they saw and heard
  and smelled. What did it taste like?

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Associated Press Reporting Handbook

• Saving a Child
• Chapter 17

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The Making of a Rescue17 Minutes of TerrorBy
CHELSEA J. CARTER

• This example gives us two stories, one by Chelsea
  Carter and one by Tom Saladino. What are the
  major differences in the two accounts?
• Was there anything wrong with Saladinos story
  that moved on the wire?
• What had happened earlier that made FitzHenry and
  Simpson think they should do more?

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• What were the two things FitzHenry gave Carter as
  she left to go to Tipton, Ga.?
• Whose story was she to read in DeSilvas book?
• There were two instructions given her as she
  left.
• Remember to tell the story.
• Show me the story.
• Are these different?

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• In the story about Eva Suggs, there was someone
  with ONeill who helped Eva open up.
• Who was the guy who helped Ryan open up for
  Carters rescue story?
• Rick Feld - the photographer.
• What was the Prodis story about?
• There was another book Carter had read by Edna
  Buchanan The Corpse had a Familiar Face.

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• How did that book help her?
• What other writer have we read about who had this
  incredible way of seeing things?
• Was Carter able to interview everybody?
• Was it necessary?
• The story won the APME Association Award for best
  young AP reporter of the year.
• Timing, she says, is everything.

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Associated Press Reporting Handbook

• Chasing a Fire
• Chapter 18

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Charred Trees, Shattered DreamsChronology of a
WildfireBy DAVID FOSTER

• Foster begins his story by introducing us to
  ____________.
• Sam and Kathryn Minor.
• What are they doing?
• Watching the lightning from their cabin in Coyote
  Gulch, Montana.
• What does the lightning set up in the story?
• The lightning started the fires in the Bitteroot
  National Forest.

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• Any comments about
• The West is burning as it hasnt burned in 50
  years.
• In an ecological sense, fire is a __________.
• Fire is a necessity. It cleans house, but it also
  destroys homes.
• What was wrong with Sam?
• At age 57, he was disabled after 20 years as a
  roofer.
• Where had he and Kathryn lived before?
• Las Vegas
• What had happened to his two teen-agers?

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• This 92,000 piece of property represents
  everything they own, complete with
• Christmas decorations from Kathryns grandmother,
  a china hutch, a futon, plastic bags filled with
  clothes.
• Any comments about the humanity in this part of
  the story?
• They thought they had the rest of their lives to
  _________.
• Unpack.
• Then the scene changes.
• Who does he bring into the story now?
• A camp of 500 firefighters six miles away.

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• The sheriff comes while Sam is playing the
  guitar. What is the message the sheriff brings?
• Evacuate!
• Sam and Kathryn go to the home of friends and
  spend two nights.
• They go back home.
• How near is the closest fire on Friday?
• Three miles (and two ridges) away.
• Chip Houde is in charge of 180 firefighters.
• They are fighting two fires - the Gilbert fire of
  500 acres and the Spade Fire of 1,700 acres.

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• Things turn for the worse.
• The Minors evacuate again.
• You start getting the idea of the uncertainty and
  the fact that there is really no rest for either
  the firefighters or the local residents.
• Dantes Inferno
• Unreal, like a movie
• Houde sees a cliché.
• A wall of flame.
• 40 mph gusts and 150-foot flames.
• House is saved. Memories gone.
• Writer leaves his heroes devastated, but
  helping neighbors and still fighting.

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• Fosters office was in Olympia, Wash.
• APs Northwest regional reporter knows what they
  want.
• Real people, real drama, compelling narrative
  that looks beyond the acres burned and homes
  destroyed.
• National Forest headquarters at 11 p.m. when he
  pulls in.
• He stays in a Super 8 that smells like barbequed
  turkey.
• Three phases
• The threat the chaos and the aftermath

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• Places Foster looks for leads
• Forest Information Center? Good idea.
• The Montana Café? A better idea.
• The spot-news monster.
• Heads to the firefighters camp, where he gets
  what? Instead of what?
• Information instead of a story --
• 15-minute lesson on fire safety.
• Drives himself to the Minors home.
• He lets them tell their story, but he does have
  questions. -- Takes photographs.
• People are essential to the story.

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• Then, he speaks with the soldiers, the fire
  officials.
• Struggles with the firefighter lingo when he
  interviews Houde, the branch director.
• 90 percent of his story is in his notebooks.
• Julie Dunlap, THE EDITOR 200 words
• The phone rings What next?