Speeches

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Covering Speeches; Getting the ‘Nut’

Covering speeches is something that all journalists do all the time. In some ways, it is the easiest possible assignment—all you have to do is sit and listen and take notes; the speaker does the work and hands you quotes and quips and facts and opinions.

The difficult part is transforming a speech, which has a particular structure and form, into the kind of inverted pyramid news story that we’ve been working on. The inverted pyramid is useful for the reader, as you know, because it provides a selective, quasi-telegraphic account of news in decreasing order of importance—first things, first.

For the reporter, translating events and even a speech into that kind of user-friendly structure requires judgment and discipline. First, the reporter must decide what the most important fact(s) or theme is—in the short story about the car accident from a couple of weeks ago, which of the facts was the most important? Sure, the accident itself, but was it Floyd Finger’s arrest for DUI, or was it Marcie Mommish’s injury, which sent her to the hospital? Or both?

This judgment of what’s most important, and then the skill to write it in a way that focuses the reader and story on that element—that’s the trick we’re trying to learn.

A speech, however, is not structured so conveniently. Most speakers start with a couple of jokes, ease into their topic, build to a couple of crescendos (the main points), and then taper off at the end. So instead of an upside-down triangle (pyramid), a speech might look like a diamond shape, or a figure eight.

So the challenge in covering a speech is to figure out a major theme on which to focus your news story. Can you describe it in one word, or a few works? (Remember the Fred story—the city council meeting boiled down to this: “Those jerks are going to raise taxes again.” Or even one word: “Taxes!”)

This boiling down process is important. It requires thought and imagination. As Michael Gartner said, the reporter has to be fair as well, so the story must reflect accurately and fairly what the speaker was trying to say. You have to find what we refer to as a “hook” on which you can hang the whole story. If you don’t find a good focal point, the rest of your story either won’t hold together logically, or you’ll run out of stuff and report only a small portion of the whole story.

Here is a structure for inverted pyramid news stories that I think is very useful, and can work for you (nearly) every time.

• 1st¶ Summarize the most important/central news in one sentence. Sometimes, you can identify this in your head in one word—“Taxes!”—and then add the other required lead stuff (who, when, where?) to make a summary sentence.
• 2nd¶ Support the lead paragraph with other critical info. For example, a person’s name often would NOT go in the first ¶, because most people aren’t household names. Sure, you can lead with, “President Obama said today...,” but you can’t say, “Floyd Finger was arrested....,” because no one knows who the heck he is. So the first reference to the person might refer to her/him as a label—a Logan city councilman, a USU professor, a Salt Lake City man, etc., and then name the person in the second graf.
• 3rd¶ If you can, find a good quote that supports your lead.
• 4th¶ The “nut graf.” I’ll give you some readings on nut grafs, but basically, this is a paragraph that answers the “So what?” or the “What is this about?” question.

These top paragraphs represent the story’s roadsign, telling the reader what the story is about and where it’s going. If you can boil your notes down to this, the rest of the story can proceed logically, filling out the major points of the story and taking the reader along an easy trail that was marked by the lead “roadsign.”

(For more on nut grafs and how to focus a story, see new posts on NewsHounds on Nut Grafs and on “Michelangelo’s David.”)

Here is my version of the Michael Gartner speech story. Let me acknowledge that this is kind of a hard story to write, because it’s more a lecture than a speech with good news “hooks” on which to hang the story. But it is still possible to come up with a central theme that can help hold the whole thing together, without simply listing Gartner’s 12 points—which then reads like a transcript, not a news story.

Compare my version below to your own, and a feel free to kibbitz. I include a few notes highlighted in the text, FYI.

TP

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Gartner Speech
Pease (Note: This is how you should slug ALL stories!)

One of America’s preeminent journalists told USU students Tuesday that although modern journalism has never been more challenging, reporting is also “enormous fun.” (This is what I came up with as a summary “hook” that includes his main theme and permits me the flexibility to cover as much of his tralk as I want. Note that I don’t name Gartner in the lead—does everyone know who he is? but I refer to him as an important journalist.)

“Who else in the world is paid just to ask questions, to think and to write?” said Michael Gartner, a former TV and newspaper editor and Pulitzer Prize-winner. “There simply is nothing more satisfying, nothing more fun.” (This second graf does two things—specific ID of Gartner, and a quote that gives the reader the “sound” of the speaker.)

Gartner, who was president of NBC News, editor at The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Des Moines Register, and co-owner and editor of the Ames (Iowa) Tribune, offered a crowd of nearly 200 students and faculty at the Memorial Union his “12-Step Program to Good Writing.”

Gartner was on campus as part of the university’s William Henry Fox First Amendment Lecture Series, sponsored by the Journalism and Communication Department. (These 2 grafs serve as the “nut,” which tells the reader what this story is about and whys/he should care.)

“Gartner is a national treasure,” said journalism Dean Eaton X. Benedict.

But writing isn’t always fun, said the retired editor, whose editorials for the Ames Tribune won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. “Sometimes, it’s painful. Sometimes, it’s frustrating. Sometimes, it’s embarrassing,” Gartner said. (This graf takes the reader back to the lead angle, or “hook,” and continues the conversation into his 12 points. Not the “But,” which is a quick and easy and effective was to make a transition into new material or a different direction.)

And it is a craft that never stops developing, he said, offering a 12-point list of what it takes to be a good writer.

Among Gartner’s 12 suggestions was advice for young writers at every stage of their careers, including life lessons such as the need to have passion, curiosity and care for other human beings. (This is a synthesis of the entire speech—my own interpretation. Rather than just list his 12 points in chronological order, which is Boooorrrrring, I try to find ways to lump stuff together logically.)

Because of changing expectations of journalism and society, the challenge is some ways greater for journalists today than when he was starting, Gartner said. “Today, for you to get into the brains of my children—and of me and my father,” he said, “you must report more thoroughly than ever and write more gracefully than ever.” (Note: A speech story is all about a person talking, so try to select as many good, tight, pithy quotes as possible so the reader can “hear” the speaker’s voice.)

His advice? “You must report. Read. Listen. Simplify. Collaborate. Trust. Experiment. Talk. Pounce. Care. And balance.” (This quote lists his points, but it’s confusing to the reader. So I go quickly into an explanation in the next graf.)

All writing depends on reporting, Gartner said. “Words alone aren’t enough. Good writing needs fact. You cannot be a good writer if you are not a good reporter.” So the first challenge of good writing is collecting good facts.

Equally important, he said, is the ability to listen—both to sources and coworkers, and to the written word. “You cannot be a good writer if you don’t read,” he said. And, “You cannot be a good writer if you don’t listen.” (Note that in many of these paragraphs, I try to make a smooth, logical transition from one topic to the next, and paraphrase material to set up a quote.)

Listening goes both ways, Gartner said. Good writers also have to listen to their writing, and simplify complex ideas, concepts and sentences. “The easiest thing for the reader to do is quit reading,” one of Gartner’s first editors told him.

“What wonderful advice to a newspaperman,” he said. “You have to keep the reader interested.” (This quote follows on the previous graf—completing the thought.)

One way that Gartner suggests for keeping the reader connected is to use editors and co-workers as trusted collaborators. Talking to co-workers and bouncing ideas and stories off each other is an essential way both to improve stories and writing, he said, and can also serve as a reality check.

“Trust means honesty and respect, openness and courtesy” with editors and other reporters to fine-tune stories and find the “music” that makes the difference between facts and good writing.

In addition, Gartner said, the journalist must listen both to his or her own writing “voice,” as well as to sources for great quotes. “The good writer knows how to use quotes,” he said—as punctuation, transition or reinforcement. “It takes a good ear to get a good quote” and to use it effectively.

Finally, Gartner said the best writers and reporters must care deeply about their craft, and about other people.

“You cannot be a good writer if you do not love writing and love reporting. It’s simply impossible,” he said. “And you cannot be a good writer if you do not care what you are writing about.”

Part of that is to care enough to be fair, he said. (That is a transition from the previous graf to this one.) “Fairness is vital for every story and every newspaper, because an unfair story hurts the credibility of the reporter and the editor and the newspaper.”

Gartner’s audience, mostly journalism students, responded often with laughter and applause to the veteran editor’s advice. “This is the kind of stuff you never read in textbooks,” said junior journalism major Forrest Ranger.

As part of the event, Gartner was awarded the journalism school’s annual William Henry Fox Prize for distinguished journalism. The next speaker in the series, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, will be on campus next month.

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