We broke form Tuesday. Half-hour programs became all-day updates. Radio sports talk yielded to news talk through the afternoon and evening. Newspapers dusted off the concept of Extras. Front pages become photo fronts with enlarged teasers. Extended coverage and innovations became the norm.
Maybe now’s the time to keep exploring forms, to brainstorm presentations of news and information that surprise and engage. Now’s the time, most of all, to keep communities in conversation. It might take new forms to do that.
Newsroom planning tends toward the next big event, the best expert, and the (often-forced) local angle. Now’s the time to let people reflect and express themselves. We best serve a shaken community by letting people talk to each other.
Here’s what would help them:
- A place to tell their stories: What was it like teaching young children on a day of mass national deaths? How did airline crews and passengers cope with traveling long distances after learning of hijacked planes? How did religious leaders comfort those who sought out places of worship?
- A forum for raising questions: What will the crashed planes mean to future travel? How should wheelchair users prepare for emergencies? What can an individual do now to help?
- A place to vent: This is no time for political correctness or silence. Let folks talk about the anger they feel toward an Arab neighbor. Let those of darker hue talk of their anxieties and other feelings about the white majority. Provide a forum for comments, responses, and the challenging of ideas regardless of medium. Trust that the conversation will be a healthy release, but be prepared to edit and add wise counsel if trash talk prevails.
New forms require changes in how a conversation evolves. Consider these approaches:
- In their own words: Get the reporter/mediator out the way and allow citizens to have their say. This could be an essay or taped commentary with photo and identification. Let them have voice in the exchange.
- With an emphasis on thoughts, not just actions: Focus on what people are/were thinking about. What they did only adds structure to the telling. What they thought is more provocative.
- At various lengths: Provide a means for very short expressions or long ones. Judge by merit of comments, not by standard lengths.
- In new places: Experiment with moving away from the usual slots — the editorial page or a talk-back segment. What if a contributor is placed after a related news story or boxed along-side a wire summary? Present local voices in meaningful, rather than standard places.
All this should serve three goals:
- Look for ways to surprise: Bring energy and greater relevance to the report through innovation.
- Work to get as many voices as possible in the conversation: The report should include the young who offer new perspectives, and older folks who compare these events to Pearl Harbor and other unforgettable periods; a range of racial/ethnic speakers, not just Middle Easterners and middle-class whites; liberals and conservatives; experts and average souls; the well-informed and those on the periphery of news knowledge. There’s no obligation to use everyone who contacts or is contacted, but wide ranges of folks have significant things to say.
- Engage the conversation: Keep people talking to each other in ways that calm, tell a fuller, more accurate story about your community, inform neighbors about each other, and increase understanding.
The challenge is to report on massive destruction. Let’s use it as a time to build.
