Soft News, Hard Sell
(Page 3 of 4)
March/April 2000
Suzanne Braun Levine The Nation (www.thenation.com/)
'Soft' news stories explore questions without being invalidated by a paucity of answers. But parameters that are fading shades of gray do not make these stories washed-out versions of real news, any more than higher-contrast presentation makes hard news two-dimensional. If 'news' conventions didn't relegate clarity and complexity, conflict and compassion, into opposing camps, we might begin to see coverage that would renew the spirit of inquiry and offer moral support. Even to men. Especially to men. If 'women's news' is a side dish on the news menu, 'soft news' about men--as fathers, husbands, friends--isn't even an ingredient. And men are the worse for it.
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Family life is underreported even though--and here is the irony--many of the reporters, men and women, who are missing the real-life stories are themselves living them. They are as disconnected from this kind of news as 'the news' is from their audiences' lives. They are blinded by the requirement that news has to be urgent, unnatural, or dangerous to attract attention. I am not denying that many stories fit these requirements; high-quality investigative reporting is our best hope for many crises confronting the republic. But there is also a need for explicative reporting, coverage of insight, compromise, imaginative problem solving.
A handful of journalists are beginning to rewire the newsgathering process. One is Jeannine Guttman, editor of the Portland (Maine) Press Herald. When she realized that her paper was covering news only if it was 'novel, unusual, or counterintuitive,' she changed the ground rules. She began assigning reports from what she called 'third places'--the supermarket, the playground, the coffee shop--where people hang out and talk about things. Then she required that political stories include citizens among the 'active players,' along with lobbyists, lawmakers, spin doctors, pollsters, experts, and analysts. And she required that stories about controversial issues include quotes from people who are undecided or ambivalent as well as those who firmly support one side or the other.
Instead of concentrating on the who, what, when, where, and why--the formula that produces hard news--reporters should be supported in their pursuit of the more elusive how. How did it happen? How does it work? How does it connect to what happened over here? How can we make it happen again, or never happen again?