By Doug Oplinger?
Dispatches from Doug?
Daily News from Doug?
Dealings from Doug?
Journals from Douglas James?
I need a name for my visits to newsrooms around Ohio.
A few afternoons ago, Andrew Rockway from the Jefferson Center and I headed the Mercury to the progressive island of Yellow Springs, Ohio, midway between Dayton and Columbus. It was the second stop on a 500-mile trip.
We visited Neenah Ellis, general manager at WYSO, and Juliet Fromholt, whose very long title suggests that if anything goes wrong, she gets a phone call. (Webmaster/Programming Coordinator/Deputy Ops Director)
WYSO (91.3 FM), though tiny in comparison to the public radio stations I know in Northeast Ohio, excels in creativity.
WYSO’s “Community Voices” series represents the kind of reporting that NPR is using to build audience — a direction we’d all like to go.
And, she acknowledges this is difficult, if not slow-moving journalism.
By training people to conduct interviews of their peers, the content becomes rich. Who can better understand the life of a female inmate at the Dayton Correctional Institution? WYSO worked with the women for months. That’s a commitment.
The results are powerful in the Women’s Voices series by Lewis Wallace and Renee Wilde.
And what is brilliant about the end product is the diversity of life experiences. Anyone who listens will find at least one character with whom they can identify.
One woman escaped the Chicago gang and drug culture to live in Columbus with her grandmother, where her life was supposed to change for the better. It became worse. Another, a school and Sunday school teacher, was a successful gymnast in school. She became hooked on opioids after breaking her back, ended in prison where she agonized over never hearing kids ask for her help again. She was interviewed by a young Pike County inmate who died of a drug overdose shortly after the interview and release.
What would some do over again? Be better mothers.
For Ohio reporters covering the heroin epidemic, there are worthwhile links to outtakes on the WYSO Women’s Voices page.
More worthy of note, though, is that peers asked provocative questions that journalists might never consider.
Another Community Voices series is on veterans interviewing veterans. As the father of an ONG Army lifer, I found it equally powerful because there was a bond and openness between the veterans that few journalists could hope to obtain. Actually, the words I want to use about our ability to interview veterans are harsh.
One interview about race in the military illustrates that staying alive in a deadly situation cannot be clouded by cultural differences, something that few of us will ever experience.
This is a powerful reminder that journalists often ask only what we know. What skills do we need to go beyond our limitations? In some cases, is it more efficient to let the people ask their own questions?
For practicing journalists, as we attempt to advance the Your Voice Ohio project, I suggest reading, at the very least, the first several pages of a booklet shared with us by Ellis: “Break Form: Making stories with and for the people.”
On page one is a statement I’ve heard recently in Ohio as journalists gather and rightfully fret over our threatened role in communities/democracy: “We need to slow our game.”
As I think about that statement, it means working harder, and in new ways.
This is provocative, from the booklet, page 5:
An important first part of the Finding America assignment was to ask our talent to suspend what they do best, leave behind their microphones and cameras, and enter as observers. What is the rhythm and flow? Who are the magnetic personalities? “Reflection” as a starting point for reinvention is part of our experiment, and not simple to achieve: to enter a new place with humility, forming what turned out for some to be lasting bonds of love and friendship. This was especially difficult for some of our lead producers, who heard the clock ticking from day one and were eager to start producing, and yet was embraced strongly by more than 65 percent of our station collaborators who welcomed a respite from the everyday grind of daily news assignments.
