Category: Good Writing

Storytelling At the Washington Post

Good Writing, Guest Lecture

In two of my classes this week Manuel Roig-Franzia came in to talk about his experiences writing for the Washington Post’s Style section. After listening to him speak, I came away with almost a sense of awe at how ingrained it seems to be in him to tell stories.

For almost an hour today he just talked about the stories he’s covered and what talking to the people he interviewed was like. He started off telling us about traveling to Haiti in the wake of the Earthquake earlier this year, and went on to discuss interviewing Bill Bond a man who fully admits to having killed his father (but who never served any time in jail for it), and getting the scoop on the White House puppy. Yesterday I heard him talk about his work covering lobbyists in Washington D.C. based on articles about Heather Podesta and the restaurant Tosca.

Typically listening to someone talk for an hour straight could get really boring, but I found Roig-Franzia’s anecdotes about his work reporting to be highly entertaining. Not anything that I think I can really use in my own career mind you, but the guy can really tell an interesting story.

For those who don’t know, Roig-Franzia caused quite a stir last year for his role in a fist fight that broke out in the Washington Post newsroom. I don’t advocate punching people in the face, and I won’t weigh in on whether Roig-Franzia deserved it, but I will say that it is a rare person who is enough of a bad ass to call their boss a cock-sucker and keep their job.

Calculus, Zombies, World of Warcraft & Mean Girls

Good Writing, Guest Lecture

So after flipping out this morning about my article falling apart, I rallied myself and attended a lecture by UW’s Science Writer in Residence Jennifer Ouellette. She specializes in physics as a freelancer and has written three books. Her lecture was called “Dangerous Curves: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Calculus” which was about the research that she did for her most recent book about math and how it can be applied in everyday life: “The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.”

I had hoped that her lecture would be about what it was like to write about a subject that she has no background in (the calculus) but it was actually more about why she thinks math is cool and people should appreciate it. It was still an interesting lecture, and I give her credit for drawing an audience that merged the interests of undergrad journalism majors and graduate math students. For the record, graduate math students seem to function on an entirely different plain, and I for one do not speak graduate level math.

The-Calculus-Diaries-9780143117377Ouellette did a great job of bringing in different clips and examples of how math is applicable in everyday life. She showed part of the television show Numbers (which isn’t on air anymore, but is an interesting example of how to use math for dramatic crime fighting) and the mathlete competition from the movie Mean Girls, where a less controversial Lindsay Lohan realizes that it is okay to like math.

The zombie part of the title of her book has to do with a researcher who created an equation to figure out how best to survive a zombie apocalypse. Of course it is a multivariable calculus equation, which ultimately concludes that getting a gun and blowing away as many zombies as fast as you can is your best bet (although I think I could have concluded that without the calculus.)

The most interesting part of her talk for me (and the sorority girl in me does cringe to admit this) was when she starting talking about the game World of Warcraft. Apparently there was some sort of blood disease (similar to a highly contagious pandemic) that started spreading to the avatars in the game that was created by a player and started spreading rapidly through the program and the game actually had to be reset by its administrators to avoid all the characters dying of this plague-like disease. She brought it up as an example of how there can be technical models for real life situations, which actually didn’t have much to do with math, but is interesting from a science-health angle.

Overall, I’m not sure how useful her talk was in terms of helping me as a science writer, but it was entertaining, it got me out of the apartment, and I got away from my frustration over my article for a little while. I think I have my article situation figured out, sometimes just scrapping an idea and starting over from scratch is the best solution. I’m now feeling optimistic, so if only my eye would stop twitching things would be back to normal.

Ouellette’s blog Cocktail Party Physics is also a good example of science writing on the web, so be sure to check it out if physics is your thing.

The Sawatsky Approach

Good Writing, Grad School

For J800 we had to read a piece by Susan Paterno from 2000 called The Question Man about reporter John Sawatsky and his method of reporting. Of all the things that I’ve read thus far this semester I found this one article the most helpful.

Basically the idea behind the Sawatsky approach to reporting is that when an interview fails and a source doesn’t open up it is usually because the journalist asks the wrong questions. What he means by that is asking a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no, will always generate that singular response and won’t force a source to elaborate. If you ask open ended questions like how does that make you feel, or what do you think about that will force a source into talking at least a little bit more.

This might seem like a pretty basic concept, but in all of my journalism instruction no one has bothered to point this out. I think that remembered to revert to open ended questions if an interview starts to go poorly is something that could save an interview and avoid wasting your and your sources time. This approach is definitely something I’m going to try using in the next interviews that I have to do for class, namely the two feature articles that are due in October for J800.

I also have to point out that he is Canadian, which makes me think of my friend Cassi, which makes me think of this:

The Chili Pepper Angle

Good Writing, New Research

I really don’t find food and nutrition writing all that interesting (sorry to those who do but its just not my cup of tea) but I wanted to highlight this article on chili peppers from the New York Times. A Perk of Our Evolution: Pleasure in Pain of Chilies by James Gorman because I think he takes a really interesting approach to talking about a food item.

The angle the Gorman uses is answering the question of what makes humans want to eat foods that are hot/spicy with chili flavor even though at times it can be painful? I think this is an interesting way to approach writing about peppers, and honestly I was just impressed that Gorman was able to write such a long article about the topic without it becoming boring or redundant.
There are also parts of the article that Gorman writes in first person, which is an interesting choice. The article starts off as would be expected, a soft lead that describes a chili pepper festival – hinting at the allure of the vegetables and then goes into expert opinion. So when Gorman inserts his own narrative later on in the piece and discusses his own feelings toward chili peppers I was a little surprised. I do think it works though, because with a topic that could easily slip into the mundane, the more casual feel later in the piece actually works to hold me attention.

Thats So Nerdcore

Good Writing

I found the article Nerdcore: Hip hop for rhyming geeks from the BBC‘s Jamillah Knowles and Chris Vallance quite entertaining. The article takes a look at a new trend in the hip-hop music scene, self proclaimed nerdy people rapping about the societal struggles that come with being a geek. I’m going to refrain from expressing a staunch opinion on nerdcore rap, but I commend the reporters for chasing down and interesting topic and finding a unique angle with which to talk about the stigma of being a nerd.

I also liked the multimedia components that the reporters incorporated into this story. I think its important to get a picture of what these nerdy rappers look like in addition to hearing their actual rhymes so the video and audio clips to me really made the piece.

On a similar nerdy note, if you’ve never seen the Big Bang Theory on CBS, it is about a young group of professors and researchers (physicists, no less) at a university and it is hilarious.