Comments on: Can ER teach us anything about medical news stories?

By: Statistics and storytelling: the grudge match? – Nieman Storyboard - A project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:09:54 +0000

[...] within journalism and outside it have confirmed the power of narrative in conveying information. Previously on Storyboard, we also noted a Kaiser Family Foundation study that looked at the real-world effectiveness that [...]

By: Andrea Pitzer

Andrea Pitzer — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:10:09 +0000

And David, yes, a little like the telenovela/census thing: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/business/23telemundo.html

Maybe also narrative as a metahpor for the bubblegum flavor they put in my kids’ medicine at the pharmacy…

By: Andrea Pitzer

Andrea Pitzer — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:39:09 +0000

Michael, I think you’re onto something. Your comment put me in mind of John Hockenberry’s keynote at the 2008 Nieman Narrative conference. He emphasized the difference between tacking a narrative lead and kicker onto a piece and creating vivid characters via a fully narrative approach. He wasn’t specifically talking about follow-up, but I think the concept is similar: why should readers commit to a person in a story if the reporter hasn’t?

The problem is, as Pulitzer Prize winner Tom Hallman recently noted, that committed narrative takes space. And that space is much harder to come by these days, even online, where ostensibly there’s room, but where news organizations struggle with how to present long-form journalism.

Hallman had some other interesting remarks on the future of narrative journalism. We’ll be posting a piece from him on the topic next week.

By: Michael Skoler

Michael Skoler — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:25:33 +0000

You mention that ER viewers were most interested in health stories that involved the central characters. This may explain why the typical opening anecdote that reporters use to put a face on an issue is less powerful than when reporters follow someone’s story, say a person’s struggle with cancer, over time. People become engaged with others over time – whether in the real world or the fictional world. Perhaps the lesson for journalists is that we can have more impact with a series of stories following the same people than if we simply put a human face on a problem in one story and don’t follow up.

By: David

David — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:49:27 +0000

this reminds of the census taker plotline built into the telenovela.

Wonder how far you can take this trick before viewer tires of obvious placement