"I surrender"

Melanie wrote a breathtaking piece about a miraculous cancer recovery in today's paper. I'm sure you all read it. I thought I'd share it here anyway, just in case any of you missed it.

I love the way the story develops, progressing with Karen, allowing the reader to take part in her decision to refuse further treatment--something which makes the revelation of her remission all the more powerful for the reader. Well written!

Surrender, followed by a miracle
By MELANIE CONKLIN
608-252-6187
mconklin@madison.com

So in 2005, she sat in the Sauk City office of her primary physician, Dr. Tim Bartholow, and told him of a pivotal decision. She wanted to refuse further treatment.

"I didn’t see the point in all these scans and diagnostic work when there’s no remedy," Dennis recalled. "There’s anxiety that accompanies all this testing — not only for me, but for my family and friends. I told Tim, I’m feeling pretty good right now, and I just want to be that way for as long as I can."

Then she asked the doctor she had grown to deeply trust: "Do you think I’m crazy?"
Bartholow was silent for a very long time.

"No," he finally replied. "I think you’re wise."

He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote this prescription: "You have my permission not to accept your diagnosis. You have my permission not to accept your prognosis. Go celebrate the miracles in your life."

So she walked away from the cancer that had dominated her life for 13 years.

Maybe Melanie can talk about this story at the next writers meeting?

Story endings

I thought we could talk about story endings (and whatever else people want to talk about) at our next writers' group lunch at noon in the board room on March 25. I liked the endings of these three recent articles in our paper. Maybe you have seen others in the WSJ or elsewhere you want to share? Also, I have a confession: I think I rely on quote endings too much. But they're so easy; how to get around this? Any suggestions?

(By the way, I'm testing out Nick's new, easy way to post blog entries. We'll see if it works…)

Chris Martell:
http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/443075

Deb Ziff:
http://www.madison.com/wsj/mad/top/441562

Karen Rivedal:
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/440697

David

Online living

DigiDave, a blogger who has a keen interest in the news industry (his tagline is "Journalism = Process not product"), has an interesting blog post about personal branding as a new mode for journalists in the digital age. His advice: start "living your life online."

It is NOT personal branding - it's Just living your life online.

The logical flow goes like this....

• "Journalism will survive the death of its institutions."

• This leads to the conclusion that we will have lots of independent journalists.

• Which means independent journalists will have to create "personal brands" since they can't rely on institutions to warrant a readers trust.

This is true - but I think the word "brand" is loaded and as such "personal brands" are being mischaracterized.

[...]

So here is what "personal branding" means to me.

Being a "brand" doesn't mean anything. What we really mean is: Live parts of your life online.

• Be findable online.
• Show your personality - whatever that is (you can be shy....online)
• Just be yourself.

Journalists don't need to do "personal branding" but they do need to live their life online. In fact, that is what LOTS of people are doing anyways.

Young people live their lives online naturally (Facebook). Journalists will have to do so with a bit more fervor and transparency, because readers will want to trust them. To do that you must show who you are through various means. And that means using tools (blog, twitter, flickr, etc) to make your life accessible online.

Personal branding doesn't mean slapping a logo on yourself. It just means being exactly who you are right now (yes, you... the one reading this) but doing that online.

I think the post would also qualify as a good example of web-first writing. It's chopped into short, easy-to-digest sections with plenty of bulletpoints and links to further information. It's not going to get any awards, but it's engaging and personal and sometimes funny. Pretty good stuff.

Anatomy of a scare

This piece about vaccine safety, from Newsweek, is long yet tightly written. As a health reporter, I liked it because it's such a good synthesis of a complicated story. But I also like the writing -- not only because every word counts but because of the many clear transitions, phrases like "being barricaded behind the impregnable wall of autism" and clever use of quotes like the one from Jenny McCarthy: "My science is Evan."

David

Anatomy of a scare

Like many people in London on that bleak February day in 1998, biochemist Nicholas Chadwick was eager to hear what the scientists would say. The Royal Free Hospital, where he was a graduate student in the lab of gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, had called a press conference to unveil the results of a new study. With flashbulbs popping, Wakefield stepped up to the bank of microphones: he and his colleagues, he said, had discovered a new syndrome that they believed was triggered by the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. In eight of the 12 children in their study, being published that day in the respected journal The Lancet, they had found severe intestinal inflammation, with the symptoms striking six days, on average, after the children received the MMR. But hospitals don't hold elaborate press conferences for studies of gut problems. The reason for all the hoopla was that nine of the children in the study also had autism, and the tragic disease had seized them between one and 14 days after their MMR jab. The vaccine, Wakefield suggested, had damaged the intestine—in particular, the measles part had caused serious inflammation—allowing harmful proteins to leak from the gut into the bloodstream and from there to the brain, where they damaged neurons in a way that triggered autism. Although in their paper the scientists noted that "we did not prove an association" between the MMR and autism, Wakefield was adamant. "It's a moral issue for me," he said, "and I can't support the continued use of [the MMR] until this issue has been resolved."

great gay hope

The Great Gay Hope
By Timothy Egan
NY Times - January 28, 2009, 10:00 pm

PORTLAND, Ore. — The politician was in his 40s, a rising star, a man with the pilot light of ambition burning bright. The intern was just 17, sorting through emotions about his sexuality, a boy who said he needed someone to mentor him in the political world.

They had an affair, just kisses at first, the teenager said. And then, after his 18th birthday, sex, and a relationship that was hidden from the public eye.

Came the mayor’s race and allegations of the affair. The politician, with the sturdy patriotic name of Sam Adams, denounced the rumors as scurrilous — they played to the worst stereotypes about homosexual predators, he said. How dare you.

Read on here.

I liked the turns of phrase, such as "pilot light of ambition turning bright" and "He could talk a dog off a meat wagon."

I also liked how the write broadened the story, juxtaposing the "old lesson in timeless and tawdry human weakness" with a progressive place known for being a "city of firsts."

I think that even in news stories we can look for the broader human tale in the specific, local things we write about.

David

Most Likely to Succeed

I thought this New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell about how to hire good teachers was really well-done. The article asks the question: "how do we hire when we can't tell who's right for the job?"

It's sort of a dry topic but Gladwell makes it interesting by leading in with an anecdote about a pro football scout who is trying to determine how well a promising college QB will fare in the NFL. He then uses that example throughout the piece to draw comparisons about predicting success for future teachers.

On the day of the big football game between the University of Missouri Tigers and the Cowboys of Oklahoma State, a football scout named Dan Shonka sat in his hotel, in Columbia, Missouri, with a portable DVD player. Shonka has worked for three National Football League teams. Before that, he was a football coach, and before that he played linebacker—although, he says, “that was three knee operations and a hundred pounds ago.” Every year, he evaluates somewhere between eight hundred and twelve hundred players around the country, helping professional teams decide whom to choose in the college draft, which means that over the last thirty years he has probably seen as many football games as anyone else in America. In his DVD player was his homework for the evening’s big game—an edited video of the Tigers’ previous contest, against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

From David and Ron: A vignette, a column and a rebuttal for our session tomorrow

1. A compact, powerful vignette from the Journal-Sentinel series on drunk driving: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/33618429.html

2. A column by writing guru Roy Peter Clark: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=60290

3. A rebuttal of sorts to Clark by Tim McGuire, former editor of the Mpls paper: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=60293

If you come across a good example of a short and tight but powerful piece, feel free to share it before or at the session.

What makes a good reporter?

I liked this column from the Washington Post's Deborah Howell. It's an important reminder that reporters never break their biggest stories sitting at their desk talking on the telephone. We need to hide in more beverage carts.

Sensitively exploring a school's struggles

Coverage by Doug Erickson:

Queen of Peace principal Bolser's illness challenges students and staff

Last January, Steve Bolser, the principal of Our Lady Queen of Peace School in Madison, brought in a guest speaker to train staff on how best to help children cope with illness and death.

At the time, fifth-grader Rumer Thomas was in the final stages of brain cancer, and Bolser wanted teachers to be prepared for the difficult questions that were sure to follow.

The full value of the training session soon became evident. Twelve days after Rumer's Feb. 29 death, Bolser suddenly fell ill and was found to have a cancerous brain tumor — the same diagnosis that Rumer earlier had received.