Posted by Adam Gentry on Friday, September 11, 2009
The news is intended to be facts, but anyone willing to be
in the spotlight wants to stay there, and there’s nothing wrong with a little
showmanship. Start with the presentation, show the audience something that
catches their eye and makes them curious, preferably something flashy that is
beautiful, but just strange enough to be unique. Then the reporter flashes a
smile, and says hello. Now it’s time for the story? No, not yet. First drop a
few bread crumbs. Make some brief remarks that hint at an important story.
Maybe they need to know, to avoid something bad, or maybe it’s the key that
will finally give them the opportunity of a lifetime, but either way, they
can’t hear it soon enough. But first, they need to know a few “facts”, facts
that help them understand the story, and even as the audience chews on this
appetizer, they can already tell it isn’t enough. But the reporter answers
their questions before they say a word, and in an instant the audience learns
“what happened”, and as the reporter rounds out his performance by remarking on
how “sad and cruel” or “wonderful” it is to see something like that happen, the
audience wraps their arms around this story, and takes it into their own
personal model of how the world is, moral and all.