Riddle me this: you are in a room with a woman whose daughter and son-in-law have been killed by her daughter’s stalker. The fiancee’s mother is also there. So: the woman whose daughter was killed is sitting next to a woman whose son would (likely) not have died if he had chosen another mate.
If you are still following me, or if you are not, I am talking about guilt.
This scenario–interviewing the mother of a murdered child–happened when I was a cub reporter twenty years ago. I made note of the room, the way we were seated (bereaved to the left; police information officer to the right). I noticed, and will never forget, that the mother of the murdered woman kept picking at her fingernail beds and that they were raw to the point of bleeding.
I teared up but did not cry as she described how her daughter dated this controlling man; how she ended their relationship and then started a healthy one; and then how, one day, the man who was her ex walked up to the home she shared with her fiancee and shot the couple dead.
So: I showed feelings during my interview. Was that bad? I don’t think so. Sympathy. But on the knife’s edge. Control is important too.
The movie “Broadcast News” uses actor William Hurt as a perfect example of journalism gone bad. (SPOILER ALERT). During a one-camera shoot, after his main interview, he asks the cameraman to turn the camera on him and he effortlessly produces tears. They cut that into the “reaction shot” of what looks like a two-camera shoot.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say “one camera shoot” versus two, just think of it literally. We are now much more advanced (and film and cameras are cheaper) than the ’80s, ENG-cam broadcast news heyday. But imagine a one-camera shoot. You have one man behind the camera. (S)he can either shoot the subject; the interviewer; or the scene (commonly known as “B-roll”). If the interviewer and subject are seated next to each other, (s)he can shoot both talkers at the same time.
What you cannot do, and what “Broadcast News” explored and exposed, is have a tight shot of the face of the person being interviewed and get the simultaneous reaction of the reporter.
A facial tight shot is money. We react to the mirroring effect of seeing someone else up close. Thus, once we figured out the economics of shooting television, we moved towards two-camera shoots, where you can alternate close-ups of different people; or multi-camera shoots, where you can freely intercut different perspectives on the same narrative.
I bring this up only because–and I wish I remember who said this–the ultimate discretion of the journalist is what to leave out. What we often leave out is any trace that a journalist has feelings.
Too much evidence that the reporter is reacting to the subject/narrative is “soft” and sentimental. No evidence at all and the reporter might as well be… well, a camera. Or a microphone.
So where do those of us who practice journalism find the space between feeling and telling?
Think and hold that… more soon.