Ira Glass from This American Life gave viewers insight on storytelling with broadcasting tips on his video series titled “Ira Glass on Storytelling.”
He discussed how new broadcasters may have great ideas, but they must be careful by being sure they execute their work well. The best way to do that, Glass says, is to do a tremendous amount of work and by creating deadlines for yourself. If you do that, “the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions,” Glass said.
Glass said there are two major building blocks to broadcasting: the anecdote and the moment of reflection. He mentioned how a strong anecdote, or sequence of actions, can be your most powerful part of a story. The suspense of the anecdote keeps the reader/viewer’s attention.
“In a story form where an anecdote is happening, it has a momentum in and of itself that no matter how boring the facts are… you can feel that you’re on a train that has a destination,” Glass said.
Glass said, with the anecdote, you want to keep people guessing. Continuously raise questions that imply you will later answer them. The more questions you raise, the better the story, and you can answer the questions along the way.
The second building block Glass mentioned, the moment of reflection, basically tells your reader/viewer the point of the story. As Glass put it, “At some point somebody has to say this is why the hell you’re reading this and why I’m wasting all your time with this.”
Glass said it takes time working with this.
“It’s your job to understand either you don’ t have a sequence of actions or you don’t have a moment of reflections that works,” Glass said. “And you’re going to need both. And, in a good story you’re going to flip back and forth between the two.”
Glass also gave hope to all broadcasters who fear that their work is lacking.
“You got to record and get rid of a lot of crap before you get to anything special,” Glass said.
Glass harped on encouraging broadcasters to continuously work, and if they’re failing they are doing something right. They will fail sometimes, but the more they work, eventually they’ll produce something great, something special. In this section, he also discussed how writers must be tough. They must understand failure is a big part of success.
He said broadcasters must be themselves, it’s their best quality. When they’re behind the camera talking to their viewers, they must talk like a human being, preferably themselves.
“The more you are your own self, the better you are,” Glass said.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video series by Ira Glass. Although I’m a print journalism major, I think his broadcasting tips can be implied to all facets of journalism. I appreciated the way he talked with his viewers. It was as if there were no camera at all, but he was talking directly to you as a new journalist. He isn’t only a good speaker, but most certainly practices what he preaches.
Randall Haley 