The viewer's point of view

My parents often told me about the days before television, when families would gather around the radio for entertainment. Radio was, and still is, a "theater of the mind," as you have to use your imagination to see the pictures that go along with the sound. If you ever get a chance to listen to the shows from that era, you'll note that the writers were masters when it came to creating the scenes in your mind.

Sadly, many of you may as well be broadcasting your stories on radio. Because the pictures often don't match the words. The basic premise of television is that video can accompany sound and bring the total picture to the viewer.

This has been illustrated many times in recent weeks when it comes to the oil spill. When the story first broke, I watched story after story about "booms" being deployed in the gulf.

Fine. What is a boom? I don't exactly have one in my backyard. How does it work? Is anyone out there going to show me? Apparently not.

When it came to stories in the field, no one took the time to "show" the viewer what was being done. Sure, we saw booms being dropped in the water, but would it have killed someone actually demonstrate how the thing works? How hard would it have been to drop a boom in a small wading pool and pour some motor oil on one side?

We all saw plenty of graphics on how that containment dome was going to work, and that was good. Why not demonstrate the process? Take a running garden hose and drop a funnel over it. Simple, but no one thought to do it.

When doing stories in which you are describing how something works, put yourself in the viewer's place. If you're not going to show me how it works, I can read about it in the newspaper. TV people have a huge advantage over other media types in that we can use pictures and sound to describe what we're talking about. Too many reporters are so obsessed with the sounds of their own voices that they forget the viewer is sitting there, waiting for something to watch.

Always put yourself in the viewer's place. When you're assigned a story, think first about ways to show what you're going to be talking about, not about who you're going to interview. The viewer wants to see the story as well as hear about it, and talking heads are useless unless accompanied by effective b-roll or a standup that demonstrates what you're talking about. If you're doing a story on making a pie, show the process. If you're interviewing a teacher who no longer has funding for chalk, show her going to the store and buying it out of her own pocket. If you're talking about Wall Street, show me a stock broker actually making a trade or someone doing it themselves online.

Photogs have an old saying: "Without us, you're radio." Until you grasp the basic principles of show and tell, you may as well be broadcasting in the 1930's.