By Erik Derr
During a high school writing workshop a few years ago, a wide-eyed 10th-grader asked me the secret to developing a successful news story. I answered, “A pair of old socks.”
Of course, there was a bit more to my explanation. I told the aspiring journalist and her classmates that, to catch and hold the attention of readers, they would have to first and most importantly believe in their abilities as storytellers.
Throughout the history of the world, stories have been told and written on just about everything, many times over, I said. But, just as individual writers are unique, the stories they write are equally as unique, instructive, and perhaps inspirational.
I also noted that if the young group wanted to craft stories folks would want to read, they would have to identify the thing or things about story topics that they, themselves, find interesting and then accept the notion that others would be interested in those same narrative points, or story angles, as we say in the newsroom.
I summed up my workshop advice by suggesting the one universal truth that connects all stories together, and makes any tale relevant to readers — literally everything is a component of the ongoing journey pretty much everybody undertakes to improve their lives, individually and as a community.
That tie-in, I added, could apply to a dry analysis of business market statistics, as much as to a mundane story idea about, yes, a pair of old socks.
Such journalistic insights are far from uncommon among those who call themselves professional storytellers. They are, in fact, a necessity for anyone wishing to establish themselves within the media market and reach even a moderate level of achievement.
Those realizations came to me by way of the crash course in cultural diversity I received working for the Northwest Asian Weekly, first as editor in 1997, and then a freelance reporter through the early 2000s.
All of us who have worked or still work for the Weekly have been charged with an extraordinary responsibility — to provide a sounding board for the many ethnic and cultural interests of Washington State’s Asian Pacific Islander population, which reaches nearly 675,000, or, a little under 8 percent of Washington’s total population, according to the latest data from the state Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs.
That represents a lot of stories and a lot of very different ways of looking at our planet. And Assunta Ng devoted her news organization 35 years ago to capturing as much of that diversity as possible.
Pounding the pavement for the Weekly introduced me to a wide cross-section of people and an array of traditions I know I never would have met or learned about otherwise. I credit those many experiences as a whole with leaving me a far more capable interviewer with a fearless willingness to tackle any story idea that comes my way.
That, I believe, is what helped me, at least in part, earn my current spot as a contributing writer for WardsAuto.com, one of America’s oldest and most trusted automotive industry publications, even though I had never covered the auto industry in any way, shape, or form prior to my first submitted — and published — market trend story in 2009.
All that said, I’ve never had to cover old socks for the Northwest Asian Weekly or any of the other print and radio media outlets I’ve worked for since. But, if I ever have to, I have no doubt that I could.
Thank you, Assunta.