Earns more than the governor

The kids still can’t read

Reporters have not been asked to write in haiku-not yet. But news holes are shrinking. Meanwhile, you have as much to say as ever. I’m not going to pretend you can say as much in 10 inches as you can in 20. You can’t give as much history, you can’t give as much context, you can’t give as many examples. But with rigorous discipline and a creative mind, you can do great things in small spaces.

When Brady Dennis was a night cops reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, he wrote a series of profiles called "300 Words." The lovely vignettes-of a toll booth operator working to pay debts from his late wife’s cancer, of a prison inmate visiting his baby daughter, and more-took only eight or nine inches yet left readers sated. There were no musts in these pieces-Dennis didn’t have to quote experts or explain capital budget outlays-but still, any reporter can learn from his discipline. "What I tried to do was just boil it down to what was essential," he told me. "Every line said something."

Some tips on creating strong journalism in small spaces:

Narrow Your Focus.
Roy Peter Clark, a writing coach at the Poynter Institute, advises writers to "first prune the dead limbs and then shake out the dead leaves." You can’t, and shouldn’t, trim inches through word choice alone. Before you start writing, decide the essential purpose of the article-what’s new, what’s important. Cut everything that doesn’t serve that purpose.

If your piece is about ELL students being misidentified for special ed because of language difficulties, the fact that a child is bullied in his special ed class is interesting but not relevant. That his mother can’t communicate with teachers is relevant; that she works three jobs is only interesting. In the land of the 16-inch enterprise story, interesting isn’t enough.

If you are an editor, be careful what you ask for. Clark points out that editors’ first instinct is to look for holes in a story-an instinct reporters anticipate by including points that aren’t necessarily relevant. If editors truly want shorter stories, they must exercise restraint as well.

Write Serially.
Your school system is rolling out a new grading policy and you can’t imagine doing it justice in 10 inches. Think instead of three 10-inch stories that each tackle a different angle. There are risks to this approach, as Charles Lussier of The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La., pointed out on the K-12 listserve. "On a few occasions I’ve feel like I’m writing a trailer for a movie that will never get made," he said. It may help to draft the three budget lines up front and enlist your editor to support your follow-through.

Don’t Say the Same Thing Twice.
Consider pieces you’ve written: Do you have quotes from two people that say essentially the same thing? Two anecdotes that serve the same purpose? A one-column line chart can be a great, small substitute for two data-heavy grafs, as long as the chart replaces the grafs instead of repeats their information.

Pare Your Quotes.
Dennis barely quoted anyone in his "300 Words" pieces. "We’re so used to, ‘We have to quote this person and we have to quote that person," he said. "Why?" Great question.

Sometimes quotes are imperative. "Even a bad quote from the target of an investigation might be required," Clark said. And I love using standalone dialogue. But in my opinion, too many quotes are overly long, uninteresting or unnecessary. A quote should not simply repeat, in different words, what was said in the sentence setting up the quote. A quote should be short-think of it as punctuation, in a way. Pick out one sentence and paraphrase the rest. Or paraphrase it all.

In the olden days, you could first quote a parent activist saying that high school students need more sleep in the morning, so school start times should be pushed back. Then you could quote the administrator explaining all the reasons the school system is resisting a change. These days, you may have to sum it up yourself, without any quotes at all. Supporters say high school students need more sleep in order to learn properly, while administrators emphasize that logistical problems-with sports schedules, bus schedules and costs-make such a switch prohibitively difficult.

Don’t Skimp on Specific Examples.
These can be especially effective in quick-hit lists. How did the elementary school get its test scores up? Students took more practice tests and teachers used the scores to sort students into new weekly study groups. Students spent 30 minutes a day learning testing language, such as "author’s purpose." They won popsicles and other prizes for using the new words properly.

Beware the Double or Triple Lede.
Too often I read a lede immediately followed by a graf that reads to me like another lede, and sometimes that’s even followed by another one. Be confident, choose what’s important and launch right in.

Choose Words Carefully.
As William Strunk Jr. commanded: Omit needless words. Passive voice uses more words than active voice. Flowery prose has no place in a short story-or a long one, for that matter. Ask a colleague to trim your story before you ship it; he or she is likely to be less attached.

Speaking of Being Attached...
Writing short requires no less work than writing long. Summing up a debate in your own words rather than publishing ping-ponging quotes requires no fewer interviews. The approach requires a level of confidence and authority that only comes from thorough reporting. So it’s hard to write a story so short you feel your hard work won’t be noticed.

Well, you have to get over that. On this, it helps to have the backing of editors. (Are any editors listening?) If you only push stories for the front page that are more than 18 inches, you are reinforcing a notion that length correlates directly with importance.
Tackling his "300 Words" stories, Dennis wrote without regard to space, then trimmed mercilessly. You may prefer to wield your mental axe before you ever dump your notebook. Whatever your approach, take heart in the fact that the strategies that make short writing great translate to longer pieces as well.

Brady Dennis is now a financial reporter at the Washington Post, where his most recent piece, a compelling look at the human side of the AIG downfall, ran on the front page Saturday. It was five or six times longer than his "300 Words" pieces, but it had just as few dead limbs and leaves.

Public editor Linda Perlstein is available to help you. Contact her at 410-539-2464 or lperlstein@ewa.org.