Even someone as successful as Washington Post features reporter Dan Zak says he still struggles with the writing process. Here’s some of the advice he shared with NPF’s Paul Miller fellows. [Transcript | Video]
5 takeaways:
➀ Writing is hard and words are crude. “My process is terribly inefficient, involves procrastination and panic,” Zak said. He doesn’t like writing, but he loves reporting. “I’ve come to appreciate the difficulty of this profession,” he said, “and what an honor to have the professional mandate to be curious.” Zak likes his stories to mirror his own journey of discovery for the reader.
If you’re having a really difficult time writing, it may indicate you haven’t done enough reporting, he said. But even when the reporting is done, “what you have to communicate all of those complexities and nuances and contradictions are words, which are very crude tools.”
➁ “You don’t need to be an expert to write expertly about something,” Zak said. Zak, who described himself as a general assignment reporter – an “endangered position these days” – may write about any topic at any length in any tone. “And so, I’ve become an expert in nothing, but I’ve sort of tried everything, every type of story and every type of situation and any type of deadline.” The challenge with writing about a complicated topic for a general audience is that as you take a step toward colloquialism, you could be taking a step away from accuracy, he said. When writing about a complicated policy or science topic, Zak corroborates his interpretation with experts. “I think the moment you are too confident is when you make a mistake.”
➂ Try reporting on your interests if you can. As a generalist, Zak likes stories and people that are a puzzle to solve. In 2019, Zak spent a year writing about climate in non-traditional ways, such as his article titled “One of America’s top climate scientists is an evangelical Christian. She’s on a mission to persuade skeptics,” and another “How should we talk about what’s happening to our planet?” At times, Zak also uses devices to move the story along, such as in “The last day of Donald.” “Sometimes a gimmick, a structural gimmick can yield an interesting story… And I started thinking about all the people that Trump had injured in some way over the years, which were a lot of people. And I thought, ‘What if I checked in with people who unwittingly became sort of characters in the drama of Donald Trump?’”
➃ Make the person you’re interviewing comfortable, Zak advised. When Zak arrives to an interview, he doesn’t have his notepad and phone out. He doesn’t sit down and start with his first question. “I am interacting with them as a human being. And all of a sudden we’re in the interview,” he said. He asks people how they’re doing and how their family is. Sometimes, he shares things about himself, too. “I mean, the one way to make someone feel comfortable and that they can trust you is you trust them, right?” One way to put people at ease, especially people who are not used to interviews, is explaining to them the journalism process.
➄ No interview with the main subject of your profile? No problem. Zak has extensive experience writing profiles of key figures, some with their participation (Anthony Fauci), others as “write-around” profiles (Wilbur Ross, Josh Hawley, Ginni Thomas – see links under Resources). At the heart of these stories is one question, he said: “What is going on with these people?”
“My interest comes from this feeling that I’m watching someone behave in ways that I don’t understand and I want to understand what’s happening,” Zak said. “I like stories or people that are a puzzle to solve. One way he begins to solve the puzzle is to dig into archival content through ProQuest and Nexus and then speaking with the web of people connected to the subject, including family and current and former friends and colleagues. “My last question for anyone I’m talking to is usually, ‘Who else should I talk to?’” Zak said. “That’s what sometimes can lead you to the exact right person.”
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