Chapters V and VI

Chapter 5: Beyond the Five w's and the h

So, where do we go from here?

Let's start with news values. Factors such as timeliness, impact, interest, prominence, proximity, unusual occurrence, conflict or controversy help us decide if something is a story. Then we apply 'the five w's and the h' -- the 'who, what, when, where, why and how' to cover the basic elements.

Fault Lines can provide the next step -- context, so our audiences can understand the depth of an issue through multiple perspectives that go beyond the 'he said, she said' conflict model. Context also should answer the 'so what' question, giving readers or viewers the information they need to understand, and even to care about, a story.

Just as we talk about 'nut grafs' and impact, we can use Fault Lines to brainstorm story ideas that go beyond the obvious. It's not a question of applying the five Fault Lines of race, class, gender, generation and geography in some politically correct fashion. Instead, we can use them as filters to help develop or frame story ideas. The exercises and examples in this manual will show you how.

Fault Lines also provides a neutral vocabulary for discussing potentially volatile or divisive topics, such as the drowning story example in Chapter 4.

'We don't have to resolve our differences,' Maynard wrote. 'We can agree to disagree....

'The most important part is keeping our eyes on the master metaphor of the Fault Line. The society is split along five faults, and we try in vain to paper them over, fill them in or pretend they aren't there.¬† ‚ (These) underlying forces, like those in the center of the earth, will thwart us until we come to see our differences as deep but completely natural things, as natural as geographic fault lines.'

Maynard also stressed that one person's Fault Line perspective is another person's Fault Lines blind spot. This approach reminds us that people are the sum of their Fault Lines rather than any one Fault Line. So it's not enough to look at things strictly as a matter of male or female, black or white. While it's true that those differences often shape our perspectives, the other Fault Lines play a role as well.

'A difference of perspective or of opinion that appears to one of us to be based on age may appear to others to be based on class,' Robert Maynard wrote. 'When we confuse race with class or class with geography we confuse our readers and erode our credibility.'

Chapter 6: Getting Past our Frustrations - Let the Conversation Begin.

MIJE President Dori J. Maynard continues the work her father began, shaping it for the 21st Century. Talking about diversity is neither comfortable nor easy,' she said. 'Much of the conversation centers on frustration.

For example, journalists of color are frustrated that the industry has not made more progress in meeting hiring goals. White male executives are frustrated that the gains they have made so far are not acknowledged.

'White men are frustrated because they've had years of compliance training, diversity training and sensitivity training,' Dori Maynard said. 'They know what they can't say. They have a set of learned responses for what they can say, but they're terrified to speak their mind because they're afraid they're going to be branded racists, so no one is talking in our newsrooms.

'It's no wonder that we're not accurately reflecting our communities. We haven't had a way of talking about it so we can get that coverage into the newsroom.
The Fault Lines framework can take some of the charge out these difficult conversations, reminding us that it is natural to see things from our own point of view.

'Instead of saying, 'What do you mean you don't see my point?' ' Dori Maynard said, 'people have learned to say, 'I think we have a Fault Line here,' which gives the other person a chance to think about it without getting defensive.'

Whose Context is it Anyway?

Dori Maynard once attended a seminar on race and the media that included a clip of Ted Koppel interviewing white residents of a Philadelphia neighborhood who objected to an influx of black people.

'They were very clear about why they didn't want black people moving into the neighborhood,' Maynard said. 'They said that happens, and crime skyrockets and property prices plummet. So I'm watching this and thinking, 'Wait a minute. There's no context.' And particularly, from my geography of Oakland, Calif., I keep expecting Ted Koppel to say, 'With all due respect, there are African-American neighborhoods in this country that are safer and more affluent than white neighborhoods.'

Koppel didn't bring up that point, so Maynard raised it as a concern. But, she said, the conversation went in a different direction. About five minutes later, a while male participant raised his hand and said he was concerned that without context the clip made all white people look as if they were racists.
'So there we were,' Maynard said. 'We saw the exact same clip. We had the exact same concern-that of context-but because of our Fault Lines perception, what we meant by context was completely different.'

How We See Our Sources, How They See Themselves

News and business-side staff at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel participating in a Maynard Institute workshop went out into an area that included a large immigrant population from Haiti and Jamaica. They asked residents how the paper could do a better job of covering the community.

Though these residents were not schooled in Fault Lines, they spoke the language. What they said, essentially, is, 'Stop using your middle-class point of view to describe us. You keep calling us poor. You see two families living in one house, sharing one car, and you call us poor. Now we say we have a house and we have a car. We are not poor.'

Explaining 'Us' to 'Us.'  Where's the Context?

At an Editing Program workshop, a Hispanic journalist criticized a story his newspaper had written about the crowds of Hispanic residents that flock to local parks during holidays, in this case, Easter, when families often get together to barbecue. The community has a majority Hispanic population, and the journalist saw the story as 'explaining 'us' to 'us.''

A black journalism professor attending the workshop had a different point of view. She said she always wondered why she saw many Hispanic people in parks on holidays and on weekends, and now she knew why.

Others who have examined this example offer ideas about story framing:

- What is the context of the holiday story? Should it be broadened to be a story about family holiday traditions.

- Not all Hispanic families go to parks. Many celebrate holidays with barbecues or dinners at each other's homes.

- Consider the tradition of the plaza in Spain, Latin America, and the American Southwest as the central, public gathering space. That brings cultural context to the story.