I have never really thought of myself as a reporter.
That probably sounds odd (and no jokes, please) coming from someone who has spent 30 years doing just that work.
I’m a storyteller — first published in 1975, when I was 7 years old and living in London.
I remember a few months back when this company was facing layoffs, I thought: What the heck would I do if I couldn’t get paid to tell stories?
But to survive in this industry, you must adapt: We no longer bang out stories on typewriters or squeeze into phone booths to dictate breaking news to a rewrite guy. So when short videos began to appear alongside the written word on our website, I was all in.
When my editor wanted a first-person story about Chicago’s SummerDance program, I was happy to swivel my hips and fling my arms in the air while an instructor taught us the basics of Indian bhangra dancing in 90-degree heat.
Or when we wrote about the surging interest in hobby horse riding, I planted a wooden dowel between my legs, took hold of the reins and trotted around a South Loop park — all while businessmen eating lunch and new moms out for a stroll totally ignored the absurd spectacle.
(For both of those pieces, Chicago Sun-Times photographer/videographer Pat Nabong was the talented one bringing the stories to life.)
If it all sounds a little self-indulgent, you’re probably right. But it’s also true that stories are sometimes better when the writer experiences firsthand the thing he’s writing about.
Early on in my career, I wrote about a homeless man who had cost the city of Tacoma, Washington, $2 million in ambulance bills because a city ordinance required paramedics to take him to the hospital every time he toppled over — even though he was usually just very drunk. One Sunday morning, to try to understand him better, I bought a bottle of his favorite poison, Richard’s Wild Irish Rose. I twisted off the top and swigged it from a paper bag while walking down the street. It was not good. You can’t tell me my experience, if captured on video, wouldn’t have added zest to the story, especially if a cop had cited me for drinking in public.
First-person videos don’t work for every story. Earlier this year, I took a trail ride in the suburbs as part of an exploration of things for readers to do outside of Chicago. WBEZ’s Manuel Martinez is an excellent multimedia journalist, but about the most exciting thing he had to work with was my mule occasionally stopping to poop.
It’s important to know, too, that sometimes — OK, most of the time — the reporter isn’t the story. A couple of years ago, I interviewed a Greek Orthodox monk who drove around the Northwest and North sides in a pedal-powered machine resembling a giant green-and-yellow ice pop.
Father Ephraim, with his Gandalf-long beard and black cassock, was so clearly the star of the show — especially when he’d open the hatch to his velomobile, in traffic, to talk to curious motorists.
The important question is: Do Sun-Times readers want to see the people who typically remain hidden behind a laptop out front and center?
It depends.
About a year ago, reporter Ellery Jones and Nabong drew 133,000 viewers to their 46-hour experience aboard Amtrak’s Floridian on its first ever run from Union Station to Miami.
Back in June 2014, Sun-Times reporter Frank Main attracted 3.3 million views to YouTube when he talked about 17-year-old Gakirah Barnes, a female gang member who was shot and killed in April 2014.
I have a long way to go before my videos attract that kind of interest. But video, our editors constantly remind us, is here to stay.
In mid-December, I’m scheduled to have a tiny walk-on role in Goodman Theatre’s production of “A Christmas Carol.” We will likely make a vertical video of my cameo. I’m hoping it will attract eyeballs — and not, I pray, because I stumble on stage, knock Tiny Tim to the ground and send the roast goose flying into the audience.