Clear as Brown Water

 

"I'd been covering this mess of a water-board story for weeks. It was hugely technical," a reporter said. "Lots of reports and bureaucratic talk on parts per million, system-upgrade guidelies, regulatory compliance ... aaagh!

 "Finally, one day, this group of residents hired a lawyer, and the lawyer came to the water board meeting and plopped down a jar of brown water.

   “ ‘Ugh,’ said the head of the board. ‘Brown water. That’s bad.’”

    The reporter continued:  

 “So that day, I went back to the office and wrote a story about the brown water. All of a sudden, the issue was crystal clear. I kept thinking how lucky I was that the guy brought the jar of brown water. What would I have done if he hadn’t? The story still would have been a mess.”

   The person leading the workshop (who happened to be my husband) said:

  “Wait a minute—that’s your job. Your job is to find the jar of brown water – the thing that makes a technical story crystal clear.”

     That was almost 8 years ago. Ever since, I’ve been asking reporters, when they’re stuck in the thicket of technical terms and incremental steps that only add up to more mud: Where’s the jar of brown water?

          Meaning what? Meaning that in every technically thick story, there's a visual that transcends the techno-speak and the bureaucratic muddle. Find it. Use it. Then people can see it.