Don’t simply tell the story, break it down

When you read a newspaper, listen to radio or watch television bulletins, you are consuming stories put together for you by journalists. Whether the stories are simply told, or are “broken down” determine will largely your level of satisfaction with them and whether they were worth your time and money.

Similarly for journalists, whether stories are simply told or “broken down” reflects the level of back-end engagement with them before they are passed on to the public.

Sound like splitting hairs? Yes, but there is a difference between simply telling a story and breaking down a story. Telling the story is simply putting out the 5Ws and H following the “inverted pyramid”. Breaking down the story is, “…dissecting a news event to extract its key elements and present them in a clear, concise, and newsworthy manner beyond the inverted pyramid and 5Ws and H to craft a compelling narrative.”

Take two recent stories you may have engaged with in the media recently. One is the official launch of the first section of Kampala city’s traffic flow improvement project at Nsambya and Clock Tower junctions, complete with overpass and underpass. Whether you interacted with this story in newspaper, radio or TV, you will probably remember the following: grand launch was presided over by President Museveni, project was financed by government of Japan, traffic flow in this section has improved, what official said what at the function, etc. That’s a story simply told. Had the story been broken down, you would have seen information about impact of this project on traffic beyond the generalisation. You would have been told that it can handles say 1,000 vehicles seamlessly in an hour at peak time. You would have learnt about the man-hours the project took from start to this point. You would have been reminded about the cost so far. You would have been told about the number of hands (men and women) that worked around the clock to finish. You would have been told about the hell that awaits the seamless traffic when one gets off the improved section at Katwe and at Jinja road junction, etc.

The second story is the recent launch of MV Mpungu on Lake Victoria. You may have read that it is “the first Uganda-Tanzania cargo ship”, that it’s “the first roll-on/roll-off freight vessel on Lake Victoria”, that “the $20 million vessel will ease transportation of cargo to and from port of Mwanza”, that ship was flagged of by so-and-so, and so forth.

Again, that is simply telling the story as handed down in the official communique. Had the story been broken down, you would have been told that this is not the first ro-ro freight vessel on Lake Victoria, it may be the biggest but is just the latest and many other are operating with some dating back from the days. You would be told about freight cost of a cargo laden truck from Mwanza to Port Bell and an empty truck from Port Bell to Mwanza. This cost would be given in comparison to doing the 700km Isaka-Mutukula-Kampala (time, fuel, etc). You would be told whether the cost of using the ro-ro ship will be computed based on space/volume or tonnage. You would also be told what cargo is likely be ferried on incoming and outgoing trips. And so many other things.

From the two stories above, it is clear that a story simply told serves only information purpose while a story broken down goes beyond information; it brings perspective, shows impact, and helps one make decisions.

Journalists must therefore always strive not to just tell stories but to break down stories. The starting point, as Colombian journalist Maria Camila Castillo Rincón notes, is “…to have a clear idea of what your main focus is. What is the central question, problem, or theme that you want to explore in your story? How does it relate to your audience and their interests? Having a main focus will help you narrow down your scope, avoid irrelevant information, and create a coherent narrative.”

And, she adds, “…it is great if you can think about visuals and multimedia in the beginning rather than in the end. Makes the story looked rushed rather than planned.”

Stories that are broken down and are well-illustrated remain etched in memory of audiences. Not so with simply told stories.

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