OK, you’ve digested the IPD pieces on banking reform, dollarization
and privatization, you’ve spoken to the principals involved
or people lower down the rung because the principals won’t talk,
you’ve crunched the numbers, the facts, the possibilities with
analysts -- you’ve got an enormous amount of notes and you’re
trying to work out a framework for your proposed story. How
do you make it sing? How do you bring readers speeding along
with you?
The first basic premise is: economic stories
do not have to be dull. They are subject to the same principles
that govern good writing in any sphere, be it general, sports,
culture etc. And one of the best ways to hook your readers is
by bringing them right into the story, making them witness it
themselves. You conjure up an image for them, you are a camera
capturing and projecting an arresting picture. Just as a picture
is said to be worth a thousand words, so your written picture
will be worth much more than 1,000 words of jargon and dull
statements in making a lasting impression on your readers.
So how do you do this? How do you make
them witness a story, especially on something as technical as
an IMF/World bank bail-out, switching Ecuador’s sucre for the
dollar, the privatization of banks, transport or cement making,
trade agreements, a financial crisis? You conjure up the scene,
the human scene where possible! This column will look at three
possible ways of doing this:
- The actual scene itself, when something
is already happening;
- The scenario, in which you project the
likely effect of a decision or development;
- the analogy, where you liken a decision,
development or effect of some complex operation to a more
familiar action where readers feel at home.
Where you put these devices is your choice, but often they
can make a very striking lead to your story. In any case they
should be very high because they present the familiar context
with which readers can identify. This is very important for
the less initiated. For the specialist, the device is also pleasing
because you are not dumbing down the story but conjuring it
up. And for you, the writer, it is great fun!
SCENE
We’ll spend the least time on this because it is the most obvious
case. A government has devalued the currency, clamped down on
deposit withdrawals etc. There’s rage in the streets. Quite
clearly you want to lead off with the violence, or have it very
high, melding it in with the causes of the protest, showing
live as it were the effect of the government’s decisions and
why. For example, let’s say Argentines are rioting, banging
pots and pans because they can’t draw their money out following
government restrictions to prevent a run on the currency.
It would seem obvious that you include
the action in the lead. But you’d be surprised how often this
does not happen. As a random example, here is a published story
from December 17, 2001: Argentina on Monday vowed to slash its
budget spending by nearly a fifth in 2002 to ensure it can service
its debt, but social protest at government austerity and banking
curbs continued to flare…
The budget slashing was not particularly
new and though you’ve TOLD readers there is a protest, you haven’t
SHOWN them. This difference between SHOWING and TELLING is very
important for vivid copy.
Based on copy further down in the story, this could have been
rewritten to add both vivid scene and the economic background:
‘Argentine protesters burned tires and demanded food handouts
in scenes reminiscent of the economic turmoil of a decade ago
as the government presented a severely pared down budget in
an effort to unlock crucial loans that the IMF has frozen.’
SCENARIO
This is where you yourself have to be inventive. The scene
that could result from the development has not yet happened,
but you conjure it up anyway based on past experiences, what
the development or decision entails and, importantly, from the
questions you ask the principals and analysts etc.
The IPD’s journalism training section on banking crises, evaluating
different options, shows one way with the questions you ask.
Are local businesses highly dependent on bank finance? Would
a credit crunch be a disaster for them? Are there alternate
forms of finance for local firms? What is the public mood like?
Would bank closures create a panic? Based on the answers to
these and the other questions you could conjure up a vivid scenario
lead for your analysis on the given situation.
The piece on dollarization also shows the way to a vivid scenario,
either in the lead or in high placed paragraphs. You set out
in bullet phrases the advantages and disadvantages of the process,
i.e. ‘Inflation drops from XXX percent to X percent, economic
stability returns, interest rates fall, foreign investors rush
in, but an economic shock in the United States hits the dollar,
the local economy shudders – and above all Felipe Gonzalez,
a 25-year-old agricultural laborer whose monthly salary of $XX
represents the average earnings of 95 percent of the country’s
X million people finds himself unable to buy food for his family.
In the towns workers riot at the loss of national honor etc…’
This is just a rough skeleton but here you put a vivid scenario
on the technical aspects of the move. You could even give an
example for the more general ‘economic stability returns’ i.e.
‘a loaf of bread continues to cost just 10 cents for more than
three hours.’ Above all you put a human face on the measures
with the example of Felipe Gonzalez. After all, what interests
people are other people and this is the most dynamic way you
can bring a story home. These are handles that readers can identify
with far more easily than blander generalizations and they will
want to stay with you and read on.
If you look at the IPD’s piece on privatization, you can see
the same path. You lay out bullet examples of the pros and cons,
putting as human a face as possible on them, i.e. ‘Economic
growth surges to XXX, the government’s deficit drops to XX as
it not longer subsidizes a business that loses XXX a year, but
Jose Blow, already struggling below the poverty level like 80
percent of this country’s XXX inhabitants, finds himself without
the $XX a month that allowed him, his wife and seven children
to survive at subsistence level.’ This is just a stark example
to show the pattern. In some cases the last part of the sentence
could be the reverse – an improvement in life. But whatever,
don’t forget the ‘Joe Blow effect,’ the ordinary person, the
example with which readers can identify. Again you chew over
the possibilities with the principals and analysts.
POSSIBLE EXAMPLES
a) A New York Times piece of August 11, 2002, on Brazil’s $30
billion lifeline from the IMF begins: ‘Brazil and other Latin
American governments have followed Washington down the free-market
path, only to find they are now losing control over the economies…’
There’s nothing basically wrong with beginning like this. But
perhaps you could make it more interesting for readers, and
more fun for yourself to write, if you used a scenario lead.
The seventh paragraph tells you that a left-winger could win
October’s presidential elections, 13th that the IMF agreement
requires a budget surplus of 3.75 percent through 2005, 15th
has one of the left-wing frontrunner’s staff saying this limits
the social investments they have promised, 16th says non-compliance
could bring an Argentine-style cut-off of credit lines, and
19th refers to IMF’s standard advice of austerity which means
enormous suffering for millions (and consequent social unrest,
riots etc. as in Argentina). Here you have the elements for
a full dress scenario lead. The way you handle it is your choice.
You can use the bullet format (‘A left wing frontrunner wins
Brazil’s October elections, tries to put into practice the social
promises that propelled him into the presidential palace, but
finds his hands tied by IMF-imposed spending cuts. He ignores
his pledge of more jobs and better medical care and the people
riot etc. He earmarks funding for them and his credit line is
cut etc.’). You can make it less direct (‘If either x or y wins
October’s elections etc.’). You can make the generalization
(example of how Latin American countries have lost control over
their economies through free-market reforms) the next paragraph.
The scenario does not have to be the lead paragraph, although
in many cases it adds vigor. Here you could lead with a well-phrased
generalization and then set out the scenario in strong sentences
in the top paragraphs, rather than string it out over 20 paragraphs
as it is now. Use the later paragraphs to add substance and
background to the scenario.
b) The full text of the 19th para of the above story was: ‘The
standard advice of the fund to clients facing crises has been
to insist on increased austerity, arguing that fiscal discipline
is a prerequisite to prosperity. But that translates into enormous
suffering for millions of people, strengthening the appeal of
left-wing critics of free-market economies and weakening governments
that have made the changes Washington is urging.’
Increased austerity, fiscal discipline, suffering, weakening
governments are generic words, all crying out for scenario treatment.
When the IMF declares its conditions spell these out in scenario
form. That can even be in the lead i.e. (hypothetical example)
‘Some 170 million Brazilians will pay four times as much for
a loaf of bread, equivalent to XX percent of the salary of the
90 million poorest, under austerity measures demanded by the
IMF etc.’ Alternatively you can have a more general lead on
what the IMF’s overall demands are, but make sure you explain
what that means in a very high scenario. Be sure, too, that
you have a high balancing scenario on what the IMF says such
fiscal discipline will achieve. There’s nothing like contrasting
scenario paragraphs to locate readers fully in the story.
c) ‘Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin on Thursday outlined four
market-oriented proposals, including better oversight of global
capital flows, to deal with the crisis rocking financial markets
around the world.’
This story was published on October 1, 1998. Wouldn’t readers
be better served if the story clearly laid out in bullet form
the most trenchant planks in Rubin’s plan and then said ‘were
among proposals outlined by Rubin to counter the crisis etc.’?
d) ‘Top industrial nations Friday announced proposals for
far-reaching reforms aimed at bolstering the global financial
system and ending the turmoil that has rocked the world economy.’
A published story on November 2, 1998, this demands similar
treatment to the above Rubin story. Have a bullet scene/scenario
lead into the story followed by ‘were among measures prescribed
by top industrial nations etc.’ True ‘were’ is a rather passive
verb but you have the advantage of having true action at the
beginning (and the ‘announced’ of the original is only active
in form, not in real action).
e) ‘Brazil announced Wednesday an $84 billion austerity plan
for the next three years in a bid to pull Latin America's biggest
economy back from the brink of a devastating currency crisis.’
This story of October 28, 1998, had the advantage of immediately
following on with a general sort of scenario: ‘Even then, the
best the country can hope for next year is a recession, most
economists say. The worst case scenario is a steep devaluation
that could drag Latin America into recession and hurt the world
economy.’
f) ‘Brazil has nailed down the broad outlines of an agreement
with multilateral lending agencies, including the International
Monetary Fund, and is talking informally with the Federal Reserve
about a contingency credit facility, economists said Tuesday.’
This story of September 28, 1998, just dribbled on forever
over what an agreement could entail. What it needed was a 2nd
paragraph scenario spelling this out, e.g.: ‘Such a multibillion-dollar
plan could range from IMF and World bank credits to a line of
credit aid from the U.S. Federal Reserve, similar to the $20
billion afforded Mexico by Washington in 1994 when its peso
came under pressure.’
As the above examples show, the scenario doesn’t always have
to be a detailed human story, but it does have to lay out starkly
both sides of what could happen.
ANALOGY
When you have a complex matter that you
want to explain to general readers, an analogy can be the ideal
tool. It does not have to be an exact analogy – few often are
– but you make that clear when you give it. What it does is
to take readers from unfamiliar ground to something they are
familiar with. That will give them that ‘Ah, now I see’ flash
of recognition, and will no doubt also intrigue the more specialized
reader. Here you have to work on your sources and analysts to
help provide such analogies, if only to ensure that you don’t
go overboard on them. Examples in financial matters can involve
reducing the complexities to the more familiar problems of,
say, housekeeping or the family budget, a mortgage or a car
loan.
POSSIBLE EXAMPLES
a) ‘With the global economy and its reputation
at stake, the International Monetary Fund has spent weeks honing
a multibillion-dollar rescue package for Brazil, Latin America's
biggest economy.’
For anybody who had been following this story, this review published
on November 11, 1998, did not seem to take you anywhere new.
A fresh approach could have looked at it either from the point
of view of Brazil – the householder who has credit card, loans
or mortgage problems -- or from the IMF point of view, as a
bank or debt consolidator dealing with problem household loans,
a microcosm readers might be more familiar with.
b) When the Long Term Capital Management (LCTM) hedge fund
was bailed out in 1998, a whole lot of terms and procedures
cropped up that were not familiar to general readers – even
perhaps the term hedge fund itself. It was explained that LCTM
had suffered huge losses on bad debts on a variety of global
markets that were hit after Russia defaulted. This is an example
where you ask analysts whether there’s a simpler analogy to
help explain part of the story. Is it similar to a casino betting
syndicate using credit and some ‘infallible’ great game plan?
Is there some other more familiar analogy? They should be able
to help you.
c) A story published on May 1, dealing not with international
economics but with the problems of policing the Internet, shows
how effective an analogy could be in hooking readers. It began:
‘As police around the world search for ways to monitor criminal
activity on the Internet without trampling privacy rights, the
powerful tool adopted in the United States faces persistent
scrutiny and opposition.’
Now the 11th paragraph has the general counsel of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center likening the U.S. policy to throwing
a big net into the ocean to capture a single targeted fish from
a school. That right away gives you the first part of an analogy
lead: ‘Critics liken it to casting a dragnet into the ocean
to catch a single targeted fish.’ Now what's the other side
of the argument? ‘Supporters see it as a laser zeroing in on
crime in the age of the Internet.’ So there's your second half
of the lead. And readers will want to read on. By asking relevant
questions in international economic stories you will also find
such analogies when appropriate. You could easily use such a
strategy with regard to the pros and cons of IMF policies.
As with many things, the packaging of a product can be very
important. Nowhere is this truer than in journalism. Hopefully
the above examples will allow readers to better enjoy reading
your articles, and you to better enjoy writing them.
