Heart. It is something that is evidently lacking when we are flashed with detached news titles describing the latest events.
With each scroll of a news page or turn of a newspaper, there is increasing death and destruction. How could that not be discouraging?
Robotic repetition is what it feels like, and I thought we were straying away from A.I.
What’s the story? Is it timely? What is the relevance? Why would people even care?
These are the questions that journalists are told to treat as gold. The currency that will get your story read and on the front page of a big publication. Here’s a question: why?
Journalists must be unbiased, yes, but lacking in any semblance of humanity? Instead, we should be searching for the heart of the story.
Steve Hartman could not be a more perfect name for a man who leads this industry with just that, his heart.
Known for his work with CBS Evening News, Hartman’s engaging cadence is immediately recognizable when one of his feel-good, heart-hitting and hard-hitting stories comes across the screen.
Though in this industry, “feel-good” often means “evergreen”. A word that in my own experience has become increasingly associated with unimportant, irrelevant and the easy way out.
Take a look at one of Hartman’s most recent additions to his “On the Road” series, entitled “How a beloved fan at local sporting events became a pillar of this New Jersey town”.
Why would anyone care about a small-town man who goes to local sporting events? It’s not timely, it does not have some sort of dramatic or political flair, so why would anyone even give it a second glance? Arguably, this should not be published. If anything, it should be filler for the less relevant and less read arts, culture and opinion sections.
Or is it relevant?
Hartman shows future journalists like me that it is.
In just three days on the CBS Evening News YouTube channel, this two-minute and thirty-second clip garnered more than 5 thousand views. Comments are flooded with kind remarks, one user @wadeh486 stating “I love when the news shares an actual important story!”
This story, just as any front-page headline, made an impact.
This “evergreen” and “non-hard news” way of reporting is exactly why Hartman was selected by director Joshua Seftel for the newly Oscar award-winning documentary short “All the Empty Rooms”.
In an interview with CBS published shortly after the win, Seftel explained that “He’s not political. He’s just someone who cares about people, and for this message to be delivered, it needed to come from someone like that, someone who people are going to listen to and not shut off.”
I have been present when pitches regarding gun safety have been turned down for no longer having relevance. I have been in the room when these stories were overlooked and put on the backburner until another large-scale gun violence event occurred.
Though it’s stories like these, the “evergreen” and “less relevant”, that can show the world the harsh reality of why there needs to be change.
Instead of waiting for the next mass shooting, Seftel, Hartman and the rest of their team traveled the country to document these broken families. They told their story, and they made an impact.
The academy thought so as well as the piece won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short. The impact did not end there either as the team gave Gloria Cazares the floor during their acceptance speech. Having lost her daughter Jackie in the Uvalde school shooting on May 24, 2022, Cazares used the opportunity to emphasize, “Jackie is more than just a headline. She is our light and our life. Gun violence is now the number one cause of death in kids and teens. We believe that if the world could see their empty bedrooms, it would be a different America.”
It is moments like these that make these evergreen stories just as important as the news seen on the front page. Why should a school shooting only be deemed timely as soon as it happens? Why can’t the family’s call for change still be just as important?
It is why events such as the Oscars should not be downgraded into “lesser” sections deemed to be under-read, just because it is viewed as a fashion event. Instead, an arts and culture article on how these creatives were able to use their art to speak out for what they believe in could be just as powerful. An opinion article about why an award should be handed over to one actor versus another could speak to greater issues happening in our country. These stories do not deserve to be overlooked.
If anything, the coverage could showcase community and togetherness found within creativity, something else that is seldom seen today.
Why should these be deemed as less important coverages?
Award-winning pieces of journalism can still be filled with heart and fall under the category of news. News isn’t just what is happening right now, but also how small moments in everyday life can create a better world. That is what makes it so powerful.
Just as much as the general audience deserves the hard and straight facts, they also have the right to understand what it is like to view the world through a different lens from their own, and learn through others’ experiences.
Being the first to tell a story “right” is not the only way to create a piece of important journalism. Taking a moment to find the deeper and more heart-driven angle could prove to be just as impactful.