When I was preparing for the Kinabalu Shell Press Award 2010, I ended up having a drink with a reporter who has been in the field for 16 years. She has done quite a bit of time in crime reporting which is somewhere I find myself doing nowadays. So it was really interesting to hear what she had to say and she was quite willing to share them with me.
I really enjoy listening to these senior reporters (she's not that old) because nothing speaks better than experience in this line of work, anyway I disgress.
The advice that she gave me for crime reporting is not to always be straightforward and try to add more human value if possible.
To me that sounds like conflicting advise because I was taught by our crime reporter that crime stories have to be a quasi-accurate report of the situation that can be used in court, which is why it is best to stick to the facts. The lead is always the cold hard facts first; what, where and when.
She gave me some examples where she started the story off by drawing on human reactions or emotions before leading into the hard facts of the story.
I think by doing so, it becomes the turning point from news to a story. Stories are always more interesting to read because it draws the attention of the readers from start to finish, rather than a piece of news where readers can get the gist of it just from reading the first paragraph.
As a crime reporter, it does feel a little hard to write crime stories sometimes in a straightforward manner because we run out of details probably by the fifth or sixth paragraph, depending on the length of the situation.
We're rarely bothered with the human emotions that were involved. Either because we don't want to become too emotionally involved with the situation (some of them can be very depressing) or maybe we become very indifferent about the countless numbers of fires, murders, robberies, rapes, accidents etc. that we have encountered throughout our careers.
But maybe that's where it changes everything. Emotions should be noted because it makes a difference between 'just another crime' and 'the crime' to the readers.
She told me that one of her stories made a reader cried and she felt proud that the story had made an impact. A crime story that is able to stir emotional response from a general reader is really quite a feat to emulate, considering that it belongs to general stories.
However, turning emotions into words can be a really hard thing to get during the crime scene especially when the victim is suffering from a tragic lost (either property or life of a loved one).
The key she told me was to have patience and from my experience, I think she meant A LOT of patience because it can take a long time for the victim(s) to recover from shock and takes an even longer time trying to make sense out of the uncontrolled stream of information that people spout in that kind of situation.
Maybe with more practice in interviewing, I could learn how to ask effective questions in delicate situations.
I'm going to try and find more human angles to my crime stories and see if it works, how will I know? I really don't know yet at this point but I do want to write stories than news.
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