Stewart & Pfeiffer 1
THE MIDWEST DEMOCRACY PROJECT: PURE MISSOURI
Ben Stewart and Tracy Pfeiffer
Journalism 4992
December 14, 2010
Mike McKean
THE MIDWEST DEMOCRACY PROJECT: PURE MISSOURI
Ben Stewart & Tracy Pfeiffer
With the rise of politically-minded, 24-hour broadcast cable news networks Fox and MSNBC, political news, analysis, and commentary has taken the forefront of national-level journalism in the United States. The Midwest Democracy Project, a joint effort of the Kansas City Star, the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism and its Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, is a newly-formed political news online source, headed by the Star's assistant managing editor of local news, Anne Spenner. The project aims to provide trustworthy, reliable information necessary to a well-informed public and imperative to civic debate over some of the hottest political issues of the day. Our contribution to MDP was a video series consisting of six installments addressing the most pressing issues of the 2010 midterm elections, specifically concerning the U.S. Senate election between Republican Roy Blunt, Democrat Robin Carnahan, Libertarian Jonathan Dine, and Constitution Party member Jerry Beck.
THE PROJECT
The major goal of our capstone project, which we called the Pure Missouri Project, was to depict the true experience of Missourians whose lives are affected by the five political topics chosen as the “most prominent” of the U.S. Senate race. Those topics were health care, jobs and the economy, increasing conservatism in Missouri, energy and the environment, and immigration. We decided the project would focus itself on “Joe Plumber” type sources, as opposed to politicians or government officials, with law enforcement officials being the exception. Additionally, we strived to avoid picking sources – even if they were an “average citizen” – whose opinion came from places of strict political belief or philosophy. Instead, the Pure Missouri Project aimed to paint pictures surrounding the issues based on how they directly affect the people. Finally, we wanted to interview sources from different regions in the state, especially (if possible) sources from smaller towns outside of the metropolitan areas of Kansas City and St. Louis. Getting into these smaller towns, such as Clinton and Appleton, was important because despite the fact that a large percentage of the population lives in or near those two major cities, we could not truly tell the story of Missourians without recognizing the importance of those in rural or just less-populated areas. Thus, the basic goal of the project was to explore these topics based on real-life stories as opposed to politicking, spinning, or slick, well-rehearsed campaign jargon and sound bites.
The first video addresses the subject of health care, perhaps one of the most heated and controversial topics of the election. Nicknamed “Obamacare” by its opponents, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 faces sharp criticism and threats of appeal in the 112th session of Congress, set to convene January 3rd, 2011. This installment featured two sources, one from Blue Springs, Missouri, near Kansas City, and the other from St. Peters, Missouri, near St. Louis. The first subject, Patricia Schroer, is in her mid-fifties and self-employed. The second, Whitney Nash, is in her early twenties and works two jobs. Their identities were important to their discussion of health care, and though both sources supported various elements of “Obamacare,” they supported their opinions through life experience, not political philosophy or leanings.
Patricia Schroer and Whitney Nash
The next installment explores the status of jobs and the economy. Originally divided into two subjects, it quickly became clear these subjects are irrevocably intertwined. Though it might be possible to talk about the economy without talking about jobs, it would be nigh impossible to discuss jobs without further commentary on the economy. This subject garnered three sources: Mike Plunkett - the Chief Financial Officer of a medium-sized business in Kansas City, Ryan Hendrickson - an unemployed but highly qualified man living in St. Louis, and Laureano Kuri - an international college student facing his first foray into the professional job market in America after his graduation from the University of Missouri in Columbia. The video focuses mainly on the experiences these men have had with the job market and how these experiences inform their view of the economy.
Mike Plunkett, Ryan Hendrickson, and Laureano Kuri
The third part of the series is the most unique of the videos, acting as something of an intercession between more specific topics. It explores the pundit chatter claiming the United States is experiencing a political swing to the right. Affectionately called “reddening” in its infancy, this video bloomed from a vague discussion of the question to a collection of commentary from those who seemed to have the most stake in it: the four parties represented in Missouri's U.S. Senate election. Those parties are the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Constitution Party. Two women – Republican Joya Tyler and Constitutionalist Jennifer Bird – offered the perspective of those who had “defected” from the Democratic Party in the aftermath of President Barack Obama's election. Former Governor of Missouri Bob Holden represented the Democrats, and speaking from the Libertarian Party view was Cisse Spraggins, who ran in her party's primary for the U.S. Senate candidacy, but lost to Jonathan Dine. Their combined perspectives paint a picture of Missourians following a trend towards conservatism, but with insightful reservations on making such a generalized, blanket statement.
From Top Left to Bottom Right: Joya Tyler, Jennifer Bird, Bob Holden, and Cisse Spragins
Bringing the project back to platform issues was the subject of energy and the environment, the fourth video in the series. Of all the videos, this was perhaps the most policy-based, rather than rooted in personal experience. However, that is not to say that the three men featured in the video – Versailles farmer Ronald Bonar, Clinton oil blending supervisor Justin Stephan, and Missouri Institute of Science and Technology student Clinton Guenther – do not have a personal stake in the issue. Rather, their lives and livelihoods are affected by very specific policies, and luckily the policies in question seemed to overlap from source to source. The questions were directed based on the responses of the other interviews (and the responses we suspected we would get) to ensure that they could be edited together with ease. With so much ground to cover on such a complex multiple-issue topic, though, it was easy to become anxious about which components to hone in on. When all was said and done, the piece was focused largely on cap and trade, alternative energy solutions, and economic concerns related to environmental legislation.
Clinton Guenther, Justin Stephan, and Ronald Bonar
The fifth video, which was originally surmised to be the final video, dealt with the sensitive subject of immigration, specifically the roaring debate over undocumented aliens passing into and living within the borders of the United States. After law enforcement agencies across the state, those directly involved with the investigation and perhaps detainment of such individuals, declined to comment, the video was left with two Latinos, the children of immigrant parents, and one columnist from MU's student-run paper, The Maneater. The first, Justo Gonzalez, is the son of Puerto Rican immigrants and the current Director of Hispanic Ministries at the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City. The other Latino source, Moises Aguayo, was born in a small town in Mexico, but immigrated to the United States with his family at a young age. Lastly, columnist Ethan Simonds is a native of Texas, where the immigration debate is perhaps at its most heated due to the large population of Mexican immigrants living and working in the
state.
Ethan Simonds, Justo Gonzalez, and Moises Aguayo
Towards the end of the first five videos, we tacked on a sixth video to the series. Informally referred to as a “wrap-up,” this final installment revisited sources after the election results were posted. Ethical questions surrounding which sources to revisit will be addressed later, but ultimately we decided to give every source a chance to give his or her response, and though many did not have much time to speak to us about their reactions to the election results, more than three-fourths of the sources sat down for this final video.
THE PROCESS
Each piece required an extensive number of phone calls, emails, online research, and one-on-one investigation with whoever we could find. Getting on the phone proved to be the most effective strategy, since sending emails tends to take a long time and sources frequently avoid responding to them unless it serves their interests directly. In the case of this project, there were no sources that would gain from having been featured in our series, except perhaps in their own mind. Jennifer Bird from the ‘increasing conservatism of Missouri’ piece or Clinton Guenther from the ‘energy and environment’ piece, for instance, probably felt as though they would gain some much-needed exposure for their respective organizations by appearing in these videos. Jennifer Bird’s interest was the Constitution Party, which she feels is marginalized to the point of invisibility by the mainstream media (often citing Tom Tancredo in Colorado as someone frequently referred to as an “Independent” rather than a “Constitution Party” member). During the interview, it seemed clear that Guenther was interested in promoting his Solar Car team and less interested in speaking about politics – despite having been made aware of the purposes of the piece. In any case, we always used great caution when it came to how much we let the subjects promote themselves, even if self-promotion was the key (in their mind) to agreeing to an interview.
The project required that we travel a great deal and visit a variety of locations in Missouri to ensure that we are being representative of the whole state in our series. Tracy completed 1,573 miles (about 20 hours) of driving, and Ben completed 3,061 miles (about 55 hours) of driving on the project. In total, that’s 4,634 miles and 75 hours on the road. In the end, it was a great benefit to the project for the videos to showcase so many different locations, despite the amount of time in the car. Travel would become particularly rigorous during the three-week period in which we were producing the first five videos. During that time, for the convenience (and often out of necessity) of our sources, we needed to be shooting material for several different videos at once.
We attempted to avoid politicians, government officials, and even academics entirely for the project. It was our hope to tell the story of a few major viewpoints on each issue without bogging it down with formal “press release” language and colorless official statements. Talking to real Missourians who do not have a public relations function and reputations to protect gave us a degree of character on each issue. Viewers can tell that our sources feel strongly about their issues, are engaged in politics and news, and need to express their stake in a certain type of legislation or government behavior.
The Evolution of the Project’s Form
In our original proposal and in our early discussions with Anne Spenner at the Kansas City Star, we suggested a documentary-style video series that would work together as an almost seamless whole if watched together. We initially suggested that we could do some “truth squading” (or fact-checking) on statements made by politicians during the campaign, in addition to mixing in the views of Missourians from around the state. We planned to open each video with statements made by candidates on different sides of an issue that we could then respond to with a variety of sources. Lastly, we had suggested a scheme of graphics that could tie the series together with a common theme and add to its professionalism.
As the project evolved, we had to make time-oriented and mission-oriented decisions about the scope and strategy of the project. First, we decided to do away with the “documentary” style that was proposed, fearing that taking too many liberties with our style could imply certain biases or focus too much on style. We discussed at length the reputation (deserved or not) that documentaries tend to have these days as vehicles for special interests to make arguments on a national scale. To avoid confusion with those less journalistic documentary films, we chose to shoot and edit in a ‘television news’ type of style. We also separated the videos significantly in their theme. They each address a specific issue using different interview subjects with only a common narrator to link them. After suggesting that we add a bit of “truth-squading” into the mix of our videos by incorporating some expert testimonies (academics, scientists, political science professionals, and government record keepers), we came to the conclusion that not only would we tend to exceed the recommended duration for videos but also that we would begin to stray from our objective. That is, we could potentially lose some credibility in regards to our unbiased, “independent observer” role. If we were to mix the opinions of our sources (representing two or more sides of an issue) with making a case for the validity of certain issue-related statements made by candidates, it could tip the scales in favor of one candidate within the piece.
We also changed our plan for opening each piece with public statements or radio/television advertisements made by candidates. The original idea had been that by showing - in their own words - where the candidates stood on a given issue, we could better focus our videos with the responses of Missourians. In the end we avoided that approach, opting instead to open with an anchor introduction that focused the issue in exactly the way we needed to approach it. This also gave us the ability to ask our sources what they felt about an issue in general and then to allow them to focus in on whatever aspect they would like to discuss. If we allow sources to approach the issue in their own way (for the sake of removing every trace of our own views from the piece), then as writers we are able to craft an introduction that gives exactly the context that is necessary without watching a tremendous amount of video from political speeches and ads to find an appropriate introductory sound bite. While political ads often respond to one another and provide a good setup to the major arguments taking place, they are also thirty seconds each, which would take up valuable video time if they were not cut down significantly. Cutting out sound bites from political ads could, of course, lead to controversy about the removal of context from an argument.
Finally, we jettisoned the idea of including a graphic (or short graphic sequence) at the beginning of the piece and themed lower third titles throughout. This decision was more simple: there simply wasn’t going to be enough time. Even more importantly, we wanted to focus entirely on the substance of our videos and not the professional “look” that they had. It was of the utmost importance that we deliver a well-written, well-shot, well-edited, unbiased episode of the series every time, even if it meant sacrificing the effects that we felt would add another degree of professionalism to the project. As they stand, the videos have a sort of neutral simplicity that seems to work well.
How Videos Were Crafted
Each video needed unique consideration, not only by avoiding any reference to other videos but also in approaching the objectivity in the piece and balancing the sources we talked with. When sources were contacted, we evaluated what their background was in the topic and to what extent they would be representing other people in addition to themselves. Before speaking with Ronald Bonar as a farmer’s perspective on the ‘energy and environment’ piece, Ben spoke with the president of the Columbia Farmer’s Market and several other more official sources. Often, those sources were used to find more individual sources from around the state that would speak only for themselves and their own views. This was complicated by the fact that many sources were members of unions or cooperatives that instructed them not to speak with the media on certain issues. Several agricultural cooperatives denied us access to their farmers and referred us to their leadership for any public statements. For the immigration piece, finding a law enforcement perspective was nearly impossible because of restrictions handed down from the bureaucracy within police departments. It’s an understandable rule to have in place from the perspective of the police, but one that created many headaches for us.
Once we had a combination of sources that seemed to complement one another, we would set out to write a script that used a few sound bites from them that did not short-change the complexity of the arguments being made but also did not take up too much screen time. For b-roll, we would typically try to gather environmental footage from the place where we conducted the interview, but when time allowed we would set up separate dates to revisit our sources for more complex footage. For Ryan Hendrickson’s segment of the ‘jobs and the economy’ video, Ben followed him to a regional unemployment advising office for a meeting with a career specialist who was charged with placing him in a position somewhere in the city. That b-roll, for example, was the sort of footage we would have collected for all of our sources if time allowed. Specifically after the election, though, we had about six days to do between nine and eleven interviews (which was the agreed-upon range we were shooting for). That left very little time to be overly particular about our cover footage, but we tried to maintain the standard of quality we had stuck with throughout the project.