Pre-TEDx Interview with Sarah Stuteville
By Helen Pitlick
Sarah Stuteville is passionate about storytelling, and pushes the boundaries of journalism to embrace new media opportunities through her work with the Common Language Project and America in 5. She speaks on Friday with Morgan Dusatko about America in 5, ” an interactive first draft of history for today and generations to come.” I sat down with Sarah on April 14 to discuss her thoughts on TEDx and the future of journalism.
What are you most looking forward to about TEDx Seattle?
It’s kind of two parts. One is the opportunity to share all of the amazing projects coming out of Seattle right now and just the idea that there’s going to be one event where we really have the best and the brightest consolidated. Putting those forward is really exciting to me; I can’t wait for that. Of course, I’m also thrilled to be able to present a project that I’m so excited about and I feel really passionately about, especially to that group of people.
Can you tell me a little more about America in 5?
The America in 5 project seeks to resurrect [the Federal Writer’s Project] and update it for the 21st century. The idea would be that we would send out teams of media makers in to the country for the year. It would be people from film, journalism, comic book artists, musicians, put them together in teams, and send them out with the expectation that they send back a story a week– and it can really be anything: anything that describes what Americans are thinking and feeling and fearing and living through in this really crucial moment in America.
Sending back one story a week means that we can then deliver to people one story a day. The one constriction is that it has to be consumable in 5 minutes or less online, so that could be a short documentary, part of a web series, it could be a written music, it could be a series of photographs, it could be a comic strip, it could be any number of things.
The idea is people get this delivered directly: directly to your Google docs, directly to your mobile device, or directly to your iPad, whatever, and that people sign on for this year of exploring what it means to be an American and, just on the other side of that, they consume one story a day from the best and the brightest of media makers. And they’ve learned all about this country, this country on the brink at this amazing historical moment.
We’ll be presenting a model of what that work could look like [at TEDxSea].
How do you bridge the gap between traditional journalism and new media?
That’s a really, really important– maybe the most important– question for us, both at America in 5 and my group, the Common Language Project. The idea is that we’re drawing on the tradition of American journalism and the tradition of storytelling that exists there, which is a really rich and profound tradition in a lot of ways. Obviously, the institutions for journalism, those models, are breaking up and disintegrating in some ways, but those storytellers remain. We still need those non-fiction storytellers. and we recognize that’s a really important role in our country and any society. We’re thinking about how we can direct those skills and that talent and passion for storytelling towards these new media– leverage these new media to push the boundaries of how nonfiction stories get told.
That might mean exactly what I said before, that you take a journalist and you team them up with an artist, or with a really savvy tech/web person, or with some combination of the two, or with a graphic novelist, something like that, and really think about what can nonfiction storytelling look like if it’s not just a newspaper article or a radio report, or a spot on the 5’o’clock news. And so, more than anything, that’s what I’m really excited about.
I think there’s been a lot of talk recently about how “journalism is dying” and “it’s falling apart,” and “do we even need it any more,” and I think that’s really the wrong angle on this. The institutions that have supported journalism in the past are failing, that’s to be sure, but the storytellers (this is a country full of incredible storytellers, obviously), and the people really interested and going out there and finding those non-fiction stories and telling the truth about what’s going on– those people haven’t gone anywhere, and we still want to hear from them. And we still want to consume that kind of material, and it’s really about finding new ways to do that and finding new ways to deliver it, and showing people how important and how relevant that kind of storytelling is, especially now, more than ever.
What challenges do you face?
One of the biggest challenges, and I know I’m not alone, is just finding the resources out there to really support storytelling and non-fiction storytelling, especially because it’s such a time of upheaval in these industries. We make jokes around this office about how people are afraid of the “j-word;” once you attach journalism to something, all of a sudden people are backing away with their hands up, because its just so scary to think, “how do we find models to support that, what does that even mean anymore,” but we really embrace that uncertainty, we find that that’s the point of the most excitement for us.
We don’t see it as a demise but more of a revolution, and we’re at the beginning of figuring out what that revolution in storytelling looks like. See, that is very challenging and we’re obviously taking on a big, big issue there, and of course there is also… gosh, there’s a lot of challenges.
I think one of them is also technical. A lot of this is unprecedented, so how do we figure out those really cool, new, revolutionary interfaces for how we present a mixed new media story? For example, it’s going to take a certain level of vision and expertise that we’re all working towards, but again, it’s not like there’s a set formula that we can lock into here, so we’re figuring that out too. I think we’re also just really striving to find a way to make sure that we get to tell as many diverse stories as we need to, to describe a country as diverse as America. Again, that’s a pretty big idea and we’re committed to figuring out a way to do that. Those are the three big ones.
But again, there are the challenges, but there are also the reasons why we’re doing it. Times are hard, and that’s why we’re doing it right now. Journalism and non-fiction storytelling are suffering, and it’s exciting to go out there and try to figure out something new. A lot of the technological potential is there, but we haven’t all really figured out how to leverage it yet and that’s why we want to try now.
What advice do you have for aspiring journalists?
Well, basically, what I tell myself (and it’s kind of wrapped up in what I’ve said already): that the fact that things are falling apart right now, the fact that things are uncertain, is also an incredible moment of opportunity for people that are really passionate about nonfiction storytelling in all of its forms, and I think that means to see it not as a hindrance, but as an opportunity, and be really flexible.
Obviously, going into the field of journalism now doesn’t look like what it did 20 years ago. It’s not going out and looking for a job at a newspaper necessarily, or plugging into an institution and just working your way through those systems; it’s really going out and coming up with these big ideas, and trying to implement them, and trying to collaborate, and trying to think outside the box. And work in other media, work with other media makers; just be really flexible. And be flexible in the mediums you work in.
I came to journalism really passionate about writing, and print journalism in particular, and then I entered this world where it’s like, “oh, print is dead, there’s no room for writers, you’ll never get paid for it,” and at first I was like, “oh my gosh- what am I going to do? This is the thing I am most passionate about—where do I go from here?” And then I realized, no, what I’m passionate about is storytelling. That’s what I really care about. And there’s always going to be a place for writing in that, but it means that I need to expand my definition of how I tell those stories. So, I found myself recently stretching myself to learn audio production, and video production and even a little bit about animation and stuff like that.
I think really, my biggest piece of advice would be: see yourself as a journalist first and as a non-fiction storyteller first, and not necessarily as a medium first. And get excited about working with other people and about collaborating, because I really think that’s a lot of what digital journalism is going to look like.
What have you learned from all of this?
I’ve learned a lot- and I’m still learning a lot. For me, it’s that there’s always, always a place for really, really good storytelling in our culture. And no matter what happens with the technology and with the institutions, that truth doesn’t change. People want to know about the world around them, they want to know about the people around them, they want to know about the country, they want to know what’s happening out there– that desire and curiosity isn’t going anywhere. It’s just about really figuring out how to tap into it in the right ways, and how to use these new tools to do that well.
Also, and this is really specific to America in 5, is just what an important moment this is for good storytelling. Our world is changing, our country is changing, what it means to be an American is changing, and we need to know about our country, our neighborhoods and the rest of the world in ways that we have never needed to before. In all of these new ways it’s so crucial and it’s so important– and it’s also kind of ironic that this would be the time that the delivery system for that kind of information is really kind of being tested and re-imagined. That’s what excites me the most about America in 5. I know that Americans want to know what’s going on in this country. I know that this is a country that’s changing, and I know that times are hard, and because times are hard, more than ever, we want to explore who we are and explore what’s going on.
Anything else to add?
From a Seattle angle, I really feel very strongly that this is a city poised to engage with a lot of these issues. And we have such a diverse city, and we have so much expertise, we have such an entrepreneurial spirit, this is the place where a lot of these experiments are being born and being tested, and that’s one of the reasons that it’s so great that TED has come to Seattle and why Friday is going to be an amazing event. Because it’s a unique and inspiring city, and I think we have great ideas to share with the rest of the country and the rest of the world
[...] una intervista a Sarah Stuteville, co-responsabile del [...]