9

Choosing Your Close

 

 

 

What You’ll Learn_________________________

At the beginning of the last chapter, the very first lesson was “You’re only as good as your last act.” But the other part of the lesson was that in broadcast writing, your last act—your close—actually is “the second most important part” of a story, second behind the lead.

Okay, you can live with that. “Second most important” is a bigger deal than “least” important. So let’s talk about it. How do you choose your close? When do you choose your close? Why do you choose a close?

The last question is the easiest to answer. You choose a close to wrap up a story. To bring closure for the viewer, at least until the next newscast. Obviously some stories are destined to go on, and on, and on. There will be new information, new developments. But since we’re talking here about daily or even hourly newscasts, you need to let the audience know where things stand now, rather than leaving them hanging.

This means you want to tell people either what a story means, or where it’s going from here. Or, you want to simply tie it up in a nice little knot.

Simplicity

I had to give little thought to this section, entitled “Simplicity,” because it’s not necessary to construct complexities to teach you about simplicity.

How does this relate to your close? Simple. It should be simple. Why? Because if you’ve done your job right, then by the time you close out your story, you’ve already communicated the background, the information, the emotion. All that’s left is to end it.

More often than not, you’ll find that the easiest kind of close, especially on a story that’s not likely to become a series, is to tie it up in a bow. I didn’t have to think very hard either to come up with what I consider the best close of this kind (or any kind) ever spoken on television. Unfortunately, it wasn’t mine, it was anchorman Frank Reynolds’. I told you about this in Chapter 6. He and I together covered a fatal fire.

As you might recall, the fire was at a nightclub in Covington, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. It started in the kitchen, and a busboy came calmly onto the stage, took the microphone, and in his fairly thick foreign accent coolly told the audience of several hundred that there was a fire in the kitchen, so they should stand up, not panic, and walk toward the three double-door exits from the room.

The problem was, there was a comedian doing his act on stage when the busboy took the mike. For reasons we never could determine—because almost no one survived, and those who did were badly hurt—the audience thought the busboy was part of the act, so all anyone did was laugh, until smoke started seeping in.

Then, everyone stampeded, pressing against the doors like a herd of cattle on the run. But what they found was, the doors didn’t open outwards, they opened inwards. The people in front couldn’t pull the doors open because hundreds more people, thousands of pounds in panic, were pressed up against them.

Some died of smoke inhalation, others from burns. But all who died ended up in three bulging piles of soot. Not because someone had chained the exit doors shut to keep unpaid intruders out—which I’ve seen at a few other fatal fires—but simply because whoever designed the nightclub, and whoever inspected and improved it, and whoever ran it at the time of the catastrophe, didn’t think. They didn’t think about the purpose of the exit doors. They didn’t think about how they’d work in a fire.

Which brings me back to Frank Reynolds. I had done my piece in the broadcast about the fire itself, then Frank reported about the lessons that should be learned. He ended by talking about the doors, and all the people who could have rectified their design and prevented this tragedy. And then he closed his piece with the four words I mentioned in Chapter 6, simple words that said it all: “So simple. So sad.”

A simple close. A perfect close.

What’s the Point?

Sometimes, you don’t need predictions to close your story, just conclusions. Simple ones. Precisely what the audience would be thinking if they knew what you know.

How to Find Your Close When the Story Is Still Open

You may remember (you certainly should) that in the last chapter, you learned that there are three things you look for with your lead: the most important, the most interesting, and/or the most immediate part of a story. Well, there are similar standards for choosing your close, to which I alluded earlier in this chapter:

1. What does the story mean?.

2. Where is the story going from here?

3. Tie it up in a nice little knot.

The close you just read from the nightclub fire is the best possible example of tying up a story in a nice little knot. It leaves you sad, yes, but not hanging out there wondering. Of course the following day we did stories about fire inspections and regulations in the area, and the day after that, our main story was that right across the river, the Cincinnati City Council—having learned a valuable lesson even though the fire wasn’t in Cincinnati it-self—changed its fire ordinance to require all fire exit doors in public places to open outward.

But what do you do when your story can’t be tied up so simply? What do you do when it’s too early to summarize, because the story still is developing before your eyes? The answer is you go for one of the other of two good elements in a close: what does this story mean, or where is it going from here?

What Does the Story Mean?

Let me start this section with a story. It’s pretty funny as long as you’re not me, or any of the other seven correspondents appearing on World News Tonight one fall evening.

Our executive producer, an accomplished journalist named Av Westin, was tired of hearing correspondents close stories by saying nothing useful. It was the fault of all of us who sometimes made the mistake of writing virtually everything there was to write in the voiceover portion of a story, then doing on-camera standup closes (in those days, almost all the on-camera pieces were closes) without anything significant left to say. It happened all the time.

So one day, Westin sent a message to every correspondent who worked for ABC News. It went something like this:

“I have become more and more aware that when you do your standup closes, you have nothing left to say. As a result, what you say is meaningless, sometimes even inane. From now on, I want every close to tell us, ‘What this means is…’ This will force you to save something important for the end.”

Well, maybe you have anticipated what happened. Yes, of the eight of us with pieces on the air that night, every one of us began our standups with, “What this means is…” I did mine from Budapest, Hungary, where the U.S. Secretary of State had just returned a treasured gold crown to the Hungarians. American soldiers had taken it at the end of World War II and the U.S. government had held onto it, pending certification that Hungary respected human rights. My close read in part, “What this means is, a major source of friction between the U.S. and Hungary has been removed…”

Have you figured out what happened next? Yep. Westin fired off another message, again to all correspondents. Its tone was along the lines of, “No No No you stupid jerks, I didn’t mean you all should actually say the words, ‘What this means is…’ I only meant, put some meaning into your standups. Tell the audience why the story was important!” Sometimes you have to learn the hard way.

But not always. Here are summaries of a range of stories, followed in each case by the close. Each does a decent job of explaining, “What this means is…”

First, the Gary Gilmore execution in Utah, about which you read in Chapter 6. I did my standup close a few hours after Gilmore died, standing in front of the sturdy wooden chair to which he was strapped when he was shot. The whole story up to this point was about the dramatic day and its outcome; the close was about the bigger picture:

This site, in the old cannery, becomes a footnote in history, not just because a convicted killer named Gary Gilmore died here this morning, but because it is the spot where a moratorium on legal executions in America, a moratorium sustained for nearly ten years, ended.

In a story about a court-imposed busing plan to achieve public school racial integration in Louisville, I reported on a campaign by anti-busing forces to have a federal court rule that the plan was unconstitutional. Concluding that racial segregation in the city had been accidental rather than the result of anyone’s deliberate actions, the court decided in their favor. Here’s the close:

Today’s decision means to some here that segregation will be tolerated as long as it’s an accident. And it means to many that sweeping remedies for segregation are now old-fashioned—that the cure must fit the specific case.

Here’s something from a feature about some interesting research at the University of Michigan into drownings. Namely, that in some bodies found floating in very cold water, the heartbeat slows down dramatically and these victims sometimes can be healthily resuscitated. This defied all conventional wisdom. As you’ll see, the close doesn’t just explain what it meant; it also explains what it didn’t mean.

The study done here does not mean that the seven to eight thousand yearly drownings in this country can all be prevented. But it does mean that some people, with the right conditions and provided that their rescuers know what to do, can have life after drowning.

Before British Airways and Air France retired their fleets of supersonic passenger jets, the supersonic Concorde flew only from London and Paris to the American east coast. It didn’t cross our country. Why not? Because there was a consensus in the United States that it would cause sonic booms, and destroy every antique china collection beneath its flight path! For a while, that meant it couldn’t even land at coastal airports, until the day came when New York City decided to give it a try. My close that day—reflecting the popularity of anti-French attitudes long before the Iraq War—explained the ultimate potential meaning of the whole arrangement.

Today, the French will land 90 seconds ahead of the British which, considering many attitudes in New York, may be more harmful than helpful to French public relations.

Finally, a piece about pancakes—pancakes that racing waiters have to carry 415 yards in a skillet, flipping their flapjacks three times while they’re running. It’s a traditional race between waiters in the U.S. and waiters in England, and the Yankees won! Which means what?

The English may still have a stiffer upper lip. But Americans apparently have a faster flip.

Do not try this at home.

What’s the Point?

If it means something, tell us. Your close is a good place to do it.

Where Does the Story Go from Here?

If it’s a crime story but no suspect is in custody, you might want to end by telling us what the police are doing to catch one. If a suspect is in custody, you might want to tell us what charges and penalties he faces. Those are easy examples of how to end certain kinds of stories with a “here’s what’s next” kind of close. But it’s not always so easy. Sometimes you have to glean the “next development” from sources, from subjects you’ve interviewed, even from your own instinctive knowledge of the story.

The point is to help the audience by pointing a finger in the direction where they ought to be looking. To tell them, in other words, what to expect next.

Here’s a range of examples once again, beginning with an easy one from that Kentucky nightclub fire, in a story when I returned there about two weeks later.

The investigative team had been looking not just into the reasons why people couldn’t get out, but also into the reasons the fire started, then spread so quickly in the first place. But their report, which said the fire had been burning in a concealed space for a while before breaking out, left more questions. Could anyone be held to blame? Was the building more flammable than the law allowed? This led to the close:

Sometime this summer, when investigators complete their interviews, we should know whether local fire officials, state fire officials, the supperclub’s owners or anyone else, will be held criminally responsible.

Now back to the Gary Gilmore execution. Twice during the saga before he died, he overdosed on drugs apparently smuggled in to him by his girlfriend. Twice he was hospitalized, forcing postponement of his execution date, and compelling the state Board of Pardons to set a new one. So one day, he appeared before them, appealing to be allowed to die. It was easy to write a straightforward close about his appearance before the board, and what to expect next:

They’re expected to uphold Gilmore’s death sentence, and unless the U.S. Supreme Court then steps in, the execution will take place here, probably less than a week from now.

When Jimmy Carter was president, he decided to give the Panama Canal, and all the facilities the U.S. had built there, to Panama, ahead of a schedule mandated in a treaty. He sent his chief negotiator out to Vail, Colorado, to explain the deal to former President Gerald Ford and hopefully win his endorsement. Ford gave it. I covered the meeting in Vail, and while the story’s close acknowledged that Carter had accomplished his purpose, it also acknowledged a rocky future for his plan.

The success of this personal visit, winning President Ford’s support, does not necessarily mean that all other prominent Republicans will fall into line. Many have long-held beliefs that control of the Panama Canal should never be given away.

In Chicago, an El train—a commuter train on tracks elevated above the city’s downtown loop—rear-ended another during rush hour. Four cars fell more than 20 feet into a key downtown intersection. Many passengers were killed or injured. A day later, we did a follow-up story about the investigation into why it happened (they blamed the motorman of the rear train). The close reflected where the story already had gone, and what was coming up next:

By this morning, workmen were removing the last of the wreckage. All trains again are running. The intersection at this hour is clear. Many people remain hospitalized. The first funerals are tomorrow.

One winter, a sixty-mile stretch of the mighty Mississippi River froze. Barge cargo north and south of the ice came to a halt. How to close a story like this? Easy. Tell what local officials think might happen next:

Officials fear that all this ice will thaw, then freeze again and jam the river further south. Or that it will cause local flooding as it melts away.

Another kind of flood now, in Appalachian Kentucky. Rivers had risen, then fallen, leaving a residue of sticky smelly mud over streets and sidewalks, church pews and store shelves. And inside everyone’s homes.

But in the story’s last sound bite, a woman in a town called Pinesville said things weren’t so bad, because God had spared her life. I took a bit of liberty with the close I wrote to come out of her sound bite, but it seemed right for the circumstance:

With that kind of attitude, the stricken towns of eastern Kentucky can be expected to rebuild.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency went to war with the country’s biggest steelmaker, U.S. Steel. The issue: about thirteen tons of pollutants being poured every day into Lake Michigan. Ultimately, with the backing of the White House, the EPA imposed a huge penalty on U.S. Steel, and the company cried “uncle,” agreeing to spend tens of millions of dollars to reduce pollution. After talking with government contacts, my close about “what’s next” was easy:

The federal government intends to press harder now to bring others into compliance with the law.

The huge medical insurance company, Blue Shield, announced that unless it had a doctor’s justification in writing, it would stop paying for twenty-eight medical procedures which it had previously funded, no questions asked. The close told policy holders exactly what to expect:

According to Blue Shield, policy prices won’t drop; they just won’t rise as fast any more.

The school district in Las Vegas, Nevada, was just like all others: kids weren’t eating cafeteria food. So, long before it was fashionable, the district decided to disguise healthy food as fast food. No high-fat pork in the hotdogs, no ice cream in the milkshakes, and wheatgerm in every slice of pizza! And it worked, leading to a close that projected the consequence of this experiment to districts elsewhere in America:

Instead of complaints here, school lunches win plaudits. There is sufficient nutrition, there is minimum waste. The message to other school districts: jet-age kids won’t eat horse and buggy meals.

Finally, two stories about sports. One was about a high school basketball player, a guard, who was never allowed to take a shot. Why not? Because according to league rules, guards couldn’t shoot. Oh by the way, it was a league for girls. So she took her grievance to the United States Supreme Court. It hadn’t yet decided the case when we did our story, but my close reflected the possibilities if she won:

So, Vicki Cape hopes to score points with the Supreme Court. If she does, then girls everywhere, if they can’t play with the boys, at least will have the chance to play like them.

The other sports story was straightforward coverage of the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, in which I identified the semi-final men’s singles winners, then closed simply:

That final showdown is scheduled for Sunday.

What’s the Point?

If you want to close a story, close it! Don’t just throw in a fact you hadn’t used earlier. Close it by pointing to the next likely development.

The Point of the Point

At the top of this chapter, you read that you’d learn how to choose your close, and when. I hope it occurred to you that you’d already learned when in Chapter 7. If you’re on overload, let me briefly repeat it here.

Once you’ve reviewed all the information you need, from conversations, from notes, from Internet research, from newspaper archives and from all the video or audio you’ve collected, you should put everything down on paper. Not in any prioritized order, just note it as you come to it.

Then, as perhaps you recall from Chapter 8, do what the title says and choose your lead: the most important, and/or interesting, and/or immediate piece of information. And next, choose your close. That’s when, and now, here’s how. Look at all those facts you’ve put on paper, and ask yourself if any imparts either the meaning of the story, or the future of the story, or a neat summary of the story. That’s your close.

Exercises to Put an End to All This______________

1. Thirdhand Rose

Choose the headline story from today’s newspaper. If you still have whatever you chose for a similar exercise in the last chapter, you can use it. In any event, write four different closes for the story, as if you’re working at a station with hourly newscasts and you have to run this particular piece of news with a fresh close every hour.

2. A Different Part of the Same Story

Here is the same randomly ordered list of facts and other items about a fatal fire (without the sound bite verbatims and NAT SOT) that you’ve now worked with twice before. Find and make a list of the elements that indicate: a summary of what happened, what the story means, and where the story’s going.

3. Finding Fault

Watch as many TV newscasts as it takes to hear closes on three stories that don’t say much of anything. Take notes as stories run, because for this assignment, you will explain what the story is about, explain why the close was vacuous, and tell what the reporter should and could have said instead.