Can an interview be too powerful?

Listeners react to a conversation with a survivor of the condo collapse [View this email online]( [NPR Public Editor by Poynter's Kelly McBride]( It is well known that radio, among all the news media, is the most intimate and emotional. Broadcast television is driven by the visuals. Print news is driven by information and narrative. Online by the voice and reaction. Audio storytelling is able to convey a wide range of emotion in tiny shifts of tone, or volume or even silence. An interview last weekend with a survivor of the condominium collapse in Surfside, Fla., took NPR listeners first into the harrowing escape, then the desperate realization of all that’s been lost, and concluded on the frustrating search for answers. The interview subject was at times poised and compelling, and other times exposed and vulnerable in her grief. If you heard the interview, I doubt you’ll ever forget it. But for some people, it was too much. In response to those letters, we’ve gone behind the scenes to look at how the interview was arranged, and why NPR journalists felt it was important. [A memorial near the site holds photos of missing people in Surfside, Fla.]( A memorial near the site holds photos of missing people in Surfside, Fla. Gerald Herbert/AP From the Inbox Here are a few quotes from the Public Editor's inbox that resonated with us. You can share your questions and concerns with us through the [NPR Contact page](. Interview with a survivor of the collapse: Exploitative? Sensational? Or impressive? Tom Fiske writes: Pertaining to the interview this morning about the Florida building collapse: Please refrain from sensationalism in future broadcasts. Interviewers are not counselors; only the facts are reportable. Lee Humphrey writes: This morning, 6/27/21, 7:10 am, [I'm listening to]( [Weekend Edition Sunday] ... Lulu is interviewing one of the residents of the collapsed apt building in Surfside, and I'm appalled at the exploitation of this woman's raw emotions. ... It’s clear not all listeners appreciate the emotional weight of a powerful interview like this. Weekend Edition Sunday host Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviewed Susana Alvarez, who described in intense detail her escape from her 10th-floor condominium as the [building was collapsing](. [According to NPR’s]( reporting as of press time, 145 people who were in the building when it collapsed last week in Surfside, Fla., are missing. Crews [have recovered]( 18 bodies and are [frantically working]( to find the rest. As an interview subject, Alvarez was both generous and raw, describing the community and home that were ripped away in the collapse. It was a gripping conversation that is impossible to forget. Weekend Edition Sunday allowed 10 minutes for the interview. In an email, Garcia-Navarro, who is from Miami, said she has close family friends who lived in that building and are still missing after the collapse. “Because I know how hard it is firsthand, I felt it was extremely important to hear from those who experienced the collapse,” the host said. “Interviews like this are extremely sensitive and difficult. My feeling is that they not only serve as a way for someone to discuss what happened to them, but also every victim has a piece of this story that can help our understanding of what happened, and so it was also vital to ask about what the residents knew about the state of the building.” The Weekend Edition Sunday team contacted Alvarez last Friday and the interview was recorded on Saturday. Garcia-Navarro said the resident was eager to talk, and had ample time to back out. Interviews, she added, are a two-way street. The host said the interview with Alvarez also led to [important new information](. “I’ve sadly covered many disasters and wars, and had to speak to people on the worst day of their lives. Some very much want to talk. Some very much do not. You have to respect their wishes either way,” Garcia-Navarro said. “My responsibility as the interviewer is to take as much care as I can in respecting her grief. I believe I did that, and while it may have been hard to hear, I think many people found value in listening to her tell her story in her own words.” I reached out to two experts for help in analyzing the segment. “I was really, in many ways, impressed with the job that she did because I’m not sure if I would have been able to hold it together the way she did,” Ava Thompson Greenwell, a professor at the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, told me. “I think we saw a rollercoaster of emotions ... which is natural.” Thompson Greenwell said she thought Garcia-Navarro showed empathy, and was compassionate and tender in how she posed questions. Was there a little bit of counseling in the interview? Maybe, the journalism professor said. “Well, my goodness, if that’s the worst thing we can be in those circumstances, then so be it,” she said. “I really felt that Lulu kept it together quite well.” Thompson Greenwell said there will always be people who see an interview with somebody who is under duress or under stress as exploitative. If she had been in that situation, the former television news reporter admitted, it would have been very difficult. Lisa Taylor, an associate professor who teaches law and ethics at Ryerson University in Toronto, listened to the interview at our request. She said she heard a careful chronicling of the suffering and trauma that Alvarez experienced. And she found Alvarez’s description of her neighbors compelling, including the details about the efforts to save them. The statements Alvarez made about her friends and strangers were eloquently elucidated by Garcia-Navarro, Taylor said. “She is interviewing someone who has gone through recent trauma and I think one of the really important things there — when we look at applying the principles of trauma-informed reporting — is not to tell Ms. Alvarez what the agenda of this interview is,” she said. “It’s rather to let Ms. Alvarez decide what story she wishes to tell and, in that regard, letting her say what she wished to say as opposed to perhaps a more journalistic pushing her towards the questions of public or municipal accountability. I think this was a kind and generous thing.” Turning away from Alvarez’s story is to turn away from the full scope of the tragedy that is still unfolding in real time. Survivors are the only ones who can accurately recount exactly what happened. Even though Alvarez is clearly vulnerable given the trauma that she’s been through, Taylor said she was actively engaged in the interview and showed clear signs in her interactions with Garcia-Navarro that she consented and that she was capable of consenting. Taylor said that Alvarez — like so many people facing great loss — is genuinely emotional, and not in the predictable way many expect grief to be presented. “Her grief is messy and perhaps off-kilter, and not consistent with what some of us might expect, and so what? It’s her grief. It’s her reality. It’s her loss. It’s her story,” Taylor said. “And for people to sit back in their privilege and feel uncomfortable because they have listened to the messy inconsistency that is human grief … that’s what journalism does. It takes us to uncomfortable places and it helps us understand, up close and personally, the grief and loss of others.” The journalist’s role is critical. Audiences need someone who can show their subject empathy after such a horrific event. While some listeners may have found this segment too painful, it’s equally harmful to deny a witness the opportunity to tell her story by assuming she is incapable of consenting. — Amaris Castillo Spotlight On The Public Editor spends a lot of time examining moments where NPR fell short. Yet we also learn a lot about NPR by looking at work that we find to be compelling and excellent journalism. Here we share a line or two about the pieces where NPR shines. ‘Boring as a compliment’ [Artwork by Qieer Wang]( Qieer Wang for NPR INVISIBILIA [The Great Narrative Escape]( Invisibilia’s two-part exploration of Norwegian slow TV provides insight on the concept and the many perspectives on it. Slow TV is as advertised — it could be hours and hours of salmon fishing, or a train ride north of the Arctic Circle. Thomas Hellum, a Norwegian television producer who worked to develop slow TV, answers the question of whether it’s supposed to be boring: “I wouldn’t say boring. Of course, we use boring as a compliment because it’s not boring-boring. It's just that everything is there.” The first part from May, “[The Great Narrative Escape]( describes slow TV and goes deep on its audience impact. The June follow-up, “[American Slow Radio]( puts it in practice for the podcast. (It’s audio of people watching slow TV together and chitchatting.) Slow TV is a departure from overplotting and rigorous conflict-fueled narratives. It’s storytelling made peaceful. It was nice to be along for the ride with Invisibilia dedicating two episodes to the idea. — Kayla Randall A focus on queer characters in kids’ media [The wedding of Ruby and Sapphire, from Steven Universe]( Screencap by NPR/Cartoon Network MORNING EDITION [After Decades In The Background, Queer Characters Step To The Front In Kids' Media]( There’s a newly created [database]( that tracks LGBTQ characters in children’s cartoons. That was one of the many surprising facts tucked into a recent [Morning Edition]( story. The report begins with a wedding scene from Steven Universe. But what makes the scene different is that the nuptials were between Ruby and Sapphire — two feminine-coded rocks who use she/her pronouns. It marked the first LGBTQ wedding in a kids’ series — and a long-fought battle for the show’s creator — reports Victoria Whitley-Berry, a producer for Morning Edition who brought us this story. This segment explores the rise in queer representation in cartoons and why it’s important. Most of all, it’s an enlightening listen into a subject that will mean a lot to NPR’s youngest audiences. — Amaris Castillo One question We ask NPR journalists one question about how their work came together. Where did that music come from? By Kayla Randall [Ramtin Arablouei]( is co-host and co-producer of Throughline. But we also hear him credited as a music composer and sound designer in many podcasts. We wanted to learn how he balances it all and his process. So we asked him. Turns out music was his first love, journalism came later. Here is what he wrote to us, in full: “I never expected to be working as a journalist. I spent most of my adult life hustling to make a living as a musician and composer, usually pretty badly. I had a little success. Enough to make it from one week to the next. But five years ago something magical happened. I met Guy Raz. He invited me to help him make a pilot for a podcast that would become How I Built This. He knew I was a musician. And he told me to use those skills to make audio. I was extremely insecure and worried about the career change but I’m glad I believed in him and he believed in me. Now all this time later I spend more of my days writing scripts, cutting audio, creating sound design, and putting together pitches than I do writing chord progressions. It is a trippy place to be. I am a co-host and co-producer of the NPR show Throughline. Our show is highly produced and essentially functions as a movie for your ears. It is extremely difficult to make. But being a composer will always be my identity. I write the music for Throughline but I also write music for other podcasts, including a bunch at NPR and other networks. At this point I’ve written theme songs or scored over 22 shows. It’s been a busy five years. The only way I can balance these roles is by not compartmentalizing them. Everything is music: All writing, audio, or even speech has rhythm. It has a melody. So I try to view all my work through the lens of composing music. It feels natural. It allows me to break any task down to an element of music. The script is vocal. The music is the rhythm section. The sound design is the guitar. You get the picture. For years I had to learn how to manage my time and my creativity through organizing the composition of a song. And that method has served me well. I use the same techniques when I’m doing any of my hosting or production duties. With that said, music and journalism engage different parts of my brain. When I am researching or fact-checking, I have to be analytical. I need to be skeptical and question everything. It is not exactly the work I imagined I’d be doing. It can be tedious and time consuming and, let’s just be honest here, boring. I know many people who derive pure joy from these tasks (bless their hearts), I am not one of them. Crafting a paragraph or constructing narrative will never feel as sexy as closing my eyes and finding my flow playing the piano. But I do know that I ultimately serve only one master, the truth. Everything I do has to lead to telling a story about history that is going to change the way someone looks at a part of the world. It has to not only contain what Werner Herzog calls ‘the truth of accountants’ but also a deeper, more ‘ecstatic truth.’ Every week we try to make Throughline a show that engages the head and the heart. Every element plays an equal role in that. So music is vital. And musicality is vital. It is understanding this that allows me to find that delicate balance of thinking and feeling my way through the work. Yet, I am going to stop typing and go grab my guitar. Everything is music.” The Office of the Public Editor is a team. Researchers Amaris Castillo and Kayla Randall make this newsletter possible. We are still reading all of your messages on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [from our inbox](. As always, keep them coming. Kelly McBride NPR Public Editor Chair, [Craig Newmark Center for Ethics & Leadership at the Poynter Institute]( Kelly McBride, Public Editor Kayla Randall, NPR Amaris Castillo, Poynter Institute The Public Editor stands as a source of independent accountability. Created by NPR's board of directors, the Public Editor serves as a bridge between the newsroom and the audience, striving to both listen to the audience's concerns and explain the newsroom's work and ambitions. The office ensures NPR remains steadfast in its mission to present fair, accurate and comprehensive information in service of democracy. [Read more]( from the NPR Public Editor, [contact us]( or follow us on [Twitter](. You received this message because you're subscribed to Public Editor emails. 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