Bioneers sessions bring up questions of how to distill a story to its emotional crux

Back at Bioneers in October, I milled about, questioning the direction of my life. I attended some education sessions, some journalism sessions, Jane Goodall’s keynote, and a briefing on the latest psychedelics research. Everything pushed me forward in my search, if a bit schizophrenically — “I need journalism school!” I first thought. Then, “I should be changing the education system — that’s the family I was born into.” And sometimes, “Maybe  an ayahuasca ceremony will bring it all into perspective.” Needless to say, I was all over the board, in a relatively positive way, staring at possibilities I don’t yet know how to build a bridge to.

The journalism sessions — a screening of the documentary “Reporter” and a panel organized by the Women’s Media Center — were both potent.  How, both sessions had me asking myself, do we reach the emotional core? How do we help to bring about change through reportage?

For me, the crux of the film “Reporter,” which follows New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof to the Congo, sat with a single question Kristof asked of an eighteen year old Interhamwe fighter who had been taken prisoner by a Tutsi militia, somewhere in Eastern Congo.

Here’s some background on this portion of the film. Kristof is visiting General Nkunda’s Tutsi militia, fighting and controling various regions within Congo.  Insistent questioning from Kristof has not fazed the men. The general Nkunda, and several of his top aides, have either denied the effect of civil war on civilians or they have avoided these questions, most poignantly and noticeably those about civilian starvation and about rape at the hands of invading forces.  The generals blame most bad press — the press reports that have led the reporter to ask these questions — on a government against them.  By the end of the interview session, I want to believe these men, and that in fact these rapes and murders are figments of a political imagination run from Kinshasa. General Nkunda’s men worship Christ each morning, in a churchroom where the general himself is the preacher, he is a former school teacher, and he has six children.  The general’s aides make jokes often, and there is laughter.  I begin to think I like the general and his men.

After the interviews and before the reporting team departs on its four hour trek back to Goma, Kristof is permitted to interview several prisoners from Interhamwe.  The film focuses in on his interview with the youngest, a boy born in 1990, so he is eighteen, older than many child soldiers I’ve heard, but still only the age of my students, who are driving VWs and Audis and whose worst troubles are an impending break up or a hangover.  The reporter asks, “When you go into these villages, is it alright to rape the women?”  He asks in French, which leads to some purposeful or accidental misunderstanding (in French, to rape is pronounce “violer”, which sounds similar to the word “violence”).  The boy responds, Oui, dans la guerre il y a toujours la violence. It’s a lesson in reportorial insistence — I probably would have left it there.  Kristof pushes the point — I didn’t ask him that, I asked him… etc.  The second time, the boy responds, Oui, on peut violer les femmes. C’est la guerre.

It was the distillation of a sentiment that all others denied.  Young boys will not differentiate between the socially appropriate answer and the answer as seen in real life.  They will always give you the honest, emotional, gut answer.  They are the canary in the coal mine if you will — too young to understand social proprieties.

The next day, I attended a panel of women in the media, which included Rose Aguilar from “Your Call.”  She said for many years she reported for CNET and interviewed CEOs and high-powered businessmen.  They all sound the same, Rose said, and they tell everyone the same thing.  She continued by saying she preferred to interview the man at Wal-mart or the woman at the soccer field — people who didn’t often get to speak about issues of the economy, technology, or whatever.

Perhaps the news media and the generals of the world have the most power to shape the public narrative, but the words of the people at the supermarket, at the used car lot, those are the words that reveal the narrative by which we conduct our lives.  So that imprisoned soldier/boy — that got me in the gut.

Watch the documentary “Reporter” — and then read Dave Eggers and Tracy Kidder.  You’ll leave it all confused about how to do anything, but feeling it all quite strongly, and ready to take action.