Managing Doubt

Remember, I wrote to a student recently:

You don't have to banish doubt from your mind when you are reporting and writing. You are learning to listen. You are learning to gather stories and then re-tell those stories in an artful, accurate and meaningful way.

You just need to show up physically, including doubts that are in your mind. Reading will help. Buying the recorder will help.

But also, as Don Murray reminds us, writing to discover what you want to uncover also helps. Writing down your questions now helps. Writing what stories you think you might discover.

Melvin Mencher talks about the importance of having and writing down a working hypothesis that is flexible and open to the evidence--stories, statistics, elements of five senses, conversations, etc.--you will gather.

Writing down your doubts helps now, rather than letting them bounce around in your head and grow larger. That is why you have a blog--to write. To take a few more minutes and write them down. Another label for this day's blog might be "the path to discovery."

Every writer, reporter, story gatherer has doubts. I just watched last night the movie DOUBT. Meryl Streep's character at the end displays a beautifully intense attack of doubt.

A friend of mine who once was my bureau chief in Providence and then later became associate managing editor used to say that he felt those butterflies of anxiety UNTIL he got "a few quotes under his belt."

In your case I want you to be paying attention to not just the "quotes" but any dialogue that occurs and of course, the story. But those butterflies are also telling you about things you need to pay attention to--about yourself and about the story.
BH