Local story gets national and world play
Font size: [A] [A] [A]
e-mail this
share this
Stacy Brown
On Oct. 6, a story in The Times-Tribune caught the eye of producers for "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC.
Bill Wolff and other producers of the show regularly and carefully peruse stories on newspaper Web sites from around the country and wire services from all over the world searching for a topic of interest.
In this case, the New York-based "Maddow Show" team, which was looking for all things related to former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, came across a 20-inch story about Mr. Wilson written by Josh McAuliffe, one of the newspaper's feature writers.
The producers discovered a compelling quote that became fodder for a full segment that night:
In his words
"It's probably best to make a calculated withdrawal (from Afghanistan)," Mr. Wilson told Mr. McAuliffe. "If I were the president, I'm not sure what I'd do. I'd probably shut it down, rather than lose a lot of soldiers and treasure."
"I'd rather take on a chain saw," Mr. Wilson said. "They're the world's best foot soldiers, best warriors. And they're fearless. They're fearless, and they've got nothing to lose."
During a speech two days later in Scranton, Mr. Wilson tried to soften his comments.
But, by then, not only had MSNBC discussed the quote, but The Times-Tribune story was picked up by CNN's political ticker, the Huffington Post, and popular political Web blogs such as Digitaljournal.com, and The Moderate Voice.
It had become a hot-button issue because, as Mr. McAuliffe duly noted, Mr. Wilson's comments are from someone who knows as well as anyone just how fierce and tenacious the Afghan fighters are.
Mr. Wilson once led efforts to arm the Afghan mujahedeen during the 1980s Soviet occupation, something that became the basis for the book and movie, "Charlie Wilson's War."
While it is not unusual for a local story to gain national attention, some have wondered how a story in Scranton or Lydia, S.C., is eventually picked up by national television and wire services.
Well read
The Times-Tribune's story was also spotted by a journalist from Cairo, Egypt's al-Ahram newspaper, who e-mailed Mr. McAuliffe seeking contact information for Mr. Wilson.
"We read as much reporting as we can every day from all over the country and from as many sources as we can," said Mr. Wolff, Ms. Maddow's executive producer. "That means we read a lot of local news reports," he said, while also noting that it is much easier today to find stories than it was a dozen years ago because newspaper articles are now available to everyone on the world wide web.
The Associated Press looks to its large staff and even larger newspaper membership to be the eyes and ears on anything that may hold interest outside of a local paper's circulation, said Sarah Nordgren, the wire service's deputy managing editor for state news and global recruiting.
"It could be a very local story about a spectacular crime or an interesting event happening in a school. Mostly, we look for a breaking news story or a story that may develop into a trend. We look at the first two or three paragraphs of a story to determine if it may have interest for readers 100 miles outside the newspaper's circulation area," Ms. Nordgren said.
Not only did Mr. Wolff find the Charlie Wilson story compelling, he booked popular New York Times columnist Frank Rich to appear on Ms. Maddow's show to discuss Mr. Wilson's comments to Mr. McAuliffe.
"When a story like the Charlie Wilson interview in Scranton applies to a bigger national story like the Afghanistan War, or when a local story is part of a wider national issue; or when a local story is simply compelling on its own merits, we are eager to tell it to our audience," Mr. Wolff said.
Contact the writer: sbrown@timesshamrock.com
4 posted comments