Friday Edition: Ken Speake, a Master Storyteller, Retires

One of the best local-television storytellers I know is
retiring today. I am taking the unusual step of dedicating the entire column to
him, because he has so much to teach us all about video storytelling.
Those of you in the print and online worlds who are trying to learn multimedia — draw near. Here is a guy who can teach you something.

Speake
has reported for KARE-11 in Minnesota for 28 years. But now, at age 61, after a bout with
West Nile Virus that began three years ago, he can no longer do the daily news
grind.

You
can read Ken’s message to his newsroom and his viewers here.

The
Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn., quoted him:

“I don’t like the idea of retiring at all,” Speake says.
“I love the work, but I’m tired of being tired. I have to come home and
take a nap as soon as work’s over. If I don’t, then I’m pretty much wasted for
the night.

“I have two grandchildren and a 17-year-old in high school,
and I want to stick around for them. I would like very much to watch my
children grow into fathers. I needed to start taking better care of myself, and
I can’t do that working full time.”

Thursday night, KARE-11 paid tribute to Ken’s work with a
special segment on the late news. Click here
to watch the tribute delivered by another master storyteller, Boyd Huppert. (Photos on this page courtesy of KARE-11 and Gannett.)

KARE-11 also included videos from coworkers on what Ken has meant to them.

Ken didn’t like to chase fires or disasters. He hated meaningless live
shots and stand-ups that did nothing for the story but promote reporter vanity. He wanted the story to be the story, not himself.

---

Favorite Speake Stories

Here are some of my very favorite Ken Speake stories. Click
on the links to see the videos. I know that university professors and newsrooms
around the world will see this and use these stories as teaching examples. I
have used them in my teaching for years. He is damn good. You can see that Ken and his photojournalist
partners worked as one on these pieces:

Daisy the Goose

In
this great story, Ken builds in surprises, natural sound moments and even
some outdoor education. You actually find yourself learning how geese normally
learn to fly. I love how Ken doesn’t talk down to his less knowledgeable
audience. Look for the big, magical
moments that Ken explains but does not narrate. In other words, he allows you
to experience the moment without insulting you by telling you what you are
seeing — he tells you about what you are seeing. If you can watch this piece without
smiling, you should check your pulse.

Harping Hands

This is a
Ken Speake classic. It is one of the best examples of writing to video I
have ever seen. The story takes place in a neonatal hospital ward where a
musician comes in once in a while to calm frayed nerves. See how Ken explains
the video, drawing the viewers in with a strong opening line. He will explain
what you are seeing on the heart monitors.

The
Deer Hunter

One day, Ken got a note from a deer hunter named John Thompson.
It became pretty clear that Mr. Thompson was just using his hunting
license as an excuse to do what he really loved in the woods. This story is
such an example of what great natural sound can do for a story. Multimedia and
TV journalists should use this as a gold standard for how to place microphones.
Watch
the story.

The
Home Depot Swallows

Ken has this ability to see things the rest of us walk by — like
birds that have figured out how to open the electronic doors at Home Depot. See the
story.

The Ice Breaker

This is a piece that Ken told along with photojournalist Lane
Michaelsen, who will tell you what it’s like to work with Ken later in this column.
This story is about a Coast Guard ship whose job it is to go out on Lake Superior to open the shipping lanes for the season.
Again, Ken opens with a strong line that pulls the viewer right to the screen.
It is punctuated by close-up sound. The copy in this story is thin and tight. Watch
it here.

All of these stories have one common element I want to point
out. They are all “so Minnesota.”
They are the kind of pieces that telegraph to the audience, “We know who you
are, how you live and what attracts you to this part of the country.” They are
not homogenized stories from the feed service. They are connective tissue from
the newsroom to the audience.

---

Q&A with Speake

I interviewed Ken in
an e-mail Q&A below. I also hope you will enjoy the comments I gathered
from KARE-11 News Director Tom Lindner and one of Ken’s favorite photographer
partners for eight years at KARE-11, my old friend Lane Michaelsen. He is now
a Gannett corporate executive.

So Ken, what makes a Ken Speake story?

It has surprised me
that most of the stories I’m really proud of occurred outdoors or involved
outdoor experiences. I don’t know
whether you’ve seen the pieces Ron Stover and I did years ago about the Minnesota Outward Bound
School. One of the pieces involved kids struggling to
get to the put-in point on a canoe trip.
One involved “The Ropes Course.” Both were about kids struggling to overcome
personal “weaknesses” or natural challenges. I think both illustrate that which I find
intriguing about outdoor stories — people encountering challenges and dealing
with those challenges.

So many of your
greatest stories have been about the simplest things — an ice cutter making the
first run of the season, a harpist playing in the infant ICU, a hunter who
feeds birds more than he hunts. All of these seem to be about the smallest
details that most of us miss. What is it that you do out in the field that
points you to these telling details?

Time and again, we
human beings are exposed to lovely little experiences that “sweeten”
life. They’re things that didn’t need to
happen, but did — little “gift” experiences. I’ve come to call them, “Thank you,
God” moments. When I began noticing
them, it occurred to me I might share them.
Y’see, ignorance is commonplace.
It’s not a conscious choice to ignore.
Things sometimes just kinda get by us.
In my work, I have the opportunity to guide people’s attentions to the
little gifts, so that perhaps next time they experience something, they might
become aware of it and appreciate it. I
guess I feel kind of “missionary,” in that regard.

Frequently, it’s not so much what I do in the field. I take time to examine the images and sounds
carefully when I watch the raw tape. I
try to give half my writing time to examining the images and sounds on the
tape — more than “sound bites,” because sound bites pretty much stick
out. Frequently, we will have caught
something that we can use.

However, I try to keep
my wits about me in the field and notice little things that’ll add spice to the
story. Most times, the photographer I
work with will have noticed something, but if I notice that (s)he hasn’t
noticed, I gently call his/her attention to it.

How important is
sound? How hard do you work for great natural sound? What is the secret to
great natural sound?

I think of naturally
occurring sound as the spice that makes the meat and potatoes of the story more
palatable, more interesting and more attractive. And I find that little, quieter things are
frequently more punctuating than are noises, because folks have learned to
ignore noise.

And I generally merely
ask viewers to notice the little things.
Of course it’s important to put the little things front and center so
they’re there to be noticed and appreciated, but it’s a tool, or gimmick, if
you’d prefer, that gets the viewer involved. Sound draws the viewer in and
grabs their attention. Once we have the
viewer’s active participation, it’s easier to get ’em to remember the important
stuff.

Yesterday, when (KARE-11
photojournalist) Brett Akagi and (reporter) Boyd Huppert were interviewing me
for a piece about my retirement, Brett asked me to talk about the story about
the barn swallows that learned to open the Home Depot doors.

I had forgotten,
because, I guess, I do it habitually.
The swallow nest was high near the ceiling of the “big-box”
store. And the store noises were loud
enough so we couldn’t hear the chicks clearly.
It seemed only natural to me that we had to get a mic close to the nest
so we could hear the conversation when mom or dad arrived with a meal. I
wanted to work more quickly with less commotion than the store man-lift would
have caused, so I grabbed a 12-foot-long 1-by-2 and bought a roll of wire and
fashioned a harness for the wireless to hang over the pipe on which the nest
was sitting. I reached it up to the pipe
with the 1-by-2 and hung it over the pipe.
I didn’t think twice about it, but Brett was amazed.

It was a lesson, too, in
how something one person sees as insignificant can be experienced so powerfully
by a second person. We all need to experience that lesson repeatedly, because it
doesn’t seem to stick too well.

You often repeat
words or phrases in your track that somebody says in a sound bite. Why do you
do that? Explain this technique.

I find it sometimes
difficult to understand people when they say important things. Sometimes they don’t enunciate well,
sometimes an accent stands in the way of communication. I find it very easy and not too wasteful of
the seconds we have available, to merely repeat what they said to enhance
communication.

Sometimes, I repeat what
was said to emphasize its importance.

But, like most useful
tools, too much repetition can become obvious so that it calls attention to
itself and inhibits communication.

Why is feature
reporting still important to local news?

Feature reporting gives viewers a respite, I think. We hit ’em upside the head with inhumanity,
then we go to commercial and come back and hit ’em up the other side with
fear. Folks tell me they appreciate my
stuff because it’s different, interesting, refreshing, and they like hearing
how and why people do what they do to get through life.

---

From Lane Michaelsen, former KARE-11 photojournalist:

Anyone who has met Ken,
worked with Ken, or watched his work, knows that Ken Speake is not a reporter.
He is a storyteller.

Ken realized years ago
that stories are about people, not things.
Sure, Ken talked to people, but more importantly he listened. Without
ever asking for an interview, he could discover your secrets and then tell your
story.

I’ve spent hours and
hours traveling with Ken to the small corners of Minnesota.
Every minute was a pleasure because Ken sees joy all around him. He doesn’t care if there is a stand-up in his
story; he’d rather add more natural sounds and the best shots. He doesn’t write
a script — he writes a story with strong characters and plot development. He talks to the audience using phrases like
“you know,” “you bet” and “yup.”

During a recent
storytelling seminar, I showed the last story I ever shot with Ken Speake. It is
about a harpist who plays in a neonatal intensive care unit. Once the applause died down, and the tear was
wiped away, a young reporter made one comment: “Man, that guy can really
tell a story.” My reaction:
“Yup, he sure can.”

---

From Tom Lindner, KARE-11 news director:

What’s it like to be Ken
Speake’s news director?

In a word: unique.

Look up “reporter” in a dictionary, and you won’t find him
there.

Ken’s success comes at
breaking the rules. His big, booming
presence goes home as Gentle Ben with a heart as big as his immense hands.

He makes the word
“yup,” cool.

He writes out of a sound
bite by repeating the last few words of that sound bite, and it works.

Whenever they name a
type of story after you, you know you’ve reached a high standard of
performance.

“Hey, that’s a
great Ken Speake story,” has been part of the planning and assigning function
at KARE-11 for decades.

We’ve been blessed to
air and post many Ken Speake stories, but the big winner has been our
audience — yup, our audience.

---

---