Michelle Trudeau, along with Peggy Mears, Jane Greenhalgh and Anne Gudenkauf, won a 2004 Casey Medal (radio) for this story.

"All Things Considered," National Public Radio, March 3, 2003
Reported by Michelle Trudeau, produced by Peggy Mears and Jane Greenhalgh, and edited by Anne Gudenkauf

We met Miami Juvenile Court Judge Cindy Lederman and early child development expert Dr. Joy Osofsky when they spoke at the Journalism Center’s five-day fellowship in 2002. ‘The Judge and the Scientist,’ as we referred to them in the story, had collaborated on a highly innovative and possibly unique program for neglected and abused infants and toddlers in court custody. The program had a therapeutic focus on healing the ‘attachment bond’ between very young children and their mothers, often victims of neglect and abuse themselves. The goal: To hopefully break the generational cycle of abuse and neglect. It was an ambitious goal, to say the least.

Taking this story on was ambitious for us as well. The first hurdle was pitching the story to the science desk editor at NPR. We had to make the case that the program was as unique and groundbreaking as we suspected, and that the scientific aspects were valid; our editor really held our feet to the fire on these points. It is not easy to prove the veracity of an emerging program, and with no obvious parallels against which to measure its success, we had to undertake extensive background reporting. Eventually, conversations with leading experts across the country in child development, juvenile justice, child poverty and mental health confirmed three things: this was the first such program in the country to be created and run by a court; the program was grounded in scientific research; and the funding strategy was specifically designed to be replicable in courts throughout the country. The homework paid off. We got the green light.

Then we faced the usual logistical factors, including that we were 3,000 miles from Miami and could only make one trip. Probably the most important thing we did early on was to identify a person ‘in the field’ to be our guide around Miami, a city that’s not easy to travel by car. That step is crucial to field work, when time and funds are limited and problems are bound to crop up.

Other challenges were more apparent. We would be recording in a courtroom with poor acoustics; in a therapeutic setting from behind a one-way mirror; inside a van. The story also involved several key players. Judge Lederman and her staff were very supportive, paving our way through red tape. But we still had to grapple with consent and privacy issues and get our subjects to sign releases for both the court and NPR. While radio lends itself well to anonymity, we did change the names of participating parents and children.

But we also got lucky. Judge Lederman is a force to be reckoned with: tremendous personality and passion about her convictions and her work. We couldn’t have asked for a more articulate or compelling voice for the story. As we began to construct the story frame and focus, she led us to a teenager she’d first encountered as a little girl, a victim of severe neglect and abuse. Now, ‘Katrina’ was back in court herself – this time as a neglectful mother.

LEDERMAN: This case to me was symbolic of the dependency court population. It was symbolic of the problems, the hopelessness, the frustration. Here it was, an entire family, extreme neglect. And the thought that under my watch this would go to yet another generation and there was nothing that I could do to stop it, it was almost as if: `Why should I even do this job? I can't bear to do this job under those circumstances.'

Prior to the trip, we had numerous conference calls with the Judge, with Dr. Osofsky, and others, which enabled us to develop ideas for ‘scenes’ to record and anticipate equipment needs. Recording challenges were made manageable by involving another NPR producer with stronger engineering skills and extensive field experience. We used lavaliere microphones as often as possible, for best audio quality. In the courtroom scenes, a shotgun mic was also used for general ambiance and for remarks made by the various individuals approaching the bench to present information to the Judge.

We came back with many, many hours of tape and the story process became quite overwhelming for a while: all those characters and scenes, and so much fantastic tape from interviews with Judge Lederman. We stayed on track by sticking to the previously determined story focus and frame, and eventually brought the story in at twelve minutes, fifteen seconds. Listener response was overwhelming. Judge Lederman and Dr. Osofsky reported staggering increases to the number of visitors to their respective Web sites in the days following the air date. NPR listener response was very high as well, making the story one of the most-listened to pieces of the year.

Take-home production tips

• Do your ‘homework’ before making a pitch and embarking on the story
• Find someone in the field to be your eyes and ears prior to your trip. This person can also help with decisions that need to be made in advance such as travel arrangements, maps, translators, red tape, etc.
• Seek out the most compelling voices you can find to ‘tell’ the story
• Prior to recording in the field, make some preliminary decisions about the story focus and the story structure (frame) in order to develop ideas about scenes you want to be sure to record while there. Anticipate as best you can what recording equipment you will need.

Michelle Trudeau is an independent science correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) and co-founder, with independent radio producer Peggy Mears, of Brainchild Productions. In the past five years Trudeau and Mears have collaborated on more than 40 news reports and feature stories in the areas of mental health, human behavior, child and adolescent development, and brain sciences.