Reporting "Being a Black Man"

Ballard was part of a team that won a 2007 Casey Medal in the multimedia category.

The Washington Post and Washingtonpost.com in 2006 produced an ambitious project that vividly documented what it means to be a black man in today’s society. “Being a Black Man” included stories and profiles, plus multimedia components, such as videos, photo galleries, commentaries and interactive features that allowed readers a rare voice in the conversation.

The Center asked Ballard about the project.

Multimedia projects are meant to engage audiences. How did that work here?

When I started this project, I hadn’t been at Washingtonpost.com long enough to gauge how people would react. Some people were surprised that the Post would tackle such an issue. Many in the African-American community felt the Post hadn’t covered their community very well up to this point -- only focusing on the criminals and athletes. I didn’t know there was this negative feeling. I feel like this project built goodwill and demonstrated that we can tell different stories and show a wider spectrum.

Reader interaction is critical. You can’t have a one-side, “I’ll just tell you” project. And you can’t just have people respond and that’s it. There’s a push now to have a conversation. Of course, you can’t follow up on every suggestion, and when you think about doing something, you have to consider the available resources. But allowing conversations [like the ones generated by this project] are where media is moving. We ended up adding things in response to reader feedback.

What’s an example of that?

What worked best was letting readers tell us what they thought and posting those responses. We were responsive and flexible, and listened to what readers wanted. The “Fatherless” video – my favorite video – is an example of that: Some readers asked us to address the issues of young black males being raised without a father. We weren’t so rigid about the concept we had in mind that we couldn’t step off track.

The videos, “Being a Gay Black Man” and “One Man’s Success,” and the interactive feature, “Black Women Speak Their Minds” also grew out of comments and suggestions we received.

What aspects were particularly challenging?

One of the more challenging aspects, for me, was the debate we had over whether to include black women’s voices in the project. I was on the side of “no.” I felt, as a black woman, we’ve said how we felt over and over again, and this was an opportunity for black men to talk about the issues and not have more people outside the community telling them what’s wrong with them. But Washington Post editor Marcia Davis, Kevin Merida’s “righthand woman” on the print side, thought we couldn’t talk about the community of black men without including the voices of black women. In the end, she was right. And the segment about black women got a very big response.

Was the print/online collaboration of this scope a first?

Yes, it was the first time we’d done a collaboration of this scope. This probably was the most ambitious in terms of the amount of collaboration between the print and Web sides. Kevin Merida coordinated the project on the print side. [Ballard led the Web project.] With Kevin as the point person, I didn’t have to chase down a big group of writers and photographers. On the Web side, we had a smaller, tighter group: a designer, a photo/audio editor, a couple of video journalists (only one of whom was working solely on this project) and a reporter who worked with the full-time video journalist. Plus some editors we turned to when we hit walls and we needed someone to break through.

What did you learn from working on this project?

It’s never too early to start planning. We were called in after the planning for the print series was underway, and I asked to be included in every meeting after that, no matter what was being discussed. The critical brainstorming developed out of those meetings. It’s important for the print and Web sides to understand that we each have a different work process and timelines. You have to communicate well. And you should have a point person on a big project, who can communicate with both sides.

How much time did it take?

The series ran from June 2 to Dec. 31, 2006. But we started talking about it in January – and kept talking throughout project about the issues and ideas we wanted to pursue. Nelson Hsu, the Web designer, was in on almost all the meetings because we knew it was important that he have an understanding of how the content should be used.

Did other Web components morph as you got further into the project?

We didn’t plan on featuring the archive, but we didn’t want people missing earlier pieces that were important to the overall story. And we wanted people to see the breadth of the project.

Will there be more multimedia projects of this scope and depth?

I think there will be more projects like this. You can’t do 50 of these a year, but there will be more.