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“The formula is simple and it’s reduced to four words every kid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It’s that easy.” -Don Hewitt
Last week, Don Hewitt, founder and long-time producer of 60 Minutes, died. He’ll be remembered, among other things, as an impresario who created one of TV’s most successful programs. There’s a potent lesson for all of us in his “storyline”.
Hewitt’s vision and instincts culminated in a new, highly successful form of entertainment known as the “news magazine”. As important as that accomplishment is, his greatest feat may be his proving that story-telling is the key to success, not only in TV, but in every medium. We, in business, have much to learn from Hewitt’s dogged pursuit of the story.
Before 60 Minutes came along in 1968, few people in the news business recognized, let alone harnessed, the power of story-telling to register with the audience. “Hard news” was treated as serious and important, and it was distinct from lighter, but more popular programs.
Hewitt, aiming for high ratings, wanted to present news-based information that also resonated with viewers. Like Shakespeare and Chekov, he understood that the shortest distance to an audience’s heart is through telling stories, especially about people.
On Sunday, 60 Minutes devoted its entire program to remembering and appreciating the man whose singular focus was “making the story better”. It was an informative, touching tribute. That program offers an object lesson for any of us who want to carry our message to a wider audience.
Making the Story Better
For 36 years, Hewitt ran 60 Minutes like an independent fiefdom within CBS. Every correspondent had his or her own producers who competed with one another to find and present material that mattered to viewers. Hewitt pushed, cajoled, and corralled his staff to uncover, organize and present evocative stories. And they did.
The correspondents didn’t focus on the issues; instead, they featured the people swept up by the issues. The most effective pieces involved people telling their own stories.
My favorite segments spotlight people convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Rather than merely recount what happened, the correspondents interview the subjects from their jail cells. They also talk with their family members, associates and accusers. Each individual tells the story from their perspective. Over the course of the segment, a “narrative arc” emerges, and we, the audience, empathize with the subject. Typically, we want these hapless people vindicated.
That’s precisely the effect that Hewitt was determined to get. He believed that well-crafted stories inspire audiences to feel differently and intensely — one way or another — about the subject. Turns out his beliefs are grounded in science.
Hard-wired for Stories
Stories are powerful because we’re “hard-wired” to respond to them. Psychologist Jerome Bruner said that kids as young as two years old, “understand the stories that their families tell them, and they start to tell their own stories, and in particular start to tell stories to themselves as part of their first efforts to make sense of their lives.”
Brain imaging now shows that people are highly stimulated when they experience a story. In fact, individuals construct mental simulations as they experience and find meaning in stories.
We flock to films, theater, and novels because we respond deeply to their storyline. The most successful fiction and non-fiction writers know this. Their stories answer the questions, “What happens to the hero, and why?”
To our detriment, many of us in business don’t fully appreciate the power of story-telling. Even our better reports — exacting and accurate — lack a storyline and fall short of capturing the reader’s imagination. Hence, we often fail to motivate the reader to take the action we desire. Wasn’t our aim to move the reader to action?
Lots of books and blogs exhort us to tell stories. But, the story of Hewitt’s single-minded pursuit of telling the good story and the effect it has on audiences is far more persuasive. His story illustrates that it’s not enough to merely inform the audience to resonate. We ought to tell them a good story…
As always, I’d love to hear your views. What’s your story about story-telling?
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Want more information about story-telling?
Take a look at Seth Godin’s piece for Ode Magazine, “How to Tell a Great Story”. Or, read the book, Made to Stick- Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die… by Chip and Dan Heath.
Don Hewitt’s 2002 autobiography is Tell Me a Story. It begins: “New Rochelle, New York, could have passed for a small town and did when George M. Cohan wrote about it and sang about it in the 1906 musical.”
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Tags: 60 Minutes, Don Hewitt, Jerome Bruner, narrative, narrative arc, Story Telling