48 Hours of Work to Generate 90 Seconds of Airtime on The Today Show
48 Hours of Work to Generate 90 Seconds of Airtime on The Today Show
A Behind the Scenes Guide for Academics
The text
I got the text at 4:55pm on Tuesday, February 20th, a reporter from The Today Show wanted to talk to me. It was about some research I had done on gentrification and racial displacement a year ago. I thought I had squeezed all the press that I could get out of that project (examples 1, 2, 3), but I soon learned that the renewed media interest from NBC wasn’t really about me; the South Carolina republican primary was in a few days and all the networks were sending crews to the state. They needed to generate “local” stories, and perhaps I had one to tell.
The reporter who contacted me was Jacob Soboroff, a legit NBC news reporter with a recent best-selling book. I got his number, called him, and he immediately answered by telling me he was on the road and needed to call me back. So I kept my phone nearby, did some laundry, washed some dishes, and otherwise waited.
Looking at my phone while I put my other plans that night on hold (watching True Detective with my spouse), my familiar anxieties about working with the media percolated to the surface: Will they understand my data? Will they make me look good? Or bad? But in the end I decided it was worth it, even if waiting for the phone to ring as a 48 year old tenured professor was a bit humbling.
Academics rarely get their work featured in national televised media. Although scholarly research is mentioned in the news all the time, the PhDs that do get quoted typically represent less than 1% of their discipline. So if you want to get your work out there before a national audience, you need to work at it. And fast.
The call
When he called back, my first question was (and this applies for any journalist): “what is your deadline?” Soboroff was honest: We had 48 hours to do an interview. The clock was ticking.
During the call, I could sense that he was interested in my research topic, but was having trouble connecting this story to the real reason he was in town in the first place: the Republican primary between Trump and Haley. He said he needed to think things over and find a way to frame it with his team.
This is when I jumped in with my pitch, which I’ve included below. I’ve made this pitch to journalists a number of times with varying degrees of success. My strategy is to first show that there is a problem (gentrification / racial displacement) that has a concrete solution (“invest in people before places”).
Soboroff was interested, but not completely sold. He said it would be stronger if I could find someone in Greenville who had experienced displacement first hand. Privately, I wasn’t sure I could find someone in 48 hours, but I told him I would get started right away and we arranged to speak again Wednesday morning.
Ken’s story pitch for journalists
There is a problem:
Like many cities in the southeast, the city of Greenville, SC has experienced explosive growth in the past 20 years. Population and incomes have increased dramatically. The city is regularly cited as a stellar example of a revitalization made even more impressive considering the depths of its economic collapse due to the demise of its once venerated textile industry decades earlier
But….. there has been a downside to this growth: racial economic inequality has gotten worse within the city limits, much worse than its peer cities in the Southeast. Median white households now make three times more than Black households, and historically Black neighborhoods have seen a 53% decline in Black residents. Massive public/private investments on Main Street and a new nearby park unintentionally set the housing market on fire. The result is an affordable housing crisis and racial displacement.
This problem has a solution:
Talking point 1: Sound the alarm about “place based” investment. While improving neighborhood infrastructure in poorer neighborhoods by building parks, calming traffic, and subsidizing mixed-use developments is a welcome change compared to past neglect, this policy ultimately prices out the people it is trying to help. Renters don’t benefit from rising property values, and renters constitute over 75% of poorer neighborhoods.
Talking point 2: Local leaders need to put “people first” when deciding when and where to invest public dollars. Sidewalk improvements and enhanced street lighting is wonderful, but people need jobs, education, childcare, healthcare, transportation. Invest in the people first in order to increase their incomes so that they will be able to afford to stay in the “places” where the city is improving the physical infrastructure.
The sprint
Wednesday morning, 36 hours until interview
To make this NBC interview happen, I started by calling up my contacts whom I had interviewed for my last book. For that research, I spent about 100 hours in people’s homes and on their front porches, so I knew a lot of people struggling to pay the rent in the city of Greenville. However, I conducted those interviews pre-COVID. At the time, my contacts were all renters, many in public housing or Section 8 apartments. I started texting people to see if they would be willing to be interviewed without much luck.
My contacts, quite honestly, had better things to do. They had to work or pick up their kids or go to an appointment. Some didn’t want to appear on television. And making arrangements in less than two days was just about impossible. All I could offer was a gift card to a grocery store and even I knew that was not enough to outweigh the risks of them taking time off work or upsetting their landlord.
Jacob Soboroff texts me for an update at noon, I told him I might have a lead. My friend (and West Greenville community leader) Inez Morris told me that she had just spoken with a neighbor whose landlord had increased her rent and was threatening her with a $150 penalty for every day she was late. I asked Inez if she could try to bring the tenant to the church on Thursday afternoon for an interview with NBC. She said she would try but wasn’t sure.
Jacob Soboroff texted me again around 5pm. I told him that Inez and I were working on a lead, and if the tenant didn’t show, he could interview Inez by herself. I then vouched for Inez by explaining how she could speak for the neighborhood, had experience with the media, and had seen gentrification up close for nearly a decade now.
The prep
Thursday morning, 8 hours until interview.
I’d like to say I spent Thursday morning compiling evidence and anecdotes for the NBC reporting team, but I had to work. I taught a class first thing and then had to run a department meeting after lunch (I’m the chair). So while it would be cool to visualize me hustling to get on the national news as some exciting and non-stop action adventure, in reality I spent the morning putting together agenda items about our curriculum and finalizing the previous department meeting’s minutes. Sexy stuff.
I left my campus office at Furman at 3:30 for a 4pm meet with Jacob, Inez, and—hopefully—the struggling tenant that Inez had recruited. Just before I get in my car, I sent Jacob some links to a local news story about gentrification that quoted Inez, and another link to a story about her historically Black church and its role in the community. Essentially, I’m trying to help frame the story for a news reporter with no ties to the area. I’m also trying to show him that Inez knows how to interact with the press and is qualified to speak for her community.
Inez’s shot
Thursday at 4pm, Bethel Bible Missionary Church
I pull into the parking lot the church and see Inez walking some children into the gymnasium. She’s wearing her “Girls on the Run” t-shirt (a non-profit campaign to get young girls interested in jogging) and we laugh about how being on NBC will get free publicity for the organization. She’s a savvy community advocate and obviously chose her t-shirt for a reason.
Inez tells me that the woman she had recruited for the interview (the struggling tenant) had to work and couldn’t make it. I’m worried that Jacob Soboroff will lose interest. But he sends me a text with some quotes from the news article that I had sent him an hour earlier. He’s now interested in seeing a place in the neighborhood where older houses sit close to new and expensive construction indicative of gentrification. The interview is a go.
The NBC news crew arrives in two large Ford Explorer trucks. Besides Soboroff, they’ve got a sound technician, a camera/drone operator, and a producer. We exchange pleasantries in the parking lot, Inez suggests a spot in the neighborhood where the transition to gentrification is most stark, and we all get in the trucks to do the shoot.
Inez is a total pro. She chats effortlessly with the reporter while she gets mic’d up. She’s done this before, so her answers are short and to the point. A few times, when needed, she repeated her answers verbatim because there was a problem with the camera or the lighting. She is a passionate ambassador for West Greenville and she gives a heartfelt description of what it is like to watch gentrification take over her neighborhood. After the interview, the crew fires up a drone for B roll footage.
My turn
Unity Park, 5pm
We go back to the church, drop off Inez, and head to Unity Park, ground zero for racial displacement in the city of Greenville.
In the parking lot, as the sound tech and camera operator discuss where to film my interview, I try to get in my talking points with Soboroff ahead of the interview. It has been clear that the framing of this story has been flexible and evolving all day. Jacob mentioned earlier that it might appear on MSNBC because issues like gentrification and affordable housing are important to that audience. Also, after Inez’s shot, the crew decides to edit her portion to appear after mine even though she is being filmed first. The point being, there isn’t a clear script. They are writing it as they go along. For this reason, I’m trying to influence which questions he’ll ask me when it’s my turn and the camera is rolling.
We pick a spot and the conversation begins. It lasts about 6-8 minutes and includes some B-roll drone footage from above. I got my talking points in at least twice, but I flubbed a few terms and my phone beeped during one of my lines. In the end, it didn’t really matter, my part was condensed to just a few seconds and encapsulated talking point #1 (see above).
The boost
Saturday morning
I get a text from Jacob Soboroff at around 8am that the piece had just run on the Today Show. It was a 3 min 30 sec segment. The first half was about BMW and their economic impact in the area, Inez and I got the second half which was about negative consequences of this growth. My role in the segment was to show how the park was making the area unaffordable, Inez’s part was to draw out the visual contrast of old homes vs. new construction and explain what it is like to see one’s community change so quickly. In the end, I got 20 seconds and Inez got a minute. But we were on message and got the word out.
As soon as it came out, I posted it to my social media accounts and notified the comms team at Furman which they then re-posted and will do so again on their various channels. I am also the chair of the South Carolina chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network, and they will help amplify the story as well in other ways at a later time. The link (X and Instagram) will be a valuable tool to keep the conversation about gentrification and affordable housing moving forward. So, even though it was exhausting, I still think putting in 48 hours of work to get 90 seconds of airtime was worth it.
Takeaways
Media attention doesn’t just happen
If you are an academic and you have data or research that can inform public debates and policy, you cannot expect the media to find your work or represent it accurately. You need to reach out and develop relationships with journalists at every level. For me, working with the Greenville News helped spark a larger collaboration on a 5 part series which garnered a lot of additional press from state wide outlets. It was that original series that got the interest of the team from NBC who decided it might offer useful context for another news worthy event (Republican Primary).
You have to work fast
By the time I was notified, the clock had already begun. We needed to do the shoot in 48 hours so that it could be edited and aired before the polls closed in 96 hours. To make the story work, I needed to bring in someone from the community who could speak with authority on the issue. I started by contacting eight people and in the end only got one person who was qualified (and wanted to go on television). Had I not been able to find someone from the neighborhood, I don’t think the story would have aired. My research is interesting, but I don’t think it would have been enough to justify sending a full-fledged news crew with on air talent.
Help frame the story
Television reporters do not have the time to pore over your work and script detailed questions in advance. They have to pitch ideas to their own editors, so any story can go in multiple directions at any time (or may get cancelled at the last minute). For academics, this gives you a chance to send background info and context to help shape the story as it evolves. I sent links to similar news stories in the area for background and context. I knew a couple of locations where we could see evidence of stark gentrification, but I asked Inez and she suggested a specific street with striking visual contrast of old vs new homes. Her idea really helped make the piece.