Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Psst, this is for you, graduates of my workshops

If you’ve taken my classes or had one-on-one sessions with me at your office, you’ve probably heard me talk about “the best use of best real estate” and “the kicker.”
Here’s a fantastic example in action, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, still my favorite icon of clear, relevant, audience-centric writing after 25 years of almost daily reading.
My detailed notes are below, starting with the words "two things."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324867904578592180482641220.html 
July 7, 2013 
Why the San Francisco Plane Crash Wasn't More Deadly
Quick-Thinking Heroics, Air-Safety Gains Kept Death Toll Low 
By REBECCA SMITH, JON OSTROWER, ANDY PASZTOR
Two things:
1. Best real estate
Notice that you can read just the first six words of each paragraph – which I’ve listed for you just below -- and know what the story is about. 

You can also skim this article productively based on the “sign posts” that let you skip directly to details about, for example, how regulatory changes helped save lives, how the captain reacted, or how this crash compares with others in recent history – or whatever else you want to find.
If you take it down to just the first three words, most of the “fast starts” still meet the criteria I’ve given you in my class called “Creating Compelling Content.”
Here’s the list of the first six words of each paragraph. Below that you’ll find my observations about “the kicker.”

1.     A diminutive flight attendant carried injured …
2.     Such quick-thinking heroics in the …
3.     The crash left pieces of the …
4.     The crash occurred with little warning …
5.     "We hit hard and bounced up. …
6.     Mr. Rah noticed that an evacuation …
7.     The captain soon started screaming on …
8.     "She was a hero," he said. …
9.     Meanwhile, San Francisco police officers at …
10.  Aviation-safety experts said the human …
11.  The Asiana crash "is the culmination …
12.  Regulators in the late 1980s mandated …
13.  Before the advent of such stronger …
14.  Mr. Hiatt also said improved fire-…
15.  Enhanced crew training also has made …
16.  Other factors helped limit the toll …
17.  Other high-profile crashes in recent …
18.  In San Francisco, "everyone was fortunate …
19.  "I'm just grateful I survived," said …

2. The kicker
The first person we hear from in the story is Eugene Anthony Rah, an eyewitness of people’s reactions during the crash.
He is also the last person we hear from. And that’s my point.

"The kicker" is a resonant last line in a story that circles back to the top of the story. The kicker is usually emotional, visual, catchy, repeatable, parallel in structure or involving a sharply juxtaposed contrast – usually one or more of these.
This WSJ story comes full circle by reaching back to Mr. Rah for its ending. 

Journalists sometimes debate whether their best quote for a long feature article should be the first quote or the last quote.
First human voice in the story:
The crash occurred with little warning for passengers. Eugene Anthony Rah, a frequent flier on Asiana who was sitting in business class, said he noticed the plane was approaching too low over San Francisco Bay, then he heard an engine noise that made him think the pilot was trying to gain elevation.
"We hit hard and bounced up. People were screaming," he recalled. The plane seemed to careen out of control, skidding sideways, before stopping. Then there was "total silence," he said.
Last paragraph in the story:
"I'm just grateful I survived," said Mr. Rah, the passenger. "I was 99.9% sure I was going to die. I was hoping for a 0.1% miracle, and I got it."
In PR, your contributed article doesn’t need to end in a quote, but the advice is the same: Reach to the top of your story for a main point, make it image-rich or otherwise punchy and memorable, and let that be the ending for your article.
Four more (quick) things:
Sentence length: The sentences in the quotations are five or fewer words in most cases. The longest is 11 words. The longest full quotation (the kicker, in this case) is just 25 words in total, taking up less than two lines across the page.
Contrast that with most press releases, Quotes are usually 80 words long, and each sentence alone often takes up two lines across the page.
Why: The central premise of the story answers the question “why,” which you’ve heard me say is the most important question of all questions (why, why it matters, why care, why now, so what) -- certainly leaps and bounds more important than who, what, where, when and how.
Starts in the middle: The first line is a hook (see just below) that meets almost all of the criteria in the Compelling Content class. It starts in the middle of the action, not with the chronological beginning, an introduction or background.

In the first three words, bam! You are already smack-dab in the heart of the story before you’ve even finished reading the first line across the page.
“Nut graf”: The second paragraph wraps everything up in a nut shell and answers the question: “Why read this story and why read it now?” 

You could stop after the second graf, walk away without finishing, accurately know the gist and purpose of the article, and be well enough informed to join the conversation when the topic comes up during your lunch break.
A diminutive flight attendant carried injured passengers piggyback to safety while two passengers worked to free another flight attendant pinned by an inflated emergency slide, all racing to escape Asiana Airlines Flight 214 minutes before it burst into flames.
Such quick-thinking heroics in the minutes after the plane's spectacular crash at San Francisco International Airport, combined with technological enhancements in recent years that have made jetliner accidents more survivable, likely prevented Saturday's disaster from being far more deadly, experts said.
The full article is below for your convenience. Or click on this link to read it at WSJ.
****

July 7, 2013

Why the San Francisco Plane Crash Wasn't More Deadly

Quick-Thinking Heroics, Air-Safety Gains Kept Death Toll Low


By REBECCA SMITH, JON OSTROWER, ANDY PASZTOR

A diminutive flight attendant carried injured passengers piggyback to safety while two passengers worked to free another flight attendant pinned by an inflated emergency slide, all racing to escape Asiana Airlines Flight 214 minutes before it burst into flames.
Such quick-thinking heroics in the minutes after the plane's spectacular crash at San Francisco International Airport, combined with technological enhancements in recent years that have made jetliner accidents more survivable, likely prevented Saturday's disaster from being far more deadly, experts said.
Broken Landing
The crash left pieces of the BoeingBA +0.23% 777 strewn about the airfield and triggered a fire that burned away much of the plane's roof. Of the 307 passengers and crew aboard the flight from Seoul, two died, both 16-year-old girls from among a Chinese group of students and teachers headed to the U.S. for precollege exchange programs. More than 180 others were taken to hospitals with injuries. Two local hospitals listed 30 people still admitted as of Sunday afternoon, eight of which were in critical condition and two paralyzed.
The crash occurred with little warning for passengers. Eugene Anthony Rah, a frequent flier on Asiana who was sitting in business class, said he noticed the plane was approaching too low over San Francisco Bay, then he heard an engine noise that made him think the pilot was trying to gain elevation.
"We hit hard and bounced up. People were screaming," he recalled. The plane seemed to careen out of control, skidding sideways, before stopping. Then there was "total silence," he said.
Mr. Rah noticed that an evacuation slide had inflated inside the plane, pinning a flight attendant against the interior cabin wall. He and another passenger tried to free the attendant, looking for something sharp with which to puncture the slide. Another passenger eventually found a way to let the air out of the slide. Mr. Rah said he has been in touch with the flight attendant's husband, who said she sustained serious injuries but is improving.
The captain soon started screaming on the loudspeaker for everyone to evacuate. As other passengers began exiting the plane and emergency crews arrived, Mr. Rah saw another flight attendant, whose name he gave as Jiyeon Kim, carrying injured passengers down the aisle to get them off the plane.
"She was a hero," he said. "This tiny, little girl was carrying people piggyback, running everywhere, with tears running down her face. She was crying, but she was still so calm and helping people."
Meanwhile, San Francisco police officers at the scene had entered the plane from near the back and made their way to the front, amid worsening smoke, said Lyn Tomioka, deputy chief at the San Francisco Police Department. When they got to the front, male crew members trying to help passengers called out for knives, and the officers tossed their own knives to the men to help them cut seat belts off passengers who were struggling to get out, Ms. Tomioka said.
Aviation-safety experts said the human toll of the crash was almost certainly reduced by efforts of jet makers, airlines and regulators to reduce the deadliness of air accidents—from the use of flame-retardant materials and new seats designed to withstand tremendous force, to changes in areas such as crew training.
The Asiana crash "is the culmination of what has been done over more than 20 years to help more and more passengers survive crashes," according to Kevin Hiatt, president and chief executive of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group in Alexandria, Va., that advocates for safety improvements world-wide.
Regulators in the late 1980s mandated all-new passenger planes must have seats able to withstand stronger impacts than in the past—practices that the Federal Aviation Administration ordered in 2005 be applied to nearly all passenger planes by October 2009. As part of those rules, seats on jetliners must be able in tests to survive collisions that slam them forward at 16 times the force of gravity, or 16g, to ensure the seats don't collapse or detach from the floor. A Boeing spokesman said the company has been delivering all its jets with 16g-rated seats since 2009.
Before the advent of such stronger seats, Mr. Hiatt said, the intense vertical and horizontal force generated by a crash like Saturday's "would have caused many more seats to break free and pancake into each other, probably blocking exit paths."
Mr. Hiatt also said improved fire-resistant materials used on seats and other parts of the cabin "likely helped the fire from intensifying so quickly."
Enhanced crew training also has made a significant difference. Cabin crews train to evacuate passengers in chaotic and unpredictable circumstances, including being unsure which exits are safe to use. Airplanes are designed to be evacuated in just 90 seconds, even when half the doors and escape slides are inoperative or unavailable.
Other factors helped limit the toll of Saturday's accident. Because the plane was landing, its speed was relatively slow, reducing the force with which it crashed. Rescue crews used cutting-edge nozzles, equipped with cameras, attached to the end of hoses. Firefighters were able to maneuver those nozzles directly inside the cabin and aim the spray at the most dangerous hot spots. In addition, some crews had equipment able to pierce the plane's aluminum fuselage to gain better access to the fire.
Other high-profile crashes in recent years have also seen many passengers escape alive. Everyone survived a 2008 Continental Airlines flight that veered off a Denver runway in high winds, splitting the body of the jet in two. Two passengers died in August 2010 when an Aires Boeing 737 landed short in bad weather at a Caribbean island, also splitting the passenger cabin into pieces. In April, a newly delivered Lion Air Boeing 737 crashed in poor visibility short of a runway in Bali, Indonesia; all 108 people aboard survived.
In San Francisco, "everyone was fortunate that the fire didn't start immediately, so it gave passengers time to scramble out of the plane," said Michael Barr, who teaches air-safety courses at the University of Southern California.
"I'm just grateful I survived," said Mr. Rah, the passenger. "I was 99.9% sure I was going to die. I was hoping for a 0.1% miracle, and I got it."
—Vauhini Vara, Daniel Michaels, Ben Kesling and William Harless contributed to this article.
Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com, Jon Ostrower atjon.ostrower@wsj.com and Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared July 8, 2013, on page A6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Heroics and Air-Safety Gains Kept Toll Low.