The superhero investigative journalist
How multimedia storytelling will let us try on Spiderman’s suit
My son, Carmi, is crazy about Spiderman. In the morning, before heading out to kindergarten, he pleads with me to let him watch a short Spiderman video on YouTube. On the way to kindergarten, while pedaling his bike, Carmi wears a Spiderman helmet, imagining he’s the red superhero. And at the end of the day, before bedtime, we read a story about this same imaginary character. The superhero industry manages to tell versions of the exact same story — across continents, cultures, languages and types of media: a superhero with exceptional imaginary abilities saves the world.
Can investigative, documentary journalism tell a Spiderman story? Not in the superhero sense, but rather in its ability to tell one big, deep, significant story in different languages, and, most importantly, through various media platforms, increasing the audience, the story’s impact and the profits from one journalistic project?
I’m an Israeli docu-investigative journalist, telling my stories in various media. When I started my career 20 years ago in print journalism, I told stories in one way — through newspaper articles. I fell in love with the written word. I believed then that I would do this for the rest of my life. But after seven years of writing, I transitioned to television. The words of my investigative reports were replaced by video shots and audio recordings. Once again, I told an investigative documentary story in one way only — this time, the TV way. Four years after I transitioned to TV, the first winds of change started to blow. I missed writing and decided to start working on a nonfiction book. Three years of deep research later, my debut book, Ze’elim — The Trauma of Sayeret Matkal, was published. It was about the secret Israeli ambitious plot to assassinate Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and the disastrous consequences of a terrible accident that happened during the final training for the operation.
Since my day job was still in television, I decided to translate my book into a full-length documentary film. This way, I thought, I can take advantage of the TV platform and get much more impact out of the demanding investigative effort I had invested in the book.
My two-part documentary was broadcast on primetime TV in Israel. It received high ratings, and had great public impact. Many more people watched the film than read the book, although the book itself was a bestseller. For the first time, I realized how by telling a story across media, a given journalistic effort could achieve more: more consumers, more impact, more revenue. Four years went by, and I understood the potential even better. My second nonfiction book, Catching a Murderer, told the story of my seven-year detective-journalistic journey that led to the conviction of a double murderer, which was developed out of my TV investigation documentaries. I converted the story into a lecture, a successful theater play, and a TV documentary series, which we’re developing for Viacom, a global entertainment content company. Now, not only will a story of mine be distributed across various types of media, but it might be told in a different language than my native Hebrew, and in a different country than my own.
My pivot occurred about two months into my John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. I was about to start working on a seemingly interesting project, but I was surprised how fast my horizon was being broadened on this campus and in this fellowship. I realized that my passion was leading me to create something bigger. A campus walk with another JSK Fellow spawned a futuristic idea: to develop a model for a “content house” specializing in investigative documentary journalism, which can tell an epic, deep story across various media platforms, different countries and different forms (fiction/nonfiction), fulfilling the story’s potential for drawing consumers, impact and revenue. In today’s world of instant and short attention I realized the virtue of careful, deep journalistic storytelling and the impact it can bring to society.
However, to maintain high-quality journalism, the venture needs financial independence. Therefore, my vision is not of another production company, but rather a profitable, quality content incubator based on true journalistic values. Its expertise will be in conducting deep research and translating the outcome into as many media products as possible, in many different parts of the world. This platform will give its journalists and creators two significant advantages:
1. Journalistic independence: the ability to work deeply on robust, significant, influential projects on a national and international level.
2. Economic independence: the ability to make a living with dignity and well-being, from the creation of meaningful content.
There are a number of big challenges this model would face, and it might not be easy or fast. But my long time storytelling experience in Israel has given me the confidence in the basic human thirst for quality stories and content. This demand crosses ages and cultures, and it is expressed these days by the ongoing tough competition for content between streaming companies.
How do I proceed from here? There is a long bumpy road in front of me: I have to define more precisely the exact vision, develop a realistic business model, think of possible journalistic projects to begin (they will have to be selected carefully to sustain the multimedia and cross countries standards), build an A-team to execute this vision, learn the distribution system for international storytelling production (television, both fiction and nonfiction, books, talks, etc.), and, last but not least, find potential investors who believe in the power of content in a journalistic framework and in the potential to translate it to different media platforms.
If I figure all of that out, an investigative documentary journalist might be able to try on Spiderman’s red suit. I’m not sure it will make him fly, but he might reach a much bigger audience, be more influential, and make a fair living out of his deep journalistic effort.
If you are interested in knowing more about this idea, or have thoughts for me, please reach out to me at omria@stanford.edu
