Candid with Carr: ‘Best stories feature people with the least power in society’

Recently, I had the chance to sit down and chat over the phone with Sarah Carr, a prolific writer in matters of education.

We delved into the specifics of an article she wrote in December 2012 for the Atlantic magazine, titled “In Southern Towns, ‘Segregation Academies’ Are Still Going Strong.”

“The piece is about the persistence of so-called segregation academies in communities in the South, particularly in Mississippi, particularly in the Delta in a town called Indianola,” Carr said.

Although evolved from the days of segregation, Carr said that a complex dynamic persisted in Indianola, Mississippi. The majority of white students attend the local private academy while public schools are comprised of nearly all black students.

“I had never heard of segregation academies before I did the story,” she said.

At the time the story was written, Carr was living and working in New Orleans. She frequently traveled to the Mississippi Delta to report on education.

In her initial trip to Indianola, Mississippi, her mission was to gather story ideas. That’s when the concept of segregation academies emerged, but she was also writing other stories and finishing up her book “Hope Against Hope” about educational changes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

For the record, Carr did not shamelessly plug her book during the interview. I think it’s wonderful that she is a published book author and wanted to share this fact.

“It kind of unfolded over several months,” she said. “But I was working on other projects during that time period as well.”

Carr said that she “chipped away” at the specifics with data and ended up scheduling a follow up trip to Indianola “to really focus on this story.”

The story, she said, was created from two basic elements of reporting: the data and the people. The data helped her form a loose definition of segregation academies — those private schools that were founded between 1964 and 1972 with black students comprising fewer than 10 percent of the student population. She said she found schools through a search on the National Center for Education Statistics with fewer than two black students and dozens in total with a 90 to 100 percent white student population.

The perspectives of people living in Indianola, though, gave the story life.

“I interviewed a bunch of people, a bunch more than were reported in the story,” she said.

Carr said the narratives of black and white families from the town was most evident in the dichotomy between the, then-and-now, mayor Steve Rosenthal and resident Hury Minniefield. White families embraced the notion that the public schools provided a poor quality of education, so they choose to send their children to Indianola Academy. Minniefield said that these academies still exist because of the continuance of racism.

Carr said that it’s important to listen to the issues coming from different people when writing a story like this.

She also acknowledges the challenges of reporting a “complicated, nuanced story” without being from the region.

“I’m not from Indianola. I’m not from Mississippi. I’m not from the South,” she said.

Indianola, Mississippi is located in Sunflower County.

She said this sort of journalistic task of writing about an unfamiliar place always carries a risk, but she tries to overcome this by writing in a thoughtful way.

In my opinion, Carr accomplishes what she set out to do, admirably. It is evident in her writing the attention and care she used to craft the piece, ultimately creating a distinct impression of conditions in Indianola by visiting the story at all possible angles.

Although she stands by the piece, Carr said if she could do it over again, she would spend another couple of weeks in Indianola. She said there might have been other “shades of grey and nuances” that could have surfaced.

Despite the complexity of the issue, when the story came out, it was widely shared on Facebook and received lots of positive responses — especially by people living in Indianola who may not have been interviewed or by people originally from the city that may have moved.

From what she remembers, Carr said people thought it was a “powerful and compelling story.”

“This was the overwhelming response,” she said.

Carr said she first began as a writer because of her love of fiction, which spurred her thoughts about humanity and the makeups of a good story.

She said she admires journalists who write about social justice issues with compassion and noted Katherine Boo, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc — all of whom have written about race and inequality in the U.S.

As far as advice goes for people who want to follow in the footsteps of Boo, Hannah-Jones and LeBlanc (and Carr), she said it’s never too early to start. Carr said you don’t have to get a job at the New York Times to do this kind of journalism. It can be accomplished at school, weekly or daily newspapers, she said.

Carr said to beware of the laziness that sets in for many journalists who do the bulk of their interviews over email, over the Internet or over the phone.

“Keep focus on, when you can, going out and meeting people in person, she said.

And the last bit of advice she imparted to me was probably the most significant.

“The best stories feature people with the least power in society,” she said. “Keep focus on hearing their stories and including their voices.”

Carr has been reporting on education issues for 14 years. She now leads a reporting fellowship at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism called The Teacher Project and serves as a contributing editor for the Hechinger Report.

Conner Wood is a senior journalism major at the Center for Collaborative Journalism. She will be working with Teach for America in a North Carolina school after graduation.