![Six Steps to Sundance
1. Two-time Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Nick Kristof holds a contest called Win A Trip, giving a young person the chance to come with him on a whirlwind reporting trip to Africa
2. Kristof chooses Will Okun, a Chicago teacher and, on the side, a writer/still photographer, and medical student Leana Wen to accompany him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo
3. In the Congo, Kristof tries to push past the statistics and tell individuals’ stories [5.4 million people have died there over the last decade]. He visits ravaged villages, displacement camps, and even the jungle hideout of a warlord
4. Filmmaker Eric Daniel Metzgar makes a documentary about the trip (meta?), called REPORTER
5. In following Kristof, the filmmaker becomes suspicious of the columnists’s detached approach to covering the Congo (questions: how do you cover death regularly and stay human? How do you move from one individual’s story to the next when each tale is so harrowing and demands infinite attention? How do you deem one person’s story as not sad or grotesque enough to be re-told?). From the website:
“Why settle for just any story out there if I can find one that really will move people,” he said. “They’re out there; it’s just a matter of finding them.”
5. The film evolves into something big, revealing the struggle of human rights journalism to keep itself alive at a time when foreign bureaus are shrinking and readers are increasingly turning to opinion blogs and infotainment for their news fix. It also touches upon the interestingly scientific approach of human rights journalists: you’re in, you’re out; you find the worst stories of war crimes like rape and pillaging, take them back to your home country, publish, rinse and repeat; you do not cover anything but extreme circumstances because that is the only thing that has a chance at moving American readers to action.
6. Sundance!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/jKF4txcnbivs8rgwDrET3qX6o1_400.jpg)
Six Steps to Sundance
1. Two-time Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Nick Kristof holds a contest called Win A Trip, giving a young person the chance to come with him on a whirlwind reporting trip to Africa
2. Kristof chooses Will Okun, a Chicago teacher and, on the side, a writer/still photographer, and medical student Leana Wen to accompany him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo
3. In the Congo, Kristof tries to push past the statistics and tell individuals’ stories [5.4 million people have died there over the last decade]. He visits ravaged villages, displacement camps, and even the jungle hideout of a warlord
4. Filmmaker Eric Daniel Metzgar makes a documentary about the trip (meta?), called REPORTER
5. In following Kristof, the filmmaker becomes suspicious of the columnists’s detached approach to covering the Congo (questions: how do you cover death regularly and stay human? How do you move from one individual’s story to the next when each tale is so harrowing and demands infinite attention? How do you deem one person’s story as not sad or grotesque enough to be re-told?). From the website:
“Why settle for just any story out there if I can find one that really will move people,” he said. “They’re out there; it’s just a matter of finding them.”
5. The film evolves into something big, revealing the struggle of human rights journalism to keep itself alive at a time when foreign bureaus are shrinking and readers are increasingly turning to opinion blogs and infotainment for their news fix. It also touches upon the interestingly scientific approach of human rights journalists: you’re in, you’re out; you find the worst stories of war crimes like rape and pillaging, take them back to your home country, publish, rinse and repeat; you do not cover anything but extreme circumstances because that is the only thing that has a chance at moving American readers to action.
6. Sundance!
