Ask the Editor: The power of storytelling

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, April 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

On Monday, WORLD’s Lynn Vincent told the story of the slow-motion death of Terri Schiavo. In 2005, her case sparked a furious national debate about the so-called “right to die” and the value of human life—a debate that continues today.

BROWN: To mark the twentieth anniversary of Schiavo’s death, we’re re-releasing Lawless, WORLD’s two-season podcast series about the case. That starts tomorrow.

Today, WORLD editor in chief Les Sillars will discuss some of the feedback we’ve received already. Here is Ask the Editor.

LES SILLARS: The last episode of Lawless aired in 2023, and listeners were still commenting on it a year later. One called the series “thoughtful and professional journalism.” He added that the story helped him value life, be a better citizen, and in his words “glorify God in how I think about and respond to these issues.”

Thank you. That’s so encouraging.

But one young listener let us know this week that she wasn’t comfortable with Monday’s account of Schiavo’s death in History Book.

JOSIE: Hi, my name is Josie and I’m nine years old, and the segment about Terri Schiavo scared me a bit.

Well, yes, I can see how Josie found it a little scary. We described Schiavo in her last moments as resembling an Auschwitz prisoner, and included some physical details.

As a grandfather myself, I understand. We know kids often listen with their parents. We’ll continue to offer warnings at the start of segments about difficult subjects.

And we are certainly not trying to frighten small children on this program. But we are here to tell compelling stories. I often quote to my journalism students a line from a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer: “If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips your heart out—that’s a good picture.”

I love the quote, but it’s not exactly right. Truly great stories are much more than emotionally compelling. But they’re not less.

At WORLD we don’t sensationalize and we avoid explicit details. But details matter. Schiavo’s death was horrible, and if our story doesn’t show our listeners that reality, then we have failed as storytellers. Her death might shock us. It might make us angry or sad. But we’re not afraid, because we know God is sovereign and Christ will one day return to set everything right.

And while we wait, we will keep telling stories. They’re incredibly important. Stories help us figure out who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. We all experience life as a story. So we make choices, that lead to consequences, that lead to more choices.

We live out our stories in the context of the stories going on around us. The stories of our family. Our community. Our nation. Our culture. And ultimately God’s Great Story: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration.

The job of the storyteller, then, is to tell the stories that help people orient themselves to these larger stories. They give our lives context. Meaning. Purpose. They tell us what kind of a people we are and what kind of a culture we live in. We know who we are because we hear and tell stories.

Stories don’t tell us what to do. But we need them to know how to live. As the philosopher Alisdair MacIntyre observed, and I paraphrase, you can’t know what you’re supposed to do until you know what stories you’re part of.

And that’s why, Lord willing, we intend to keep telling stories like Terri Schiavo’s. They won’t always be hard, like Terri’s. Some will be inspiring. Or tragic or joyful or infuriating or sad. I hope at least a few will be hilarious. We’ll be careful, and we’ll let you know in advance if it’s unsuitable for kids. We want to help you, as our Lawless listener put it, “glorify God in how I think about and respond to these issues.”

If you have a question for Ask the Editor, I’d love to hear from you. Send an email or voice message to Les@wng.org That’s L-E-S @wng.org

And one more favor: if you hear a good story on this program, would you mind sharing it with a friend or two? If you’ve never tried, it’s really easy to do on your podcast app.

Thanks for listening. I’m Les Sillars.

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