Bob Dotson
AMERICA’S STORYTELLER
Love my stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things? I’m donating Autographed Copies of this New York Times Best Seller to help maintain the American Story Video Archive at Syracuse University. All proceeds go to the archive.
Bob Dotson
America survives and thrives because of all those names we don’t know, seemingly ordinary people who do extraordinary things. I found them while crisscrossing the country, four million miles, practically non-stop, for half a century, searching for stories hiding in history’s shadow.
Telling tales on television is a bit like writing on smoke:
That’s why I saved these stories of us.
AMERICAN STORIES VIDEOS
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Stories Hiding in History’s Shadow
The Last Living
Heart Donor
Childhood should be a season of dreams, but some children awake each morning from an American nightmare. Clara Hale saved hundreds of them.
Success, Not Bought. Earned
Braeden Kirchner likes to conduct music with his eyes closed, so he can see his dream. The boy from Goose Creek, South Carolina, wanted to conduct the Boston Pops. Never mind that Braeden was just 18. To prepare for a career in conducting, he learned to play every instrument in the orchestra. He finally got his chance.
Orphan Train
“No one succeeds alone,” the old man with a faraway look told me. He pointed to a picture taken when he was a boy.
“I was a lonesome little fellow,” clutching a suitcase, waiting for a train.
America thrives on rugged individualism, but look more closely and you’ll see other hands that guide our success.
Want proof? Click on this story from so long ago, Tom Brokaw and I had color in our hair.
“The shortest distance between two people is a good story. Once you know someone’s story, you begin to see not just how you differ, but what you have in common.”
–Bob Dotson
NEW BOOK!!
THIRD EDITION
Make it Memorable, Writing and Packaging Visual News with Style
In Make It Memorable, former NBC News correspondent Bob Dotson and New York Times visual investigations producer Drew Jordan present a unique and engaging hands-on approach to the craft of visual storytelling. The third edition offers new insight for the digital age and a step-by-step explanation of how to find and create all kinds of visual stories under tight deadlines. In addition to new scripts annotated with behind-the-scenes insights and structural comments, the book includes links to online videos of all the story examples.
Recently Featured Stories
Navajo Photographer
Let’s relax with some beautiful scenery, courtesy of a Navajo photographer who shows us what we might miss, even standing next to him. LeRoy DeJolie grew up on a ranch, north of the Grand Canyon. All of his life, he has straddled two worlds. Now he teaches photography to young students and helps them see more deeply.
Kid App Testers
Zade Lobo sings like it’s closing time. The 8-year-old is testing a new computer app. Adults hover over him like a rock star. They want to know how to make this app so simple — even a grownup can understand.
Angels on My Roof
Rachel Johnson races the garbage men each morning. She makes a living on what they come to throw away.
America survives and thrives because of all those names we don’t know, seemingly ordinary people who do extraordinary things. They don’t run for president or go on talk shows, but without them, the best of America would not exist.
America’s Best Architect
Faye Jones was chosen one of the outstanding architects of the last century. He built his crowning achievement — a church — out of 2 by 4’s. The American Institute of Architects ranked his Thorncrown Chapel, deep in the Arkansas woods as the best building constructed since 1980. This web of pine and glass is so functional, so architecturally pure, the building would collapse if any one part were removed. His designs seem to be variations of the spectacular tree houses he built when he was a boy. One of them had a fireplace.
Jones laughed, “That fireplace was its undoing.”
But, build a better tree house, folks will find you and ask for another.
Picture Man
Few people in Cabbagetown know his name. He just showed up one Sunday and has seldom missed a Sunday since. They call him simply the “Picture Man.” He is not the first photographer to come here, but he is the first to give back something of himself. Each week he passes out hundreds of prints of the pictures he has taken. He pays for the prints himself. They are photos of feeling. Orion Catlege is partially blind.
Georgie Clark
The first person to ride the rapids through the Grand Canyon was a one arm Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell. He lashed himself to a 17 foot boat and plunged down the Colorado river in a rocking chair. For nearly a century only a handful of people dared to follow in his path. Then, came Georgie Clark. She opened the Colorado river to us all.
Papa Goose
Ever wonder what happens to birds who are too old to migrate? Gurney Crawford did. He built a place for them to land and singlehandedly diverted the flight path of Canada Geese. How did the geese say “thank you?”
Kid PhD
A budding Albert Einstein. Brilliant of course. But an humanitarian too. All at the tender age of 16. Andrew Soo was already working on his doctorate in Medical Research. He started early. His parents taught him to read at age 2. By 5 he was solving algebra problems. At 8 he entered High school. Finished a year later. At 12 he pushed his scooter to the University of Washington. Tutored honor students in science. His smarts brought him to campus, but charity got him admitted. The faculty was impressed by a foundation Andrew started in his spare time.
The Statue of Liberty Still Stands
I pursued many American dreams for the TODAY show, but this was a nightmare. We were suspended eighteen stories above New York Harbor on a thin metal ladder tilted between the pedestal and the big toe of the Statue of Liberty. She approached her Centennial riddled with rust. There are holes in her gown large enough to take pictures through. And that was what Peter B. Kaplan was doing. I was climbing with him. The odds were against me.
The Most Photographed Monument in the World
The Statue of Liberty has been buffeted with salt water and baked with sun. She approached her Centennial riddled with rust. There were holes in her gown large enough to take pictures through. And that is what Peter B. Kaplan was doing.
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