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
Back Yard Dreams
Welcome to Higley Field, an old time ball park painstakingly recreated in Ed Simonton’s backyard. Neighbors gather to play the game of their youth. No. Not baseball. Wiffle ball. There are no umpires to bubble the blood. Catchers call balls and strikes and the majority determines who is safe or out. Higley Field is an attempt to catch what they don’t bottle these days. Here, folks can become legends in their spare time.
Catfish Whisperer
Whenever Herman Coussens wants fish, he just floats out on his farm pond and calls them for dinner — theirs and his. He doesn’t have to bait a hook. They come when this catfish whisperer calls.
Patients Run Doctor’s Office
Milt Siefert was running a bit late. His patient’s appointment was for 10:30. It was noon. But folks in Excelsior, Minnesota, have a way to correct poor service. Dr. Siefert formed a patient advisory council in 1974 and has been meeting regularly with the members ever since. They do more than gripe. His patients help set his fees. Even his salary. One year, he made less than a school teacher. But, that’s improving because patients now help him collect his bills.
Portraits on Tin
John Coffer turned his back on modern times to wander America in a wagon pulled by oxen, stopping only to take portraits with his antique camera. Coffer traveled at two and a half miles an hour for five years. 25 states. 10-thousand miles. He crisscrossed America so slowly, everywhere he went, folks joked he was a temporary resident. Coffer captured old fashioned images of modern America. https://youtu.be/V00r3nmtEZk
Nightmare Ranch
Jerry Owens surrounds himself with the sounds he likes to hear. Eating. He runs the Black Beauty Ranch, a place with a storybook name built from a nightmare. It is a haven for nearly 5-thousand animals each year. They are rescued from ghettos of neglect. There are burros pulled from the Grand Canyon. Goats from an island used for Navy bombing practice. And horses whose previous owners only fed them when they rode them. Owens is a one man army against cruelty, a Texas constable who figured long ago that people who hurt animals eventually will hurt people.
Smartest Football Team EVER
Down in the trenches of big time football, you don’t expect to find a brain trust. During the 1970’s and 80’s Nebraska had more academic all Americans than Stanford or Notre Dame or UCLA. The reason? Football players point to Ursala Walsh, who gave up life as a nun to teach the Cornhuskers how to study. How does a Dominican nun with 20 years experience become a football coach? She began back in the segregation days, checking out library books for black children. They were not allowed. She earned 3 masters degree and came to Nebraska looking for a PhD and a new way of life.
Roller Derby
A lot of us lead one life, but dream of another. By day, Jennifer Wilson is a scientist in Austin, Texas, studying water quality. At night, she becomes a meanie.
Her comic book alter ego tries to squash players like bugs. Jennifer is part of the fastest growing sport in America. All-girl roller derby leagues are sprouting up in cities big and small. 42 in just 5 years.
At the rink they get the chance to be something entirely different than they are in their daily lives. All of us wonder from time to time how the world would see us if we presented a different face. Roller derby women play not just for the love of the game, but for what it lets them become.
Small Town Singers with Big City Voices
We tend to think of classical music as big city music. Oh, there may be a snatch or two out in the country, but most often classical music is something big city folks bus to the boondocks on warm summer nights. That’s the image. In Brattleboro, Vermont, it is wrong. Some of the finest classical singers in America live in this village.
Human Jukebox
Have we ever said “Happy New” with such a sense of relief? Been a tough year. We all know what is, what ought to be. Few remain who remember what was. I recall a 1988 New Year celebration. It was a couple of beers before closing and the boys down at Brandy’s bar were lost on Memory Lane. John Sanderson was a bit fuzzy. He forgot the title of his favorite song. No problem today. Just ask Siri. Back then, Siri hadn’t been born yet. He had to rely on a human jukebox to help him find it.
Real Horse Power
Some farmers have been searching for a tractor that doesn’t need oil, a power source that could reproduce itself, was easy to repair and burn home grown fuel. Jim Gulbranson has a tractor that does all that and even fertilizes the soil. It’s called the horse. Gulbranson is part of a small, but growing number of farmers who quietly traded their tractors for plow horses. Nostalgia has nothing to do with it. Gulbranson can make more money farming with horses than he can with tractors. It takes him longer to do his work, but doesn’t have to pay the interest on a half million dollars worth of farm machinery or the mortgage for more land to make that machinery worthwhile. He has found that he can live as comfortably as his neighbor on a farm that is one sixth the size.
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