A Look Behind The Clock

PRE

Georgia Kerrigan: There is a common complaint among journalists when they have a
story to get done on a tight deadline: “I just don’t have the time!”

Jessica Watts: After a busy quarter with stories being put on the back burner, we
decided it was time to crack down on this claim. For this special broadcast, we gave
reporters 24 hours to get a story done. On Thursday, November 14th, at 4 PM, 11
journalists began the one-day mission.

Kerrigan: We decided to document this 24-hour challenge along the way in an effort to
get the truth about what it’s like to make a package start to finish within a day.

[clock sound effect] https://youtu.be/iE7llzGzx_w?si=78I1F5LiKho-0l6e

Watts: When the clock struck 4:00, we began interviewing reporters to gauge how
everyone was feeling.
Kerrigan: Reporter Rachel Spears was in high spirits for her story with Ella Smith.

RACHEL SPEARS: I’m very confident right now. Catch me in a few hours? And
we’ll see. I’m very excited. I think the chaos will add to the excitement.

Watts: While we worried about how some reporters would fare under this time crunch,Spears is no stranger to procrastination.

GEORGIA KERRIGAN: Do you usually procrastinate?
SPEARS: Usually, yeah. So this activity is great for me.
KERRIGAN: Does it, does it work for you? Procrastination?

SPEARS: Sometimes. Like 50% of the time it works out and everything is fine.
And then other times it’s the most stressful few hours of my life.

Kerrigan: Meanwhile, Gabe Shumway and Edward Simon Cruz felt more wary of the
hours ahead: each of which they would be spending listening to the same 11-second
song, Row Row Row Your Boat, on a loop.

SHUMWAY: The video is 11 seconds and it will play…60 times 60, thats 3600
times 24 in an hour, times 24 864/11… we will be listening to it 7854.5 times.

Watts: Krishna Kumar, reporting with John Kowalski, sounded initially confident, but he
had some apprehension, too.

KRISHNA KUMAR: It shouldn’t be that hard. I hope not. I really hope not. Maybe I
jinxed it.

Kerrigan: While some teams decided to test their physical and mental limitations, Bazil
Frueh and Moriah Pettway took a different approach.

FRUEH: A lot of other people are doing a lot of like, endurance-based things. We
wanted to keep it lighthearted, throw a little of nostalgia have a little fun with it.

Watts: So, we begin our countdown with an oldie, but a goodie.

KERRIGAN: It seems like the 24 hours have started.

SHUMWAY: All right, let’s go play it.

[natural sound: “Row Row Row Your Boat” sung by John Kowalski]

DURING

[clock sound effect] https://youtu.be/iE7llzGzx_w?si=78I1F5LiKho-0l6e

Watts: After about 8 hours– or roughly two-thousand-six-hundred plays of “Row Row Row Your Boat–” we checked back in with the teams to see if anyone had changed their
tune.

Kerrigan: Here’s a behind-the-scenes listen about how our reporting teams fared as
time marched on.

Watts: When we checked in with Spears, the amateur procrastinator lucked out on her 50% odds of facing stress and chaos, but not without some challenges.

SPEARS: I did get rejected five times in a row for interviews which honestly
surprised me and it was like all in a row, but then everyone else so far has said yes.

WATTS: Is it easier or harder than you thought it would be going in?

SPEARS: Honestly, it’s easier.

Kerrigan: Luckily, a lot of our challengers felt this way. Shumway and Cruz found
themselves much less distracted than expected.

SHUMWAY: What I found is that I’ve been talking to myself while I’m walking out
loud instead of thinking in my head because when I’m talking out loud, it’s
helping me to drown out the music playing in my head rather than being in my
own thoughts.

CRUZ: I think because you can use it to either place it the background if you’re
talking with other people or kind of use it to your advantage and like, create a sort of rhythm like I did when I was like, at the gym or like doing or like doing routine
things, there are ways that you can adapt the kind of repetitive nature of the
music to make it work.
Watts: With reporters seemingly unphased by the imposed time restriction, we began to wonder why many still feel like they don’t have the time to complete pressing tasks.

Kerrigan: According to Ted-Ed, here’s what happens when we’re faced with a deadline.

JACK CUTMORE-SCOTT: Your brain responds like it would to any incoming
threat. Your amygdala, a set of neurons involved in emotional processing and threat identification, releases hormones including adrenaline that kick off a fear
response. And it’s in the midst of this fight, flight, or freeze response that you
decide to handle the threat by avoiding it in favor of some less stressful task.

Watts: So when we put off or back out of a story, does that make us lazy journalists?
Kerrigan: Not exactly.

CUTMORE-SCOTT: Procrastinators often report a high fear of failure, putting
things off because they’re afraid their work won’t live up to their high standards.
Kerrigan: By setting the intentional standard of procrastination for this special broadcast, rather than allowing it to be accidental, our reporters faced the idea that whatever they
did in 24 hours would be enough, because it had to be.
Watts: With that in mind, we left teams— and their high-alert amygdalas— to face the
inevitable: finishing their reporting, scriptwriting, and audio editing under the wire.

[clock chiming sound effect]

POST

[clock sound effect] https://youtu.be/iE7llzGzx_w?si=78I1F5LiKho-0l6e

Kerrigan: When the 24 hours were all said and done, our reporters were feeling the
relief of this challenge being over.

Watts: We did one final check-in to see how they were feeling.

KUMAR: I think it was a very fulfilling experience.

KOWALSKI: Yeah, it’ thriving. At least that’s my opinion.

KUMAR: Yeah, I agree. I think, I think doing it all so fast. It was, it was intense but
it was fun. It was rewarding.

Kerrigan: Some felt the benefits of working in pairs.

FRUEH: I often get in like, like writer’s block or like hit different roadblocks where
I’m like, I don’t really know how to word this correctly. But like having someone to
kind of just like push past those and like bounce creative ideas with made the process go really smooth and like we were able to finish it in one night.

Ella Smith: I’m really surprised that it didn’t take us that long. I think I was just
surprised by how fast Rachel was doing these interviews. By the time I started the audio editing and just like getting the interview clips together, she had already interviewed 12 people and then by the end of the night she’d interviewed
21.

Watts: And for arguably one of our most challenged teams, the night met almost none of
their original expectations.

CRUZ: I thought I was going to be more frazzled by now.

SHUMWAY: I feel like, honestly, the worst part of it was when I was in class last
night and I was so in my own head about it just because of the reactions of others. Like I had a feeling my parents were going to be like very like, don’t do this. But once they were like super chill about it, I was like, OK, like the people I
trusted, I’ve trusted with my safety for most of my life are, are generally thinking
this is not an issue.

Kerrigan: But finally, for one reporter, a long-held dream was finally realized.

SOPHIA CASA: I can finally, like, sleep a little better at night knowing that I took
advantage of this opportunity. Special broadcast helped me accomplish my dreams.

For WNUR News, I’m Georgia Kerrigan, and I’m Jessica Watts.