This document provides guidance on writing effective personality profiles. It discusses identifying good profile subjects and using defining moments, scenes, details and traits to reveal a person's character. The document outlines different profile structures, including chronological, broken narrative, and alternative formats. It emphasizes using timelines and context to frame the subject within their circumstances. The goal is to create compelling portraits of individuals through careful reporting and storytelling techniques.

1. Perfecting
Personality Profiles
Creating compelling business coverage
through compelling characters
By Jacqui Banaszynski

2. Yesterday
The WHY, WHO and WHAT of Profiles
• How personality profiles inform and elevate business
coverage
• How to identify good profile subjects
• The core characteristics of good profiles
• A range of profile types

3. Today
The HOW of Profiles
•
•
•
•
Access and sourcing of profiles
Best practices of reporting for profiles
Effective writing structures for profiles
Alternative profile approaches and structures

4. Response to homework
Photo by Flickr user thelittleone417

5. People are memorable
due to character
Deeds or actions
Signature traits
Words
Defining moments
… So, too, with businesses

6. Profiles are
not…
• Resumes
• Chronological life
biographies
• Lists of
employment or
accomplishments
• Q&A interviews

7. Effective profiles are character
revealed through…
DEFINING MOMENTS that demonstrate character,
value, motivation, style
SCENES that show people in place, time, culture and
situation; put people in context
Relevant and REVELATORY DETAIL that shows not
just what someone does but who someone is

8. Memorable
TRAITS,
DEEDS,
WORDS

9. Poll Question #1
About what percentage of business
leaders you seek to interview ask you to
submit questions in advance?

10. Poll Question #2
How many of the companies or businesses you
cover have a policy that prohibits employees
from talking to reporters?

11. Access & agreement
1. Know & ―sell‖ your purpose.
2. Don‘t be boring. (Do your homework; be fresh.)
3. Use leverage when needed & fair.
4. Bide your time / look for opportunity.
5. Show up and invest time.
6. Remember Negative Space profiles.
7. Use gurus, guides and intermediaries.

12. 1. Report for story
• Ask storyteller
questions
• Put subjects back in the
movie of their own life
• Report with all your
senses (including sixth
sense of
emotion/perception)
Photo by Flickr user gmilldrum

13. 2. Use frames
• Ask constructed
questions
• Day in life
• Defining moments
• Numbers and prompts
•
•
Photo by Flickr user Dave Morris
•
Five mistakes
Three proudest
moments
Best day/worst day

14. 3. Seek scenes
•
Choose scenes or moments that
reveal the essence of character
•
•
Interview and observe story
subjects in their ‗native habitat‘
•
Photo by Flickr user U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District
Follow people in action and
interaction
•
Place people in place that
reveals (home, office, outdoors,
factory, car)
Notice, ask about, use
surrounding artifacts or status
details (photos, art, jewelry,
clothes, collected treasures)

15. "Why I bought a house in
Detroit for $500"
by Drew Philp (BuzzFeed)
Scene reveals neighbor Paul Weertz
(Photo by Garrett MacLean)
All but two of the houses on the block
behind Forestdale are gone. Instead of
letting it slowly fill up with trash and
despair, Paul planted an orchard. In
the summer peaches and pears and
apples and plums grow on the trees,
and vegetables of every make and
model grow in the soil. Neighbors care
for bees and collect honey in autumn.
In the winter, Paul floods it to make a
backyard ice rink. He‘s still tinkering
with a homemade way to groom the
ice, and recently I found him back
there on his knees with a clothing iron
plugged into an extension cord, trying
to iron the ice smooth. That didn‘t
work. He‘ll figure something out
eventually.

16. “Inside 23andMe
Founder Anne
Wojcicki’s $99 DNA
Revolution”
by Elizabeth Murphy
(pseudonym), Fast Company
Every day, Wojcicki rides her
elliptical bike to the 23andMe
headquarters, in Mountain View.
She has no office there of her
own. Instead, she totes her laptop
over either to a red sofa near the
research department or a table in
the cafeteria, which is across
from the gym where her
employees gather every afternoon
for yoga, Pilates, or Crossfit.

17. 4. Compress backstory
• Resist temptation to
frontload
• Summarize the common
or clichéd
• Select with relevance and
discipline
• Let readers fill in the
blanks
Photo by Flickr user capsicina

18. Wojcicki grew up nearby, on the Stanford
University campus, where her father is a
renowned professor of physics. Her mother is a
high school journalism teacher. Both were
incredibly frugal. Her mother used to take her
and her two sisters to Sizzler and order two allyou-can-eat salad-bar plates, having the girls
rotate in the bathroom to avoid detection.
Inside 23andMe

19. "Meet New York’s first
family of tax evasion"
by Aaron Elstein,
Crain’s New York
Photo by Flickr user marsmett talahassee
The Seggerman kids also were
successful. Henry was a movie
producer who brought Crocodile
Dundee to American audiences;
Suzanne made documentaries with
Ken Burns; Yvonne ran a nonprofit
playhouse in Pawtucket, R.I., and
now tills the fields as an organic
farmer in the state; and brother
Edmund was an adviser to John
and Lincoln Chafee when they were
U.S. senators. He is now a real
estate agent.

20. "Refugee tries to lock
up a two-wheel lifeline"
by Leonora LaPeter Anton,
Tampa Bay Times
Photo by Edmund Fountain
She reviewed his paperwork.
Refugee from Liberia. Victim of
torture. No income.
…
Larry sat there, wincing as pain
shot up his shoulder. It still hurt
— five years after coming to the
United States — from the way his
Liberian captors had tied his
arms behind his back. He
pointed to a scar on his head
where they'd shot him.

21. 5. Report parallel
timelines
•
•
•
Photo by Flickr user Marchin Wichary
Standard lifeline or bio
Defining-moment timeline
History, culture, political,
social, economic timeline

22. “From ordinary girl to
international icon”
(Terry Schiavo obituary)
By Kelley Benham,
Tampa Bay Times
―Before the prayer warriors
massed outside her window,
before gavels pounded in six
courts, before the Vatican issued
a statement, before the president
signed a midnight law and the
Supreme Court turned its head,
Terri Schiavo was just an
ordinary girl, with two
overweight cats, an unglamorous
job and a typical American life…‖

23. Timeline reporting
Standard lifeline
or bio
•1952: Born
•1970: Graduated high school
•1974: Graduated college
•1974: First job
•1975: First award (not a loser)
•1976/78: New jobs
•1981:Got to metro paper
•1984: Found home at Pioneer Press
•1986: Finalist for Pulitzer
•1988: Pulitzer
•2000: Begin teaching
•2005: Leave newspapers
Defining-moment
timeline
•1966: Summer camp
•1968: First love/ ambition v.
passion
•1970: New love couldn‘t last
•1973: Internship Wall St. Journal
•1978: West Coast/ life love
•1983: Gay rights movement/AIDS
•1985: Go overseas
•1986: Brother is killed
•1994: Return to West Coast
•2007s: Mother‘s dementia
•2008: Lose savings

24. Timeline reporting
Defining-moment
timeline
History/context
timeline
•1966: Summer camp
•1968: First love/ climbed water tower
•1970: New love couldn‘t last
•1973: Internship Wall St. Journal
•1978: West Coast/ life love
•1983: Gay rights movement/AIDS
•1985: Go overseas
•1987: Meet Dick & Bert
•1991: Leave of absence to teach
•1996: Brother is killed
•2002: China trips begin
•2005: Leave newsroom/mother‘s
illness
•2008: Lose savings
•1952: Post WWII/Red scare
•1960s: Beatles, hippies, Woodstock
•1972: Title IX, Roe v. Wade
•1974: Vietnam War, Nixon resigns
•Late 1970s: Women‘s movement
•Early 1980s: Environmental
movement, recession, HIV/AIDS
•1980s AIDS crisis
•1990s: Globalization, dot-com boom
•2000s: Dot-com, real estate bust
•2001: 9/11
•2010s: International chaos/ religious
conflict/ who knows?

25. PROFILE
STRUCTURES
Timelines are essential to structure –
but should not be a prison or a crutch.

26. 1. Topper with chronology
• Engaging scene, anecdotal or newsy lede
• Summary ―nut‖ that anchors purpose of profile
(newsworthiness, issue at play, etc.)
• Chronological rest-of-story
• PROS: Easy to write, easy to read, fast
• CONS: If too long, can read ―tired‖ and predictable
• KEY: Be selective about chrono moments; pace the
piece to move through history. Minimize
transitions
• REMEMBER: Use bio-boxes for checklist info

27. LEDE: Scene, anecdote, vignette, moment
Foreshadows subject and purpose
SUMMARY NUT
Who is the person
Why being profiled
Back to
beginning
Next significant event
Next
Next
KICKER: End with the NOW or what might come next

28. 2. Broken narrative
WEAVE NARRATIVE (movement, action,
scene, detail, character)
WITH EXPOSITION (context, backstory,
significance, nut material)
3/2 or VARIATION

29. Introduce character,
scene, moment, vignette
EXPOSITION / BACKSTORY / CONTEXT / NUT
Put character in context of issue they illustrate or news they are part of
RETURN TO NARRATIVE
Scene: in the moment or reconstructed
Chose scene or description to reinforce focus
EXPOSITION / BACKSTORY / CONTEXT
Another aspect of the news or issue
END NARRATIVE
Last scene anchoring character

30. 3. Wall Street Journal
marries Broken Narrative
• Think cinematically: think in scenes (or chapters)
• Chapters (sections) for scenes, topics or a combo of both
• Vary size and pacing and voice of chapters
• Can bend time and introduce additional characters and issues
• Remember to return to main character

31. LEDE
ELEGANT SUMMARY NUT / FORESHADOW
HINT OF NEWS OR CONTEXT
SEGUE
SET UP STORY
CHAPTER OR SCENE
EXPOSITION OR BACKSTORY OR BRIDGE
CHAPTER OR SCENE
EXPOSITION OR BACKSTORY OR BRIDGE
CHAPTER OR SCENE
EXPOSITION OR BACKSTORY OR BRIDGE
LAST CHAPTER OR END
RETURN TO PRESENT OR CLOSE THE LOOP OR SET UP THE FUTURE

32. 4. Alternative or
formatted structures
•
•
•
•
Dewar‘s format
Timeline & map popouts
Effective Q&As
Profiles by the numbers

33. Profiles by the numbers of a
reporting/writing/teaching/
traveling career:
Jacqui
Banaszynski
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bylines
Inches of copy
Countries visited
Students taught
Miles in the air
Frequent-flier miles acquired
Nights away from home
Pens carried in purse
Dinners missed
Birthdays spent in odd places

34. Car Salesman
•
A car salesman in your
community has been
named businessman of
the year in a tough
economy.
•
WHAT NUMBERS
WOULD YOU PURSUE
FOR A BY-THENUMBERS PROFILE?
Photo by Flickr user David Defoe

35. 5. Dewar’s Profiles
• Legacy of ad campaign for Dewar‘s Scotch
Whisky
• Borrowed by other campaigns: Amex,
MasterCard's ―Priceless,‖ etc.
• Good for multiple subjects who are part of a
larger story
• Good for well-known people you need to
profile again
• Formatting is tight; reporting is deep
• Choice of prompts essential

36. •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Name
Age
Job
Family
Most important
accomplishment
Best adventure
Personality
Dream
Quote
Scotch: Dewar‘s

38. Brew-pub wars
• Three master beermeisters are operating
microbrew pubs in your
community. Each has
its own personality.
•
WHAT PROMPTS
WOULD YOU USE TO
DO DEWAR‘S
PROFILES OF EACH?

39. Homework
1. Read: “Inside 23andMe Founder Anne Wojcicki’s $99 DNA
Revolution.” Answer one of three questions.
2. Read: “Refugee tries to lock up a two-wheel lifeline.” Answer one of
three questions.
Please email your answers to:
Cassandra.Nicholson@businessjournalism.org
by 11:59 ET tonight, Feb. 6.

40. Questions?
banaszynskij@missouri.edu
Twitter: @jacquib
Slides, video, handouts,
homework at:
http://bit.ly/profiles2014
Photo by Flickr user Xurble