When a reporter approaches me about a column I wrote on the lack of storytelling in T.V. journalism, I have some explaining to do. "Want to know why broadcast news still starts so many stories at the end ... tells you effect before cause ... is so hard to understand ... to remember?" "Sure," she says. "Let me tell you a story ..."

Over these past twelve years, MacInnes-Rae has proved with Dispatches that the ancient art of storytelling didn't die with Seven Days. And that for broadcasters, traditional storytelling is still by far the best, most efficient and effective way to pass on information, one person to another.

Want to know why -- once a news broadcast is over -- you can seldom remember a lot of what the T.V. and radio news anchors and reporters have just told you? It's not your fault. It's because most of them do a lousy job. Almost all broadcast journalists secretly believe that their real selves, their real personas, are inadequate for air.