How I ... wrote the story
A reporter tells her own story in weight-loss series

In a widely praised series on weight-loss surgery, Scholar Maria Montoya found a key to reporting drama and emotion: She told her own story. Here is how.

By Maria Montoya
Reporter
The Times-Picayune, New Orleans

Posted: July 11, 2003

Maria’s project
Maria’s diaries

By Kathy Anderson, © The Times-Picayune Maria Montoya and fiancé Don Weaver. Montoya's relationship with Weaver influenced her weight-loss efforts.

We tell other people's stories every day of the year. But every once in a while, we find that our own lives are worthy of the telling.

Such was the case for me last Summer when I embarked on a journey to undergo weight-loss surgery. As I researched the subject, I contemplated the possibility of sharing my experiences with our readers. By doing so, I thought I would be able to personalize the obesity epidemic.

Never did I realize just how much of an impact my words would have.

From the start of the project, my goal was to cover every part of the emotional, financial, physical and sociological challenges that patients of weight-loss surgery face. In addition to finding subjects to share their stories, I knew I wanted to capture the complexity surrounding obesity through my own journal entries.

When I presented the idea for the series to my editor, he suggested we focus primarily on my own struggles to lose weight. To me, however, there was a bigger story to be told.

My editor trusted my instincts. He allowed me the freedom to explore all of it in five days' worth of stories, which included a cross-section of individuals at different phases in their battles with weight.

Along the way, there were many moments when I doubted that I could achieve my goal.

Night after night, I thought to myself, “Am I being fair and unbiased in my reporting? Is it right of me to be so open with so many people? And will anyone even care about the lives of those I am writing about, or, better yet, my own life?”

It took me nine months to report “Drastic Measures." Never once did I stop questioning myself.

In a strange way, I believe that my self-doubt and fears of bias in my reporting kept me on my toes. As I interviewed subject after subject, I found myself trying to come at the issues from different perspectives.

How will a thin person view this 689-pound woman? What will the thin person want and need to know?

And finally, I asked myself over and over, “How can I illustrate the scope of this epidemic to someone who never has known an obese person or suffered weight problems themselves?”

In the diaries I kept, I wanted to be sure readers felt as if they were going through the process with me. That meant details. My editors and I were then able to divide the entries in a way that made them fit with each day’s theme. The key to the diaries was my writing down every detail at the time. As the year progressed, I was able to weed out what in retrospect seemed less important.

In my first-read through of the diaries, I answered all my concerns about being so public about my journey.

I discovered something important: Even if the journals didn’t help anyone else, they had helped me, both as a writer and as a person.

As a journalist, the entries forced me to focus on details. More personally, the diaries allowed me to understand, for the first time, how much I had endured in my short life.

As for the writing in the rest of the series, I am just as proud. When I was an apprentice at USA TODAY after graduation, my longest story was 12 inches. In "Drastic Measures," the Day One lead story -- without sidebars -- was 300-some inches long.

The five-part series ran on the cover of our Living section April 6-10, 2003. In the first month after it ran, I received more than 250 e-mails and phone calls from readers. Only four were negative.

Readers from across the country, many of whom were in town for the Final Four and the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ convention, said they were “astounded” and “proud” to see The Times-Picayune write about the subject. I am particularly proud of the feedback I got from the local medical community and from national health-care officials.

One doctor wrote, “I’ve never seen such a detailed, more even-handed presentation of both the risks and the benefits of obesity surgery anywhere in my 30-year career as a surgeon. I congratulate you, your photographer, and all the others on the newspaper staff who have personalized the plight of the morbidly obese for all your readers to understand.”

At this stage in my short career, I have no regrets about the series. I was fortunate to work with a group of editors and copy editors who were incredibly sensitive about the personal nature of the series. Not one graphic, photo or word went into the project that I didn’t review at least a dozen times. Their patience and long hours of dedication are, in essence, what kept me going on many of those late nights.

I would not do one thing differently.

My advice to Chipsters wanting to take on their first big project or first-person piece: Forge ahead. There always is room for another voice.

Maria Montoya was a 1999 Scholar at The Greenville (S.C.) News. Reach her at mmontoya@timespicayune.com.

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