20/20 - The After Show: In the Writer's Chair

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Who’s behind our can’t-look-away show opens and provides the narrative propulsion to each episode? Kim Powers, the show’s senior writer has written novels and screenplays and he delivers a masterclass in great television writing.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's that phrase at the end. It's a perfect button. You need this thing that sums it all up. That was my great writing lesson from Barbara Walters, from the great Barbara Walters. And we all have great stories from Barbara. I wrote something for her, an intro to something, and she goes, it needs a ta-da. It's Deborah Roberts, and today on 2020 After Show I am delighted I have the pleasure of introducing you to one of the people who makes 2020's secret sauce which is our powerful writing you'll understand the play there my friend and colleague Kim Powers our senior writer for the program hey Kim

powerful writing are us that's what we do. I'm so happy to be here. We have been in the trenches together all these years. And you and I always find ourselves just talking and yacking in the hallways and we talk about books and all kinds of things and that's relevant for first of all, you've been here 10 years at 2020, but 28 years at ABC. Disney gives out a little statuette

of some Disney character every five years. So by the time I've been here 30 years, I don't know what I'll get. I've got Simba, I've got Mickey Mouse, I've got Tinker Bell. Yeah, me too. You know, I want to be excited by whatever comes next. I know. Well, I'm about to hit 30 years, so I'll let you know. I feel like we started at about the same time. Close to the same time. I was low level in the trenches. We were definitely newbies here together. And you have written for some of the biggest in our business, of course, over the years.

I mean, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, most recently, of course, John Quinones, Robert Roberts, myself. Absolutely. And when we talk about writing, I mean, that is your passion clearly because you've written novels, you've written screenplays, you and I have talked about some of your books over the years.

What is it about writing that has just captivated you over the years? I think you can't be a writer unless you're a reader first. Reading was so important to me when I was a kid and I wasn't forced to do it. My mother was a teacher, but I don't think that had anything to do with it. I just wanted to read stories. I wanted to find out new things that happened. I wanted adventure and everything. And bit by bit, you know,

as you get opportunities through high school and college, just doing papers, I started writing. I was writing and it just grew into sort of a habit. I was doing a lot of work pre-ABC with other writers and there was a certain point when I thought I can do it as well as they can. I was reading a lot of scripts for different production companies etc. and I started doing some little rewrites and thought I can do this. Yeah, and you can and you do it well and you've written books. I mean I

read one of your books and actually wrote a little forward for rules for being dead. You've done so many different things, but what's so fascinating to me is how you've shifted, although you continue to write books, you shifted from Good Morning America where the writing is sort of pithy and quick. I mean, I contribute to Good Morning America a lot. And I know that my scripts have to be quick and tight

and to the point. And then 2020 which is a long-form program and you get a chance to kind of let things breathe and you know how do you switch gears like that in your mind? I love it the long form as we as we call the news magazines you know the the writers at Good Morning America before I worked there I thought what does a writer do? I literally thought the anchor, the correspondent comes on. That we wrote it all, not quite always. Not quite always.

Writing wise, you might put a backgrounder together, which might be a little 30, 40 second tape piece that sort of tells the story. So that's where I got a first taste of it. When I got up to primetime first and then 2020, it was like the heavens had opened. You know, I've been with 2020 so long, I've seen it go through, you know, the one hour show,

it used to be where there were three or four different stories in one hour. A variety of stories. A true magazine where you'd flip the page, come to a new story. To what we have now, which is the ultimate luxury, which is a two hour single story broadcast every Friday night. Which can be really compelling.

Can dig in deep, get all the details. God is in the details, is that writing phrase? But the details are what make a story come alive, really digging into the weeds there. And you've had to do that from the very beginning. When you started here, so you got kind of thrown right into the ocean right away when you started in, so you got kind of thrown right into the ocean, right away when you started in Good Morning America,

because one of the biggest stories in the country happened right after you started. Still remains one of the biggest stories in the country. I started as a freelancer between Christmas and New Year's of 1996. The big story breaking that week was the murder of Jean-Bernie Ramsey. Nobody even knew how to pronounce her name.

It was so foreign, like, Jean-Bernie, horrific story, but I guess we all sort of presumed it would be solved quickly. And of course, we still don't really have a solution to this very day. And it's ironic that it was true crime. With all the different varieties of topics that GMA touches on, my introduction would be true crime,

which is primarily what we do at 2020 now. So it's full circle. It's shifted, yeah, so certainly full circle. Well, Kim, when you think about what you bring to it, and you and I, I think both have talked about this too, that you're kind of informed by who you are. You grew up in the South, I grew up in the South. Does that sort of inform your writing?

Does that also kind of lead you to certain stories that really grab you in a way? I think, I'm gonna say this and immediately everybody will say, this is not true. But I think Southerners are natural born storytellers. There are these great, iconic, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, old fashioned sort of, but I think Eudora said,

if you're born a Southerner, you have a lifetime of material. So you just know what makes a story. And there's such an oral tradition of storytelling. You know, just sitting out on the porch, you learn how to work in all the drama and the suspense. And at the core, that's what we do every week on 2020. We have starts at A, ends at Z, hopefully where you've revealed the killer

and why they did it and explored all the psychology of the characters. But you have told this story with this huge palette at your fingertips. And at the end of the day, that's what it is. We tell stories, even if it's a quick, you know, crime story. Well, we're going to talk about the writing on 2020 and here's some examples. But the first thing I want to ask you about is the idea that when you're a writer on 2020, it's kind of invisible work, you're behind the scenes. People aren't gonna necessarily know who you are, I'm gonna read your words often,

so we're not reading a big long script, I mean, right? Yeah, I was still maybe naive enough or enough of a newbie that even when I, after all those 10 years at GMA, when I first came up to the magazines and I thought writing had to be me putting words on a page. I didn't understand that in, say these opens we'll talk about that get created, I'm figuring out the right structure to put them into that both tells enough of the story

to entice you, but leaves out enough to really make you come back after the commercial. Yeah, yeah, we wanna talk about that, which we call a tease. Well, one of the parts of the program that you play a big part in is our opens. And people wouldn't necessarily know that that is a major thing that you have

to sort of obsess about, something that is gonna get you all to wanna watch 2020. So let's take a listen to one of them and then you can tell me a little bit about what's going on. So let's listen. ["The Last Supper"] One family. Oh my God.

Possible 45. Two horrible tragedies. That's pretty dark stuff. At sea and on land. My father, he is in bed and someone shot him in the head. Do you remember what you noticed? First thing I thought is this crime scene is staged. Linda always felt that she deserved more than what she was getting because she and my dad

were always fighting heads. We've got no weapons, we've got no enemies, we know them. And no more details because she disappears. I told her not to go on that boat. So she went out of the way to give them information in case that something happened. Yes indeed. It's just getting wilder and wilder because in the middle of the ocean, nobody can hear you scream. Ooh, that was an episode called Family Lies.

Yeah, and I reported on this story most recently. A young man by the name of Nathan Carman and his grandfather had mysteriously died, his mom mysteriously died. And Kim, I gotta tell you, when I hear all of that, by the name of Nathan Carmen, and his grandfather had mysteriously died, his mom mysteriously died. And Kim, I gotta tell you, when I hear all of that, I mean, it makes me now really feel so proud of the way you're able to do this.

I mean, that whole, nobody can hear you scream in the ocean. Tell us about putting these things together. Just to pick off that word, that phrase at the end, it's a perfect button. You need this thing that sums it all up. That was my great writing lesson from Barbara Walters, from the great Barbara Walters.

And we all have great stories from Barbara. I wrote something for her, an intro to something, and she goes, it needs a ta-da. And I go, oh, okay. And then she wrote something, she goes, that's a ta-da. So I always know the button at the end of the open needs a ta-da. So that, you know, in the bottom of the ocean,

nobody can hear you scream. But that has so many different elements. Even just hearing it, you can hear so much of it. Because you hear your voice talking to these real people, you know, these people who had gone through a tragedy, people who had investigated a tragedy, detectives, you hear them talking, number one, you hear your questions to them,

you hear a lot of sea effects, so you know you're out on the water. At the very first, you hear a little bit of lapping of the sea, but within seconds, you hear, oh my God, and that immediately grabs you in, because you're just immediately into the reality of something and so there are a lot of things going on you know I think we once had some research that you have three seconds to grab somebody's

attention which is nothing yeah so you really have to be economical with you know with what you do with what we do with our sound and our natural sound and all of that we also want to show the viewer who the storyteller for that episode is. So whoever the correspondent is, in this case, the Nathan Carmen story, you, we want you very prominent out in the field. You know, viewers love to see that, you know,

we went to the ocean, we went to New England, whatever. So you're our tour guide through that open. Which is a big part of letting them know what's coming. Well, listen, when we come back, there are parts of the program that are written, but the writer's art is also making it sound like they're not. So we're going to talk about that right after this break. All right, we are back with 2020 senior writer, Kim Powers, who is talking to us about putting our programs together. Kim, one part of the program where the writers get very involved is what we call pages, when David Muir and I are both on camera, introing a piece or maybe finishing up our story.

Talk to us a little bit about it, because it's interesting, we call it pages. Nobody else would know what that means. And even I didn't know what it meant when I first started here. There's literally a rundown with page one through page 30, whatever, however many different elements are, roll in the tape piece, the intro, the outro,

each of those gets assigned a different page number. So it's just our shorthand. But somebody else would call it the intro, the outro. It's what the anchors say leading into the piece by and large. I like to call it the intro and the outro, myself. Well, David and I now, we're in this new studio downtown, a new building, and David and I are now up on the roof and we're sort of taking advantage

of a nighttime setting. Does that inspire your writing in any way? Well, it certainly fits our show because it's so, we used to be in a studio, as all of our viewers know. Now we're outside, way up high, I might add, which is a little scary for me. Like 18 stories or something. Yeah, little terrace, small space, cameras,

teleprompter, producers, et cetera. But it's great because it's nighttime and we're downtown, so it has a sort of hipper look. You see all the neon from the buildings, you see all the lights coming in from apartment buildings everywhere. If you're lucky, there's a little wispy cloud going by. So it fits the sort of mood and atmosphere

of a lot of the true crime shows we do. And it's got a new life to it. I would definitely say we look a little bit more hip. So when you're talking about these pages that we're doing, let's listen to some examples, because I'd love to hear you talk about what makes for a good page to you. Let's listen to some examples because I'd love to hear you talk about what makes for a good page to you. Let's listen. Two heartbroken sisters, a tearful goodbye and a verdict finally after eight long years

of investigations. And we should point out Deborah that after Fabio Semantelli's death, a scholarship in his name was established to help students in the beauty field hoping to follow in his footsteps. That is 2020 for tonight. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night. That's a short and sweet one, but it packs so much into that. This was a breaking news story.

The verdict in this case had literally happened the day we went on air. It tells you a bunch of things. You get the emotion coming out of the piece, you know, these two sisters saying goodbye. You find out how long this trial has been going on, eight years since the murder happened until this final verdict.

So you can imagine the length of time these people have had to endure waiting. And then, you know, you don't wanna leave people on a downer, so you get this little check mark of good news something good that came out of this that a scholarship has been established in this man's name that the legacy continues and it's been being passed on to students in his same line of business so you get a lot just tucked into what might be 15 or 20 seconds and I should say also too because of social media now too,

we actually address that and we make sure we kind of give a little shout out there. Well, one of the things we pay a lot of attention to on our program at 2020 is earning our viewers time because that's critical. So we want people to stick with us till the very end of the story. 2020 viewers are no doubt familiar with the little promos.

We call them promos sprinkled throughout our program about what's gonna happen next. And we call them teases, but it's really important when we're doing these stories. And you talked about it's a two hour program. And particularly at the end of that one hour, we want to make sure you come back or if somebody is new, just sort of joining us a little later, we'll come back. How do you work on that? I think at the core of any story is the question, what happens next? And certainly in murder mysteries or true crime or anything that ends up in a courtroom setting,

you want to know what happens next, who done it, et cetera. But I think even in things that are more human interest, that aren't in the genre of true crime or mystery, what happens to the human heart next? Why do people do what they do? So you want to keep that heartbeat going through the whole thing. You never want to give away too much information. You want to hold something back to keep people coming back out of the commercial. When I was at GMA, I would write teases for the whole show or bumpers, we sometimes called them.

So what was something that was so enticing that they just had to know the answer to? That's sort of the cliffhanger you would leave viewers with. And sometimes it's not the writing. It might be a little bit of an audio clip. Let's take a listen. No matter what the jury decides about her fate. Bring the jury in. Deity's about to tell us exactly what she thinks about it.

They didn't get to hear my side. They didn't get to see my evidence. They didn't get to hear my witnesses. Why didn't you take the stand then? Oh I would definitely come back for that. Yeah that was I remember that so well. With Matt Gutman. Matt Gutman a case of a a guy, incredible guy named Abraham Shakespeare who won $30 million in a lottery and was murdered, someone who wanted his money. And we got to the end of the show, pretty close to the end of the show, and the killer had come up against the jury. They were going to see if she's guilty or not.

And originally in a screening, we played it and it was, what will the jury decide? And I thought it was a little kind of perfunctory. We know the verdict's coming next, but what was also in the act coming up was this incredible interview that Matt does with this killer, as it turns out, in prison. So I thought it would be much more enticing to tease a little bit of that interview you're gonna see. And it really, that's what you hang on to, not what the verdict's gonna be, but like, oh, what are they gonna get into?

What are they gonna do? What are they gonna say? Yeah, I love that. Well, just to give people a little taste of how all of this comes together, we do what we call screenings of our episodes of 2020. And these can be marathon screenings, by the way, because we all get together either in the conference room or

Sometimes we're on the zoom board if you're not in or if I'm not in and we all along with Janice Johnston our executive producer and all of the other producers and senior producers involved with the story We all watch it and we make comments and we make this and you get a little testy every now and again if you don't really like what's being said. Just standing up for what I think. Standing up for your writing and all of that. And talk to us about why that's so important. I mean, to me, it can be some of the hardest work we do,

but it can also be some of the most rewarding because we move things around, we decide together as a group. I think it's valuable for a kid just coming into the business, you know, we have interns, I just think it would be such a great learning tool to see really how the sauce is made. We want to honor the victim and their loved ones. And we dissect everything, you know, from a particular line that you, Deborah, the correspondent might say, to a sound bite, one of our people in the story has, but especially these bumpers, that's what keeps you turning in. I think we also care so much about the moral center of it and what we're doing and care about the

people who are in the work that we're doing. Well, Kim, this has been really great. We need 25 more minutes. I know, I know. This has fled by. We didn't even get a chance to talk about the books that we're reading and all of that. That'll be another program another time. But Kim, it's such a pleasure to get a chance to catch up with you. And just before we're getting ready to go work on another one of our reports tonight. Absolutely.

Shooting some more pages. That's exactly right. Well, Kim Powers is our senior writer here on 2020. And you can hear more of his work, of course, Friday nights at 9 o'clock Eastern on 2020. The 2020 After Show is produced by Amira Williams, Cameron Chertavian, and Sasha Oselanian with Brian Mirzurski and Alex Berenfeld of 2020. Themed music by Evan Viola, Janis Johnston is the Executive Producer of 2020, Josh Cohen the Director of Podcasting at ABC Audio, and Laura Mayer is the Executive Producer.