“Yeah, get in the truck and go.”
Those were the words that set Marc Ira Hooks in motion hours after floods devastated Texas’ Hill Country in July.
For decades, Hooks has been a storyteller. For some of those years in recent history, he carried his camera all over Europe to tell the stories of unreached people groups so that churches back in the U.S. could get to know them.
“The philosophy was that missions is an adventure,” said Hooks, who served as a media producer for the International Mission Board. “I was kind of the Rick Steves of missions; we would visit those places, and I’d be like, ‘Come on and follow me.’”
Two of those places were at the front lines of the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine and the subsequent Russian invasion.
‘Deeply personal’ journalism
And this summer, as he got the green light from The Baptist Paper staff to drive to Hill Country, he started to feel like this might be a similar situation.
“I thought, ‘This is going to take that kind of journalism,’ because of the nature of this story was not just the tremendous loss of life but the loss of life of children, which made it deeply personal to everyone,” Hooks said. “There was no way to convey that without a personal touch.”
The result was a series of raw, personal videos Hooks shared on The Baptist Paper’s social media accounts as he met people who had been affected by the floods. One of those videos went viral with more than 6 million views, according to Facebook’s analytics report. He returned in September at the two-month mark to see how folks were doing, and that was the birth of something new, a regular news and feature production called Marc Ira Hooks: Ground Level.
“The mission is simple,” Hooks said. “It’s to talk with real people, in real places — no studio required.”
He said someone described his videos as him sharing the news with them on FaceTime every day.
‘On the ground’ perspective
“The mainstream media outlets are already sharing the broad view — I’m not trying to compete with them,” Hooks said. “What I strive to do is to provide a perspective that is on the ground, first person, sending in interviews as I talk to people and trying to create a sense of immediacy and urgency but with a personal angle.”
In the coming months, he will be back out on the road covering breaking news and feature stories as full multimedia projects, including videos, still photography and in-depth articles.
“We’re going to be wanting audience interaction and audience ideas for what we should do next,” Hooks said.
Jennifer Davis Rash, editor-in-chief of The Baptist Paper, said she’s excited about where Ground Level will go from here.
“Marc has been a friend for a long time, and we’ve enjoyed working with him through the years,” she said. “His willingness to help us dig in and find our way with a new style of micro-video reporting online through social media channels will certainly boost our coverage and allow our readership to get to know Marc on a more personal level. We are still working out all the details but have no doubt that Marc will bring the energy needed to get this new effort off the ground.”
Follow The Baptist Paper on Facebook and X to see Ground Level content.
