Category: News Decoder Tips

  • Cook up a news story

    Cook up a news story

    Writing is the easy part; everything that comes before that is what’s hard. 

    That’s what News Decoder founder Nelson Graves told us back in 2020. Five years later, with the prevalence of artificial intelligence, this seems more true, doesn’t it? After all, you can just tell AI to write you a story and it will comply. 

    But what’s the point of that? It is one thing if your grade depends on the completion of a paper, and your graduation depends on that grade. Or maybe you can make some money churning out AI-written copy for some website. We won’t argue ethics here. 

    The point of this article, which I am thinking up and typing up word by word with no AI involvement, is to explain why the process of writing is the point. Apple founder Steve Jobs is often quoted as saying the journey is the reward. 

    Graves told us that the best stories emerge from a process that involves doing things that many people find difficult: Introspection, questioning your assumptions and interviewing people. All that seems even more of a challenge these days when it is so easy to tune out your feelings and avoid human interactions by listening to loud music, playing video games or bingeing TV shows.

    Again, why do that when AI could spit it out for you?

    Gather your ingredients.

    Graves, who spent his career writing for the news service Reuters, reminded us that writing is easy once you have the raw goods. That made me think about cooking. 

    Why do people take cooking classes and watch cooking videos when you can buy ready-made meals at Aldi? I often spend an entire afternoon in the kitchen making soup or a stew only to have my family gobble it up in 10 minutes. 

    It is hard to put together a fancy meal at the last minute. But if you have gathered your ingredients — the chopped vegetables, marinated chicken, diced onions and minced garlic — it is easy to toss them into a frying pan where the magic happens. 

    The same goes for a news story. If you have done your research — gathered some data, a timeline of events and information and quotes from interviews — then you are all set to toss them onto a page where the magic happens. 

    Follow a recipe.

    Ask yourself: Why do people become journalists when typically they don’t make much money and often get trolled and harassed — or worse — for what they publish? Many believe in the idea of public service, but really, there is nothing that matches the feeling of having published a great story. 

    It is like the satisfaction you get when the forkful of food goes into your mouth and tastes exquisite and you know you made it. You don’t get that feeling if you bought it ready-made from Aldi.

    People who don’t cook think cooking is hard or painful or not worth the effort. The funny thing is that once someone follows a recipe and makes something really tasty, that often changes the way they think about cooking and they try another recipe another day.

    The writing process is like a recipe. There are common steps journalists often follow. They don’t just open a blank page and start writing. So here is a basic recipe you can follow for just about any news story.

    1. Decide what to cook: This is your story idea. You can start broad: I’m going to make pasta. Then narrow it down to: Maybe a lasagna? Narrow it further, maybe based on the ingredients you already have. I’m going to make a spinach lasagna. So with a story you might start with this: I’m going to do a story about climate change. Then you narrow it: Maybe a story about pollution. Then you narrow it further: How about the factories around me that pollute the air?

    2. Find your ingredients. There are statistics you can get. A law has been proposed. A community group is planning a protest. The industry is coming out with new emissions guidelines. Interviews with advocates and proponents and lawmakers. 

    3. Decide in what order the ingredients go into the pan. For a news story there’s the lead that entices the reader (when you sauté garlic in butter people come into the kitchen salivating). Then there is the meat (we actually call it that in journalism), layered with the other ingredients: quotes, data, relevant events.

    With food, the order things go in is the recipe. In journalism it is an outline. It is an important part of the process. Without a good outline you have a mess of information and you don’t know what to do with it. An outline gives you a clear path to follow. The recipe for your story. 

    4. Put the final touch on the dish. It might be parmesan cheese on top, or garlicky bread crumbs or a drizzle of olive oil or soy sauce. For an article you want to end with a “kicker”: a good quote that sums everything up, maybe. 

    Finesse the flavors.

    What if you get to the end and it isn’t as tasty as you hoped? With cooking you tinker. A little more garlic? More salt or pepper? Yikes! I forgot the mushrooms! 

    In journalism, when the story seems flat you might reach out to one more source or call back one you already interviewed to get a better quote. You might look for a better example to use by doing another news search. 

    This is the revision process. And unlike in cooking, when you revise a story you can move your ingredients around and reorganize your story. Often that makes all the difference. 

    In the end you will have created something good, from scratch. It is a great feeling, even if your family takes 10 minutes to eat that lasagna it took you an hour to make. Even if a reader spends 30 seconds reading that story it took you days to craft. 

    The satisfaction you will feel won’t go away. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. If writing is the easy part, what is the hard part of creating a news story?

    2. What does it mean that the journey is the reward?

    3. Can you think of something you have done from scratch that you could have bought ready-made?

     

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  • Can you picture your story on a big screen?

    Can you picture your story on a big screen?

    Some people would rather watch movies than read news articles.

    The thing is, an awful lot of movies came out of news articles. Consider the entire Fast & Furious movie franchise, starring Vin Diesel and my personal movie favorite Michelle Rodriguez (shout out!). It revolves around people who race souped up cars on city streets.

    The idea of the first movie started with an article by journalist Ken Li, after he saw someone steal a car in New York and that spurred him to investigate the underground world of street racing. Someone at Universal Studios saw the article and bought the rights to it. 

    Or consider the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun, about a cocky U.S. Navy pilot. The idea for that came from a story in California magazine about Navy pilots.

    How can all this help an aspiring journalist? Well, thinking about your news story as the movie that might be commissioned from it is a way of seeing the story. So how do you go about doing that?

    Visualize your story

    First, think of the characters in your story. Who are the central actors involved? Who is the Vin Diesel or Tom Cruise in your story? 

    Who does the problem you are exploring affect? Who is causing it or standing in the way of solutions? Who are the people trying to solve or mitigate the problem? In journalism, the basic story structure is Who, What, Where, When and Why. The characters are the Who of the story. 

    The most compelling movies (and news stories) revolve around conflict: What are the stakes? In Fast & Furious, one of the main conflicts is the role of Brian O’Connor, who starts out as an FBI agent investigating the car racers and then becomes loyal to them. 

    Movie scripts revolve around turning points: What could change the course? What steps are being taken to solve or mitigate the problem you are exploring? What are people or corporations or governments or organizations doing that could worsen the situation? This is the What of the story. 

    Then think about the setting: Where is the crisis playing out? The original Fast & Furious took place in Los Angeles. Top Gun took place at a naval base in San Diego, California. This is the Where of the story. 

    Finally, what drives your story is the motivation of the characters: Why do they take the actions they do? 

    In Top Gun, Tom Cruise’s character is motivated by the death of his friend Goose to be the best pilot he can be. In Fast & Furious, Vin Diesel is motivated by the death of Michelle Rodriguez’s character to seek justice. 

    Actions and motivations

    Death is a common motivation in movies — the killing of John Wick’s dog triggered one of the most successful movie franchises out there. But for non-fiction news stories, there can be all kinds of motivations: parents wanting to get their kids into good schools, communities wanting to fight crime in their neighborhoods, governments wanting to end homelessness. 

    In news stories this is the Why of the story. Why does some corporation build a plant in your community? Why does some NGO oppose a development proposal? What’s their reason and motivation?

    So now try this: Think of a problem around you that you want to explore. It could be about anything from climate change, to mental health or inequities in sports or education. Start by noting down the Who (actors), What (what’s at stake), When, Where (setting) and Why (the motivations of the characters). Then turn this into a few paragraphs as if you’re writing for a news site. 

    Start with a hook: It should be something interesting or important. Why is this a big story? Why should people care? Then summarize in one paragraph the whole story. What’s the overall problem? Where is it happening and when, how did it start, what is causing it and who is it affecting? 

    Next, slowly work through each of those elements — the who, what, where, when, how and why. There is the meat of your story. Finally, talk about what’s next. What are the solutions or mitigations happening or proposed?

    Who knows? You might get your story published and down the line a Hollywood or Bollywood producer calls you up. Now, isn’t that motivation to write a news story? Just make sure you have a good agent.

    Questions to consider:

    1. How can seeing your story as a movie help you report and write it?

    2. If your life played out as a movie, what would be the central theme?

    3. Think about the most important thing you are doing these days. What motivates you to do it?

     

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  • You have a story idea. Now what?

    You have a story idea. Now what?

    If you have already eaten a lot of cake another piece will make you sick. Maybe you are trying to stay healthy and sugary foods aren’t healthy. But maybe you have eaten healthy all week and deserve a treat. Or it is a new cake recipe your friend came up with. Or it’s your birthday. All those are great reasons to have that piece of cake now.

    Identify a “news angle”

    The achievement of your healthy diet, or the new recipe or your birthday are like news angles. They are the reason you will eat cake now. They also answer the question: What’s so special about this piece of cake?

    If you think of a story topic like this cake, the angle will define which direction the topic will take.

    You could tell your editor that your angle is that the carbon tax is new and experts think it might not be as effective in cutting emissions as politicians promise. Or the carbon tax is the latest in a series of taxes imposed by the government and people are so sick of taxes, they might vote in an anti-tax political party in the next election. Or maybe next week is a big anniversary for the environmental group that pushed for the tax in the first place — it’s kind of like their birthday.

    If your pitch was basically, “I think the carbon tax would make a great story,” your editors would likely pass on it. But maybe these pitches would catch their attention: 

    • A carbon tax just passed in Denmark marks a new way of lowering carbon emissions and other governments and political parties are watching to see if it works. If it doesn’t, it could set back the push for clean energy not only in Denmark, but across Europe.
    • The carbon tax in Denmark is a gamble on the part of the country’s environmental advocates. Increasing numbers of voters believe they are already overtaxed. If it isn’t as effective as promised it could push people to vote for conservative, anti-tax politicians.
    • Next month is the twentieth anniversary of Denmark’s Green Party. But amid the celebrations is some real concern. The environmental movement has placed a big bet on the new carbon tax — which has garnered significant opposition. 

    If it’s difficult to find an angle for your topic, start telling people around you about your topic and about what you’ve discovered through your research. What kinds of questions do they ask about it? What do they seem to be interested in? Do they ask you something that makes you think, hmm, that’s a good question! If so, then you’ve found your angle. 

    Narrow your focus

    There might be so many angles you end up all over the place. Editors won’t okay a story that they think will come in as a confusing mess. So it is also important to narrow your focus. In telling stories we are often tempted to tell people everything, but listeners and readers have short attention spans and limited appetites. How much cake can you eat in one sitting? 

    So think about what you want the focus of your story to be. It’s about a carbon tax. But is your focus on the effectiveness of it in lowering emissions? In that case you want to interview climate scientists. Is the focus about the politics of the tax? Then you want to talk to political experts. Maybe the story is about the cost of the tax on the economy. Then you will want to talk to economists and everyday taxpayers. 

    Before pitching the story, consider the one thing the story will be about, how you will focus on it and why that is important or interesting or relevant to the audience of the publication or show.

    Don’t worry that your focus is too narrow. You can use something small happening in a small place to tell a big story.

    What happens in Denmark could be emblematic of what is happening elsewhere or will likely happen elsewhere. The effects of one tax in one place could help explain the challenges of funding climate solutions in general. 

    Identify the problem and who it affects.

    The smaller the story, the easier it is for people to consume it and understand it and that is what your editors will look for in a pitch. 

    It is important to identify what is at stake and who will be affected by the problem at the heart of your story – the “stakeholders”. In a story about a carbon tax, are the people most affect the companies who pollute? Is it the taxpayers? Is it the environmentalists frustrated by the lack of action on climate change? Is it the politicians who risk losing the next election or the opposition candidates who might win office?

    Finally, do some initial research so you can present to the editors some information that shows the importance of the story and come up with a plan for how you will report it. Before an editor okays a story they want to be confident you can actually do it. 

    Here is how to construct a strong pitch:

    1. State what the problem is and why this is an important story now.: Remember to narrow your focus. Editors won’t likely okay pitches that are too vague or broad. 
    2. State how you plan to find a possible solution
    3. State the main data and the important context – What it is that makes this story important or particularly interesting or relevant to the audience.
    4. Who the problem affects.
    5. The news angle: Why is it relevant now
    6. How you plan to go about reporting the story– the data or reports you will seek the people you plan to interview.
    7. The big question your story will answer.

    Be concise

    Here is the real challenge: You have to keep it all short. Your pitch needs to show your editor that you don’t waste words and that you won’t turn in a story that’s a long, tedious, confusing read. Try to keep it to less than 300 words. 

    Be clear. Say only what you need to say. Don’t make your pitch flowery or use exclamation points. Keep to facts and keep out assumptions or biases. Don’t try too hard to convince. If the story idea is a good one it should convince on its own. 

    Finally, let’s give you an example. Imagine you are my editor and I am pitching a story about how to pitch a story. Here is my pitch. It is 194 words. 

    Young people around the world are itching to tell stories about the problems they see around them. But they find the pitching process intimidating. They’ve got big ideas but don’t know how to come up with an idea out of those big ideas that would grab the attention of an editor. Their story pitches end up too broad, vague and with too many angles.

    The result is that important stories don’t get told. I plan to talk to editors about the pitching process and identify the elements that make a strong pitch and the common problems they see in weak pitches. I will also rely on information put together by News Decoder’s Engaging Youth in Environmental Storytelling (EYES) project. 

    The story is timely because 19 October is World Mental Health Day and reporting and telling non-fiction stories is a great way for young people to think through the big problems they face and that they see in the world around them and to talk to experts who can help them put it all into context. 

    Ultimately, my story will answer this question: Why do some stories get published but other, equally important stories don’t?

     

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  • Should you give equal voice to all perspectives?

    Should you give equal voice to all perspectives?

    Journalists are often told to be objective and to tell both sides of a story. They are taught to seek multiple perspectives. This means that when reporters interview an expert about any given topic, they are encouraged to find another source with a different opinion to make it “fair” and “balanced”. 

    Journalists also know that conflict makes a story more interesting and that gets more eyeballs or ears which allows their news organizations to sell more ads and subscriptions. 

    But research any topic and you will find disagreements among scientists, ecologists, business leaders, politicians and everyday people. In other words you can just about always find conflict. 

    Be careful of this. In homing in on conflict you could create a false balance. That’s when you make two sides seem more equal than they are. 

    The classic example is climate change. One of the reasons why it took so long for governments to recognize the danger of climate change is that for years journalists would balance the many, many scientists warning about carbon levels with the very few scientists who said the problem was overblown. 

    So how can you report multiple perspectives without creating a false sense of balance?

    A few suggestions

    Focus on facts, not opinions. And know the difference. 

    A fact can be verified through data and anecdotes of things that happened and that can also be verified. 

    When sources give you information, ask them: “How do you know that?” and “Do you have evidence to back that up?” 

    Even when they have evidence to back up what they say, question why they take the stand they take, or why they came to the conclusions that they did. It is almost as easy to find evidence to support a position as it is to find conflict in a story. I found myself almost believing that the earth is indeed flat when an advocate of that theory seemed to offer up a pile of convincing evidence. 

    To get the public to not worry about the dangers of tobacco, people from the tobacco industry offered up all kinds of evidence for years. People from the fossil fuels industry can offer up all kinds of evidence that human behavior (like driving petrol-powered cars) doesn’t cause climate change. 

    So it is important when you publish information someone has given you, to explain to your audience how that person benefits or is hurt by the issue. 

    Not all experts are equal.

    When seeking opinions or assessments, do so from people with actual expertise. That’s not the same as a level of education or a fancy title. Don’t be afraid to ask people: “How do you know this?” Someone without a university degree might have lived experience with a problem, while someone with a doctorate might never have experienced what you are reporting on. Politicians are fond of talking about the problems of poor people even though many of them came from privileged backgrounds. 

    Don’t be afraid to challenge people’s statements. Let them know when you find contradictory information. When you challenge people it is not a sign of disrespect. It is a sign that you have carefully listened to what they said, have thought about it and are now questioning it. Disrespect is to take something someone says without really listening or thinking about it. 

    Question data people cite or that you find. A census conducted in 2010 in Nabon, a rural area in Ecuador, found that almost 90% of the population was “poor”. That’s an astounding figure, and if used as data in the media, paints a very particular picture. However, a different study in 2013, conducted by the University of Quenca with the Nabon municipal government at the time, found a significantly different figure — that about 75% of the population reported to be highly satisfied with their lives when assessing “subjective wellbeing”. 

    The difference in figures is due to the indicators used to measure satisfaction. The “subjective wellbeing” survey by the University of Quenca measured people’s control over their lives, satisfaction with their occupation, financial situation, their environmental surroundings, family life, leisure time, spiritual life and food security. The census from 2010, however, looked at housing, access to health and education and monetary income.

    So the language used for measuring life satisfaction was important and that the context of the data — how and why it was collected — can change the meaning of the information. To make sure you don’t misreport data, try to avoid overly relying on just one source of numbers or statistics. Instead, check what other data is out there. 

    Report the reality.

    Your job as a journalist is to present the information in such a way that your audience can recognise what is actually happening and why it’s important. 

    Does what the experts say or what people say about their personal experience go against what you have seen out there yourself? People often exaggerate without even realizing that they are doing so. Our memories are often faulty; we might think we know things that we really don’t. 

    Taking all this into account, it is ultimately up to you, as a journalist, to decide how much balance to give to the multiple perspectives you have gathered. If the experiences and evidence and your observations and common sense all point to a reality, then you will mislead your audience if you balance that out equally with people who offer up what seems to be a different reality. 

    That doesn’t mean that you should silence them or keep them out of the story altogether. Understanding and exploring opposing viewpoints is important so that ultimately people can reach an understanding.

    Without that understanding, consensus isn’t possible. And it is difficult to make progress in a society without consensus.

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  • Can you tell compelling stories about important things?

    Can you tell compelling stories about important things?

    A journalist is the eyes and ears of the public. Given the time, skills and tools needed, journalists go out into the world to ask questions, observe what is happening and gather factual information to report it all to the public. 

    They tell this information through stories in written publications or in other ways like podcasts or videos. The public can access these stories on news sites, or on podcast and video platforms. Sometimes they are free and sometimes they are behind “pay walls” — they require payment fees or subscriptions before you can read or download them.

    Journalists tell stories in different ways:

    ● News stories inform the public about current events or issues. They report important facts and provide readers with the context to make sense of them. A reporter gathers information for a news story by doing research and conducting interviews. 

    ● Investigative reports and feature stories go deeper and are based on interviews and research. What distinguishes them from news stories is their purpose, and often their length. Rather than simply informing the public about current events, investigative stories expose an issue — like corruption, corporate wrongdoing, or systemic problems — that affects the public in some way, while feature stories go deeper into a topic and explore a new angle. 

    ● Opinion stories are written from one person or group’s perspective, so while they can be interesting and spark debate in a community, they do not include the “objectivity” that is central to regular journalism. We often call this advocacy journalism. 

    ● Native advertising is advertising that resembles journalism in style, tone and format so to sell readers on an idea, product or service without readers realizing that there is a commercial agenda behind the message. By making an ad seem like the news organization’s editorial content, readers are more likely to accept the ad’s claims as true.

    Helping people make sense of the world

    Good quality news and investigative stories are accurate, authoritative and balanced and they help readers make sense of events. To tell these stories, journalists must first make sense of events themselves and they do that by asking questions that people have and getting answers to those questions. Sometimes that means asking questions that seem basic or seem to come from ignorance. In other words, journalists often ask the questions many people might be embarrassed to ask themselves.

    But that’s the way they end up with an informative story that is well reported. Here are some ways to tell if a journalist has succeeded in doing that: 

    ● They use authoritative and clearly identified sources that enable readers to have confidence in a story’s accuracy. 

    ● They use quotes to bring a story to life and give it balance. 

    ● They provide readers with enough context to help them make sense of the event in question. 

    ● If a story portrays a some person or organization in a negative way, it should be clear they were given an opportunity to comment. 

    Using sources and quotes and providing context and opportunity for comment allows a journalist to tell the truth, be fair and serve the public.

    Take climate stories. When journalists cover the environment, the first truth is that climate change is happening. 

    Facts versus truth

    Telling the truth of what and whom climate change is impacting and why it is important means that a journalist must use facts, provide a source’s quotes in context and explain what the data says. 

    But what are facts? Facts are information that can be verified through data that is collected scientifically rather than based purely on opinion. When stating facts, a journalist should be able to back up those facts with data from a verifiable source and let you know when they can’t do that. They should also tell you the source of all the information in the story and what makes the source credible — their record of expertise or experience on the matter. 

    How do you know if a journalist has been fair? 

    In any story produced by a journalist, there are stakeholders — these are the people affected by a problem or involved in a story. To be fair, the journalist gives all the major stakeholders — the perpetrators and victims — a voice in the story.

    At the same time, the journalist should hold stakeholders accountable for their actions.

    The victims should be given the chance to tell their stories but the journalist should explain the context — why someone might believe what they do or have acted in the way they did so that the audience can form an understanding of the stakeholders and their actions.

    Journalists and the public they serve

    Ultimately journalism should serve the public. The journalist should provide news consumers with enough information to form an educated opinion, without being swayed by a journalist’s bias. To do that, the information should be easily understood and accessible — not bogged down with jargon or made overly complicated. 

    A story also needs to be newsworthy. It must be worth a person’s time to read or listen to or view it. That doesn’t mean that it has to be about an event that happened today or yesterday, but it should be relevant or interesting to the news consumer in some way. In journalism we call this “compelling.” Maybe what makes a story compelling is that it is about an event that has just happened or is about to happen. Maybe it is about something happening near your audience. 

    Or maybe what is happening or happened is significant — it will affect people in important ways. 

    But even if the story is about something happening now, is important and affects people in significant ways, the audience for it won’t find it compelling if it is told in a boring way.

    Telling stories worth hearing

    Journalists often look for three things to make an important story compelling:

    Human interest: The story focuses on the emotional or personal aspects, evoking empathy, compassion, or curiosity. 

    Conflict: There are people who are for and against something happening or have competing claims on something. We often see this in stories about politics. 

    Novelty: Something makes the story new or different. 

    How can all this help you find and tell compelling stories? Let’s take a look at possible environmental stories. 

    Ask yourself: What types of things are happening around you regarding the weather, the air you breathe, the water around you, the land you live on and the food your region or country grows and eats? Are any of these things threatened? Do you know of any communities suffering? 

    Do you know of any individuals or organizations who are standing up against these impacts? What are they doing and why? And have there been any big successes in terms of climate change that you can think of? Have you heard of any good news about the environment in your area? 

    You can think about your neighbors, your school, your friends, your family, or anyone you know! It doesn’t have to be something that seems big and someone can be an expert without a fancy title.

    Why tell true stories?

    Storytelling is the way that journalists can convey complex information in a manner that is relatable and accessible to an audience. 

    Ultimately, good journalism is not only about gathering information that is verifiable, it is also about telling stories about what is happening in a way that is relatable and accessible to its audience.

    If a journalist shines light on a problem or reports on an event, they can show through storytelling why it is important, who is affected, what solutions are out there and who the solutions benefit and what is delaying the solutions. 

    It is the quilt of these stories, sewn by the audience’s understanding, that forms the blanket of our reality. Like any good quilt, it includes the light and the dark, the details and the bigger picture, patterns and contrast. 

    Storytelling is the context that gives a journalistic product meaning and purpose. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why might an important story put someone to sleep?

    2. What does it mean to make a story “compelling”?

    3. In what ways do journalists serve the public?

     

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  • Why have someone edit your story?

    Why have someone edit your story?

    Redundancy: Did you repeat anything unnecessarily?

    Accuracy: Did you make any factual mistakes or is anything misleading and can be read in a number of different ways?

    Sourcing: Were you able to show where your information came from and did you get the information from credible sources?

    Balance: Did you recognize multiple and opposing viewpoints or is the story one-sided and preachy?

    Organization: Did you bury the most interesting or important thing way down into your story? Did you wait too long to quote someone?

    Paragraphing: Are your paragraphs way too long? Long paragraphs are daunting to read, so try breaking them up. A paragraph can be a single sentence.

    Language: Is the story full of jargon normal people wouldn’t understand or long words only highly-educated people would know?

    Complexity: Is your story bogged down by too much information that isn’t really necessary?

    Clarity: Can a normal person understand the story on a quick read or is it confusing in any way?

    The editor’s role

    Ultimately the editor’s job is to make the story clear and readable. And both those things are hard to spot when you are the writer.

    Sometimes reporter balk at the suggestions editors make or the changes they insist must be done. When you have taken a lot of time and effort to report a story and have carefully worded and reworded your article it hurts to learn that it isn’t finished or that the editor thinks there are problems with it.

    But journalism is a collaborative process. It’s your story but it is also the editors story and the publication’s story. Your name will be on it — we call that the byline — but it will affect the publication’s reputation and that of the editor. Editors can find themselves fired or suspended if they publish a story that should not have been published. That’s the negative side of it.

    On the positive side, most editors genuinely want to make the story better — clearer, more powerful, a better overall read. And isn’t that what you want too? Over the course of my career, editors have saved me time and again by spotting mistakes I had inadvertently made. They have strengthened my writing and made me a better writer.

    Now if an editor suggests or insists on a change you really think isn’t necessary or will harm your story then fight against that. But do so respectfully and professionally.

    Ultimately the process isn’t meant to be fair. The editor has the final say. But if you can make a strong case and if you can show your editors why you care so much, chances are they will yield. Often this becomes a negotiation to find a way to word the material that satisfies both of you. But pick your battles carefully. No editor wants to work with a writer who fights every change or suggestion.

    A good partnership between a journalist and editor will help you write a great story and help ensure it stands up to the scrutiny of your audience.

     

    QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

    1. What is one way an editor can improve your story?

    2. If an editor wants change a story in a way you don’t like, what should you do?

    3. What traits do you have that would make you a good editor?

     

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  • How to use quotes in a story

    How to use quotes in a story

    Journalists talk to people. It is an important way to get information, at a time when many people allow artificial intelligence to do that for them. Facts and figures and things you find on the internet or in documents tell only part of a story. 

    How many things have you told a friend or family member that you wouldn’t want to put down in writing? How many times have you been in a discussion with a group of people who had different takes on something that you all experienced? 

    Haven’t you ever had a surprising epiphany in the middle of a conversation?

    By talking to multiple people who have different perspectives and comparing those thoughts or comments or stories with facts and figures and reports, journalists try to get at the truth of something that happened or is happening. They are also able to instill into an article or podcast the passion and emotion missing from government or academic reports. 

    But once you are ready to write your story, how do you use the information you get from interviews and what do you do with those quotes? 

    First, do some interviews.

    Let’s understand why you even include quotes in a story. One, because it humanizes a story that would otherwise be a tedious read. 

    You could give me a whole argument of why pollution in a river is bad. But it hits me if someone says, “The last time I went swimming, I came out with hives all over my body,” or, “The river is right out our door, but I have to drive my son across the city to the public pool to swim because the river is filthy.”

    Second, including quotes from interviews you did yourself shows your readers or listeners that you didn’t just slap together the story. That gives you credibility in a world where people won’t trust much of what they read. 

    Now, you won’t get that if, instead of interviewing people yourself, you just grab quotes from articles in other publications. When you do that, the opposite happens. You give readers a reason not to trust you, because you are simply reprinting what you read elsewhere. That comes across as lazy and careless. 

    The same is true if you take quotes off press releases issued by some corporation, organization or politician. Worse, because if you don’t tell readers that the quote came from a press release you mislead them. You make it seem as if you spoke to someone when you didn’t. And often, public relations people are allowed to just make up quotes in those press releases; the CEOs or politicians never actually said them the things they are quoted as saying. 

    Bottom line: Avoid using quotes you didn’t get yourself. 

    Using quotes in a story

    So let’s say you did an interview or two. How do you use the quotes from that interview?

    First, understand that quotes are sacrosanct. Once you have quote marks around something someone says, don’t change what is inside those quote marks. You are telling your reader: This person said this exactly. 

    If the quote includes a lot of unnecessary words, what we call blah blah blah, you can’t just delete that within the quote marks. Some people use ellipses (…) to connect the important and relevant parts of the quote without bogging it down with the blah blah blah. Others just take part of the quote. We call that a partial quote. 

    Now, that’s a style preference. Personally, I hate to do that because when you do you expect your reader to trust you. They might instead think you are withholding good information because you don’t agree with it. You risk losing that important credibility you gained by doing the interview in the first place. 

    Instead, I paraphrase. That means that you take the quote marks off the quote and instead, you attribute it. That means that you tag the information with so-and-so said. 

    Not everyone has the the gift of gab.

    You might end up paraphrasing a lot in a story if the people you interviewed don’t have the gift of speech and are nervous and stumble on words or are really boring to talk to, but have good information to give you. You can get great information from boring people! 

    Remember your role. You are talking to these people because your readers or listeners don’t have access to them or wouldn’t want to talk to them. I’ve done hours long interviews where two quotes end up in the story. Those two quotes made it worthwhile but my readers would never have wanted to sit through those painful interviews. 

    And unless you can count on a readership of super-educated people who have great attention spans, keep those quotes short. Really, a quote can be three words: “I felt awful!” she said. 

    If a quote is long to the point where it becomes tedious, paraphrase. When you paraphrase, you can cut out the gobbledygook and even change words as long as you don’t change the meaning of what the person said. 

    That’s a never. 

    Never ever change the meaning of what someone says. If you must change any words from statements in an interview, you need to really understand what the person said and even more so, what the person meant to say. 

    To misquote someone word for word

    I’ve known journalists accused of misquoting someone when they had the statement word for word on a recording. The person simply couldn’t believe they would have said what they said, even though they said it. 

    Now you might think, great! The journalist caught the person. Some people call these “gotcha” moments. 

    But think about your role as a journalist. Isn’t it to get at a truth? And should you penalize people who maybe aren’t used to being interviewed and are nervous and might say things because their brains don’t really have time to work out their thoughts properly? People will feel compelled to impress you or say what they think you want them to say.

    The rule of thumb I go by is that I try to treat people the way I would want to be treated. I get nervous talking to people. I say things I wish I hadn’t said and don’t really mean. I’d be mortified if everything I said ended up in print in some widely read publication. In a class I once taught I caught a student texting on his phone and he told me he was posting what I had just said. That shut me up. 

    Meanwhile, just because someone says something, doesn’t make it true. There is no excuse for including inaccurate or misleading information in a story even if it is said by someone with a fancy title or a prestigious reputation. People can make mistakes, exaggerate and mislead. Quote marks aren’t a blank license to publish. 

    Quotes should pop out.

    Quote marks are like little neon borders around a piece of information. They should stand out. So avoid putting quote marks around basic facts like dates or times or an undisputed amount of money. Quotes should transmit emotion or opinions or ideas. Or as my friend and colleague Deidre Pike says, “Quote the memorable. Paraphrase the mundane.”

    But do you actually have to speak to someone to quote them in a story? A while back, I’d have said yes. But now so much communication is done by email or digital chats that it has become a standard form of dialogue. How many people hate talking on the phone now? Limiting yourself to only people you can talk to in person or by telephone or videoconferencing could limit the types of people you get, and the goal is to get the best information from the best people you can. 

    Transparency is important, though. Let your readers know that you interviewed the person over WhatsApp or LinkedIn or whatever form it took. (My disclosure: the quote I grabbed from Deidre Pike was from her response to a Linkedin inquiry I posted).

    But don’t do that as a default. You are less likely to get that great emotion and passion in a post than you would in person or the phone or on a Zoom call. So try for voice or in person interviews whenever you can. 

    Plus interviews are fun. That person-to-person direct communication builds a connection that you don’t get through instant messaging or email. Hearing someone burst out laughing is way better than an “LOL!” in a text. And while waiting for a message to drop you can’t tell if the person just got distracted because their dog jumped on their lap or the question troubles them and they are taking time to think. But if you are watching them, you can tell. 

    It is harder too to get those memorable anecdotes for a story that will bring it to life. And you can’t count on the uncomfortable silences that get people to open up. 

    Regardless of how you get your quotes, getting them is only the first step. Knowing how to use them in your story will make all the difference. 

    And you can quote me on that. 

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. How can a quote from an interview improve a story?

    2. Why would you paraphrase something someone says instead of quoting it directly?

    3. Why should double check information that an expert told you?

     

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  • For a great story, get out and report

    For a great story, get out and report

    Sure, you can Zoom someone in on your laptop or chat over WhatsApp. But when you go out to an event or interview you come back with so much more.

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  • Do you live in a healthy media ecosystem?

    Do you live in a healthy media ecosystem?

    We are bombarded with information from news sites, friends, entertainment platforms and companies — through articles, messages, images, videos, ads and graphics. It can be difficult to know or even think about where the information is coming from. 

    Whether you realize it or not, this tsunami of information affects you: It shapes what you know about events, how you see the world and how you feel about people, issues and products. 

    In order to further understand big global issues such as climate change, and how it affects communities all over the world, it is helpful to understand how the media functions, what journalists do and how you can communicate about the climate crisis yourself. 

    The media can and, ideally, should perform a variety of critical functions in any society. It should: 

    • Keep the public informed of current events and issues; 

    • Foster informed debate and discussion on matters of public importance;

    • Hold powerful governmental and private actors to account. 

    Where media falls short

    In reality, the media often fails to do that in part because some foundational “building blocks” that keep media strong and independent have eroded. A World Bank How-To Guide on media development identifies five building blocks for a robust and independent media sector: 

    1. Infrastructure: Everything from transmission towers and cables, to news disseminators, to cell phone ownership should be publicly-owned or in a competitive landscape of corporate owners. 

    2. Professional Skills and Editorial Independence: A country must have enough journalism professionals trained to gather, produce and publish information according to ethical standards, and who are protected by law and policies from interference by governmental or business actors. 

    3. Financial Sustainability: Media organizations must have financially-sustainable business models that enable them to employ journalism professionals and fund the gathering, production and dissemination of news content. 

    4. Policy and Regulatory Environment: A country’s legal and policy framework must support and protect the gathering and disclosure of information, uphold editorial independence and protect journalists and their sources. 

    5. Civil Society and the Public: There must be a media-literate public, journalists’ unions and free press watchdogs to both protect the journalists doing their jobs and hold them to account for transgressions of ethical codes. 

    How healthy is your media ecosystem? 

    Many countries around the world lack some or all of the core building blocks of a robust media sector. As a result, the media content available in these countries is often poor, and the media fails to perform its good governance functions. 

    You can evaluate the state of the media sector in different countries by referring to a variety of online resources, including Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index and the Media Ownership Monitor. 

    But even in places where the press seems to have a great deal of freedom, the media most people consume might be in the control of a very few corporate owners and some of those corporations are privately held by one person or family. 

    Can you think of some reasons why governments and families might have an interest in controlling the media? 

    The short answer is that owning media enables you to control the message. You can influence: 

    • What information is supplied; 

    • How much information is provided on any particular person, issue or topic; and

    • How the information is presented. 

    A sustainable media ecoystem

    In a sustainable media ecosystem both government and private media owners would fulfill the “good governance” functions discussed above: keeping the public informed, fostering debate and holding the powerful to account. 

    Media owners do this when they put institutional safeguards in place to ensure that the people it employs can report on issues without restraint or fear of repercussion. 

    This is essential because a journalist is the eyes and ears of the public. Few people have the time or energy or attention to keep an eye on all the things their government does or all the decisions corporations make that affect their lives. 

    That’s why historically people subscribed to newspapers and why people now follow news sites and journalists on social media. We rely on journalists to go out into the world to ask questions, observe what is happening and gather factual information to report it all back to us. 

    In practice, many media outlets fall short of this goal. 

    Profits and the press

    One way reputable media organizations protect editorial independence separating the editorial aims of the organization from its profit making function; the organization’s business operations don’t interact with the employees who produce its media content. That leaves journalists free to pursue important news stories, even if doing so could hurt the media outlet’s ability to sell ads or risks losing subscribers. 

    By doing this, the media organization builds and maintains credibility; It becomes a place where people come for information they can rely on. This information helps them make important decisions about their lives. Is it a good time to buy a house? Can they feel safe where they live? Will they be able to keep their jobs or find new ones? 

    Unfortunately, many media owners have found that it might be more profitable in the short term to focus news coverage in a way that pleases core audiences and advertisers. That happens when media consumers decide they will pay only for information that aligns with their beliefs and reject media that contradicts what they wish to believe.

    Ultimately, we have to think of the media ecosystem as a buffet you can go to for your meals. If too many people choose only the foods that satisfy their cravings for the sweet and salty, not only will their own health suffer, but the people who stock the buffet will start eliminating healthy foods altogether. What seems like a lot of choice in what you consume will end up as a lot of the same and none of it healthy. 

    So what can you do to support a healthier and sustainable media ecosystem? 

    Understand who owns the media you consume. Diversify the sources from where you get your information and seek out contrasting perspectives. If you can afford it, pay for subscriptions to outlets that have a record of independence. Support organizations that fight for a free and robust press. 

    As a consumer of media, you have power you can exercise. Media producers rely on you to read or listen to or watch what they produce. If you choose to do so, you support what they are doing. If you don’t, you tell them a different message altogether. 

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is a media ecosystem?

    2. How many information sites have you visited in the last three days? Can you list them? 

    3. Pick one of those sites. Can you figure out who owns it? Is that company based in your country?

     

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  • Be the oasis in your “news desert”

    Be the oasis in your “news desert”

    Across the world, local news media are disappearing. In the latest development, the News Media Corporation in the United States, based in the state of Illinois, shut down 23 newspapers across six states. 

    This is a result of a long and gradual global disintegration of the media ecosystem. It began decades ago when corporate owners of newspapers and television and radio stations began to consolidate their outlets. Two-newspaper towns became one-newspaper towns. Then investment banks noticed how much profit these local monopolies generated from ad sales, and bought them up.

    The internet came around and decimated those ad sales and the investors owning the publications stripped them down so newspapers that had teams of journalists now had just a handful. We are in the final stage where the owners are simply pulling the plug and selling off assets. 

    So what to do if you live in a news desert where there is no local source of news? Start your own news site. That doesn’t have to be as daunting a task as you might think. You don’t need to be the New York Times or Guardian. Start small. Here are some steps:

    Get started.

    Create a mission statement. What are you trying to accomplish and why are you doing it? What is your motivation and what are your long-term goals? Who are you serving and how do you plan to do that? You can change your mission over time, but having a mission statement will help guide you when you confront choices and challenges. For an example, check out News Decoder’s mission statement.

    Establish a website. It can be super simple on the easiest and cheapest platform you can find: WordPress, Weebly, Squarespace — there are many. If you haven’t done this before, ask your friends and family to help you. I guarantee you have one friend or cousin or teacher who knows how to do this and can show you how (or do it for you!).

    Give it a name. One of my favorite local news sites is called Redheaded Blackbelt, which Kym Kemp has been publishing near the northern tip of California for almost 20 years. She has red hair and is a black belt. 

    Set up a schedule you think you can handle. If you are serious about this, you should consistently post to the site even if it isn’t every day. You want to build an audience and people need to count on you for information. Also it will help keep you going if you have a set schedule to keep to. You can start with one post a week. 

    Start reporting.

    Find something out that people would find important or interesting. It could be anything from what the local government is planning to do to the opening of a new hardware store. It could be a weird new vegetable showing up at the market. What is totally not interesting to someone in a big city might be just what people will talk about in your town. Think little!

    Learn more about finding and reporting a news story.

    Have fun with it. Snap photos of people’s pets and post them. That’s the first sure-fire way to get people to your site. 

    Learn more about taking engaging photos.

    Develop an ethics policy. This will be important if you become THE source for news in your community. People will want you to write about them, or not write about them, or write about them in a particular way. You need to be able to respond consistently so that it doesn’t look like you favor people or are biased against them. Be honest with yourself: What positions must you take? What positions won’t you take? Will you accept freebies like tickets to attend events and will you promise anything in return?

    Learn more about being an ethical journalist.

    Find out more stuff. How do you do that? Every time you go out, get chatty. Here is the question you ask: What’s happening? Now, when you ask that question, most people automatically say “Nothing.” But that’s because they assume you don’t really care and you are just being polite. So part of being chatty is being nosy and a bit persistent. Observe what is happening around you and notice what seems different. 

    Do this enough and when people see you, you won’t even have to ask. They will suggest all kinds of stories and tell you all kinds of things happening. On the downside, be prepared for people interrupting every conversation with “now, don’t publish this …”

    Note that whenever there is change, no matter how big or small, there is a story behind that change. Someone made a decision to do something. And people tend to like talking about the decisions they made or the actions they took. 

    Now this is important: When you are digging for news, you must tell people that you’ve got this little news site you started and that you want to post about whatever it is you are talking about with them. In a small community, it is super important not to create enemies with your news site (unless you plan to take down corrupt politicians). You want people to be excited you are writing about them. 

    That doesn’t mean that everything you post has to be flattering. It just means that you can’t be sneaky or spiteful or petty with your posts. Treat people with respect and they will respect you. For a local news site to survive you need the support of your local community. 

    Develop a growth strategy.

    Generate word of mouth. Once you begin posting, tell as many people as you can about your site and what you are trying to do. Not only do you want to grow an audience, but the more people who know what you are doing, the more people will tell you stuff that you can report on. When people come to you with news, that’s a lot easier than chasing it down yourself. 

    Recruit help. You can be a one-person shop, but over time that would be exhausting. From day one imagine your publication five years old and then 10 years old. Then imagine yourself doing this for those 10 years. The only way the publication will endure is if you have help all along the way. Look for young people who are looking for experience and old people with too much time on their hands. Find the people you know who are really bored at whatever job they have and want to be part of something interesting and important. Keep an eye out for frustrated writers and amateur photographers, artists and data nerds.

    And find those people who always attend local sporting events who can report on youth games. Just like posting about people’s pets, you will get all kinds of people flocking for news of their kid’s football or basketball games or the games of kids they know. 

    Think of funding sources. You might consider making your site a nonprofit. People would be more likely to offer you unpaid help that way. It would also enable you to ask for money from local funding organizations. If you think you might want to turn this venture into a business, start chatting up local businesses and seeing if they might support you by buying ads on your site. You don’t need to do any of that right away but remember, if you want the site to endure you will likely need to make some money from it to pay yourself and people who help you out on it. 

    Join organizations. With a news site you are both an entrepreneur and journalist, and there are organizations that will help you network and get you mentors and allies. Think about journalism organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists in the United States, the National Union of Journalists in the UK and Ireland and the Confederation of ASEAN Journalists in Southeast Asia. Also consider joining business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the Rotary Club. 

    Finally, have an exit strategy. The goal is to build a news site in a news desert so you should want it to last beyond you. There is a good chance you will grow tired of your venture at some point. Who will take it over? Might you be able to sell it at some point? It is never too early to think about these things if you want your news publication to endure. Don’t lose sight of the mission. 

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is a “news desert”?

    2. In what way would people in a small town be interested in different things than people in a big city?

    3. If you were to start your own local news site, what types of stories or events would you cover?

     

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