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Journalism Tips

Finding a Good Story

The first step in choosing a good story is deciding whether it is newsworthy or not. News should always be current, so if you’re covering an event that happened last week stop to consider if it is still relevant today. If there are updates or new developments, then readers’ interest may be reignited.

Also bear in mind the impact of your story. Does it affect a lot of people, or a limited few? Does it have emotional appeal? It is interesting? All of these factors carry weight when readers decide how significant your story is. The prominence of any people featured in your story also comes into play; if the subject is a well-known public figure, your story has the potential to get a lot of attention.



Telling a Good Story

One of the best practices for writers is to follow the “5 Ws” guideline - investigate the Who, What, Where, When and Why of a story and you’ll have all your basic points covered. You can also throw in that extra “H” for good measure - the How of a story. The good thing about this method is you can’t answer with a simple “yes” or “no” so it will encourage you to delve deeper into a subject. Once you get through the main details, the interesting elements on the periphery of a story will become more apparent.

Another important “W” to ask yourself is not just “Why did this event take place?” but “Why am I telling this story?” If you can’t identify what makes your story unique and interesting, chances are nobody else will either.

We care about emotional stories that we can connect to, and thus it is often difficult to extricate our feelings from the news. But a reporter’s goal is to try to remain objective. Your personal opinion and perspective is encouraged, but remember that transparency is key; it’s best to be honest about your own biases, history and expertise on a subject rather than assuming people will know where you are coming from.



Writing for the Web

Your headline should be short and as literal as possible, explaining clearly what your story is about. Remember, the headline is the only thing potential readers have to go on when scanning for interesting stories; if your title is interesting and accurately reflects what your article is about, then your readers’ expectations will be fulfilled.

Most internet users will scan a story looking for links and relevant keywords before committing to reading it in full. By putting important words or sentences in bold text and hyperlinking text from the story page to a relevant destination page (think Wikipedia, or another NowPublic story) you encourage potential readers to read your entire piece and help them find the information they’re looking for.

Keep your story concise. Reading onscreen is much more difficult than reading on paper, so be direct in your arguments. Paragraphs should be short and express just one idea at a time - steer clear of dense blocks of text or wordy sentences. Online readers love bullet points and lists, so if it makes sense to present information in this way do it. Stories should ideally be between 200-800 words.

Explain the context of your story upfront, and let your readers know immediately why they should care. If you don’t get to the point right away, you’ll lose your audience. When using Highlight, be sure to introduce the story or highlighted text with your own original thoughts. Clearly you think the story is important, but don’t forget to tell the rest of us why.

Take advantage of the ability to edit your NowPublic story by updating the headline and introduction if new details emerge. You can also time-stamp updates within the article if there are continual developments in a breaking story.

To boil it down, remember that the key points of successful online writing are: simplicity, accessibility and intelligence.



Enhance Your Story

Crowd Power gives all members of NowPublic the ability to share content and collaborate to enhance the quality of news coverage. Maybe you witnessed a remarkable event and snapped a couple of photos with your camera phone, or filed a voice report while attending a protest. Whether you have video, photo or audio in your arsenal, chances are there’s a relevant story on NowPublic waiting to be amplified by your content.

Perhaps you have written a great story but have no relevant media - take a browse through NowPublic’s extensive image and video database, or source relevant media through Flickr or Youtube. There are many devices that you can use to provide additional information to your readers and visually enhance your story. Learn more about NowPublic's Tools

Aside from photos and video, there are additional Advanced Editing tools – known as “widgets” – which you can use in your story:

  • The Feed Reader will display RSS feeds of your choice; this is especially helpful when tracking breaking news stories (ie. to see the buzz on Twitter) or for events that are developing and being continually updated (such as food safety recalls).
  • The Comments widget will pull directly from the story comments section; you can choose the most recent or most recommended comments.
  • Use a quote to capture the essence of a story or a memorable quip by a central figure with the Quote widget.
  • A thumbnails media widget will pull in both photo and video.

NOTE: If you drag a widget to the centre drop space (as indicated by a thin grey box) on your story, the widget will enlarge to span the full width of your story. This is useful for showcasing great photographs and video, or when visual material takes precedence over written material.



Tools

NowPublic has an amazing array of news reporting tools that can help you tell your story. Wherever you are, whatever you want to say, and however you want to say it, we’ve developed tools to help you write, upload, discover, publish, and share your news with the world. Learn more by checking out our Tools section of the newsroom or, if you have specific questions, check out the Forum for more help.



Additional Resources

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