News is a significant departure from the norm, and that will warrant the attention of our readers because it has implications for their interests. And you, as the writer, are documenting this change whether it's in government, society, or culture.
So now youôve got a basic story idea, but you need to ask yourself: What? And so what?
To all the above, it makes sense to measure your germ of a story idea against the following three points:
Is there a hook (or peg)?
Does it meet threshold?
What can I add that's unique?
Another consideration, which is related to the number one item just mentioned, is your article idea event driven?
If it is, well you already have a natural lead in to the story.
You need a hook (or peg) - a development that gives you an opportunity to write.
The development can be a single event. For example:
An election or coup.
A terrorist incident.
An unexpected budget cut or personnel reduction.
An international financial development.
The seizure of an unusually large amount of drugs.
A series of events taking place in the category/beat the writer follows.
An ongoing story in the category.
The event can be happening now, forthcoming, or something that can be predicted.
Meeting Threshold
The event must meet threshold. Threshold is a significant departure from the norm that warrants the attention of our readers because it has implications for their interests.
Adding Analysis
You have to go beyond what's said in the press or what the basic facts are to add something unique. In other words, a plain rewrite of the press wouldnôt make the cut.
You must provide judgments or insights that answer one or more of the reader's questions:
Also, think of who is our audience. And in that respect, weôve already got it a bit easier than the biggest newspaper in any city. People that are coming to our site are
interested in religion, and
probably have a lot of things in common with us.
So thereôs already a natural sense of empathy with the reader.
While most of us have opinions, the one thing that we have to be careful about is all of us wanting to have column or op/ed. Those are great, but what will bring the people here â and keep them coming back â will be news stories. Stories that reflect their views and values and also challenge them a bit.
And before anybody thinks there are not any stories like that around where they live, well I would suggest this: Our lives are not boring, it is only our perceptions of life that are boring.
Here is an example:
One of my brothers lives in Thailand. Last year we all met in the States, and he brought a ton of photos and was talking about how his church financed a project to help a mountain village install a generator to provide electricity for their local church.
Now that is a great story just begging to be written. You have got a cross-border story, sister churches bound not by language but by love, and it is a real human interest story: how did the project get started, how was it finished, how did it change their lives, are there other, similar projects in line, etc?
Now some of you might answer, yeah but I do not live in Thailand. Okay, but if you think seriously about this, you will see the same reasoning can be carried over to your own lives.
A mother with a gaggle of unruly children says, I just do not have anything to say. To which I respond: You have already got a captive audience. You, my dear lady, are an expert on child raising in this increasingly childless world. Homeschooling? How? Why? Test results?
Can you see a picture forming? Are you getting excited?
Good...because we want you to pass from just thinking analytically, and only scratching the surface. We want hard news, and we know that you have got it.
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