A daybook is a daily calendar of events that are happening in and around a city or state. News services, like the Associated Press (AP), maintain a daybook and distribute it through their wire service to millions of journalists nationwide. The AP publishes a national daybook, as well as state and local versions of the calendar. Newsroom managers, assignment editors and reporters check the daybook several times every day for the latest updates on important events happening throughout the region their news organizations cover.
By maintaining your own daybook of events without your community (i.e., art, culture, international relations, message-boards) you can be sure that you will know when most events will happen.
How to create a daybook: The movers and shakers
First, you must identify who and what organizations within your topic are the movers and shakers. By keeping yourself informed of their calendar of events, and updating your daybook on a regular basis (daily, weekly, monthly), you will know when events may happen. Additionally, you can request to be added to the media contact list and receive their press releases.
Many articles can be filed from a press release. Depending on the newsworthyness of the article, some press releases may be published without modification. But, with some research, you can turn a press release into a well-formed and interesting article.
By keeping the daybook updated, you can begin to notice trends within your topic, and eventually you will discover that the news that is provided by these people and organizations make it into the mainstream press one to two weeks later. When you see this for the first time, you will witness how news is made.
If you were reporting the "Missions" topic, here are some questions that you should ask:
Who wants to know about missions?
Who goes on missions?
Are they organizations that organize missions?
Who are leaders in this field?
Who finances missions?
How is the "forest" different than the "trees" in this field?
Who are the leaders on the big scale, who are the leaders on the small scale?
Are there any major dates that this community recognizes? What do they do on these dates and why is it important?
Maintaining you daybook connects you with your contacts
This is just a start, but it will begin your search for the experts in your field and you can begin a daybook of events that each one of these organizations publishes. At the least, you can mark their websites or give them a call once a week and check up on any updates or ask them questions about what they're doing.
Depending on your level of activity, you can do a weekly or monthly outlook of your topic.
A daybook can be produced on paper or electronically. You can create one using a simple notebook, or create one in a Word Document, Outlook, or Excel. Whatever works for you is the best.
Additionally, each category in Spero Forum has their own daybooks, and sharing these can bring even more ideas.
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