The job of the journalist is to uncover the stories that shape our understanding of the world. Here we look at what makes news.
Covering news is not simply about reacting to events, but also about digging beyond what is known to uncover the stories behind the news.
When I have been carrying out journalism training around the world I often start off the session by asking participants to list the issues that their audience is most concerned about.
And, interestingly, whether I ask the question in Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Guatemala, or Serbia, the answers are similar. Below is a list of common responses.
- Jobs
- Homes
- Health
- Education
- Crime
- Environment
- Security
- Future
- Technology
- Transport
In some countries the issues will be in a different order, but they almost always feature most if not all of those listed.
The job of the journalist is to cover these issues, not only as stories break, but before and after they happen.
Notice that politics is not in the list. It’s always mentioned by course participants – as is the issue of corruption – but we soon agree that politics and corruption are involved in every issue in the list, and so they don’t require their own category for the exercise of deciding where news comes from and what most concerns the target audience.
So, now we have the list, we need to be aware of the background to these issues, the story angles that spin off covering the news, and then develop that background knowledge so that we can report authoritatively when required.
Below is a slide from a course I often run about issue-led journalism.
Here you can see that by listing the issues that a typical newsroom covers, then thinking through 10 related topics for each issue, journalists can create a list of 100 story ideas – even before any news has broken.
If reporters then think of three angles for each topic, and set about investigating those angles they will end up with 300 story ideas. This is all about story development and ensuring that our journalism is proactive and relevant to the lives of our audience.
And, because responsible journalists follow up on the news they have covered, that could result in 600 original news items a year.
This strategy offers newsrooms the chance to create a unique editorial proposition and a market differential, which links the journalism we create (the news we cover) to the financial sustainability of the media house we work for.
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