Finding new angles on developing news stories is essential. Journalists must explain how news events impact their audience’s lives. This exercise will help reporters find out how.
Welcome to this Media Helping Media (MHM) exercise about how to find and develop important news angles. You are invited to complete the exercise either on your own or with a colleague. Please ensure you read the article above before proceeding.
MHM exercises are a chance for those who are new to journalism to learn skills and test what they know against fictional scenarios. The articles on which the exercises are based have been created from the experience of journalists who have shared their knowledge in order to help others learn the fundamental principles of robust public service journalism.
The first requirement of any piece of journalism is that it should be accurate. Although this is an exercise involving fictitious material, not for publication, trainees must take everything they are told in the exercise to be factual and they must stick to those facts. If one thing they produce in the exercise is inconsistent with those facts, their whole work is discredited. Accuracy comes first.
The training exercise
Task 1: Read the following fictitious news report. Identify and highlight six specific facts, phrases, or quotes that you believe offer the best potential for a follow-up news story (a new ‘angle’).
Council approves controversial ‘Smart-Park’ development
By Alex Reed
Riverside City Council voted 5-2 last night to approve the construction of “Centennial Tech Plaza,” a £35 million redevelopment of the historic West End Park.
The project, a joint venture between the local authority and private developer Zenith Global, will replace the existing 40-year-old play area and community allotments with a high-tech “smart park” featuring solar-powered workstations, facial-recognition CCTV, and a private café.
During the heated four-hour meeting, Councillor Sarah Jenkins, who voted against the plan, claimed that “this is a digital playground for the wealthy that ignores the 30% of local residents who don’t even have reliable fibre broadband at home.”
In response, Council Leader Marcus Thorne pointed to the 200 temporary construction jobs the project would create. He also noted that the council’s maintenance budget for traditional green spaces has been slashed by half since 2022, making private partnerships “the only way to keep the city’s lungs breathing.”
Public gallery tensions peaked when Elena Martinez, a local grandmother, was escorted out by security after shouting that the park’s oldest oak tree – known locally as The Sentinel – was marked for felling to make way for the café’s terrace.
The developers expect to begin work in October, though a spokesperson for Zenith Global said that the final environmental impact assessment is “still being processed” by the Planning Inspectorate.
Task 2: What angles did you find?
When you have finished Task 1 and jotted down the six specific facts, phrases, or quotes that you think would make good follow up stories (angles), write down why they are important and how you would follow them up. Below we have listed six suggestions. Please don’t click the link below until you have completed Task 2.
Click here to see the suggested story treatment
Here are our six suggested angles from the text, along with how a journalist might follow them up.
1. The digital divide
- The fact: Councillor Jenkins’ said that 30% of local residents lack reliable fibre broadband.
- The angle: A social affairs piece investigating data poverty in the West End. How does a lack of connectivity impact local children’s homework or elderly residents accessing NHS services? This shifts the focus from a park story to a social inequality story.
2. The privatisation of public land
- The fact: The inclusion of a private café and the partnership with Zenith Global.
- The angle: A business and local government investigation. What are the terms of the joint venture? Is there full transparency about the selling off of public land? A journalist could look into the lease agreement to see if the public will lose or retain the right of way in certain areas.
3. The council funding crisis
- The fact: The Council Leader’s statement that the parks maintenance budget was cut by 50% in four years.
- The angle: A political/financial investigation. Why was the cut so big? What other services – such as libraries or youth centres – have been affected? This uses the park story as a hook to look at the overall financial health of the local authority.
4. The surveillance state
- The fact: The installation of facial-recognition CCTV.
- The angle: A civil liberties/privacy story. Is this level of surveillance proportional for a public park? A journalist could interview privacy campaigners and the local police to ask who will have access to the data, how it will be used, and where it will be stored.
5. Planning and process
- The fact: The environmental impact assessment is “still being processed” despite the project being approved.
- The angle: An accountability/legal story. Is it due process to approve a £35 million scheme before the environmental risks are fully understood? This involves checking planning laws and questioning why the council is in such a hurry to break ground.
6. Local heritage and The Sentinel
- The fact: The planned felling of a historic oak tree.
- The angle: A community-led campaign story. This focuses on the cultural and environmental value of the tree. What is its history? A journalist could look for other instances where green redevelopments have actually resulted in the loss of mature nature, potentially interviewing local arborists or historians.
Assessment
How did you get on? How did your list of news angles and story treatment compare with ours? Jot down what you learnt from this exercise?
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