What is Newsworthy?

How journalists write

Journalists usually describe what they write as stories. They want their readers to read their work. If they don't, what was the point of writing it?

So you think most news is bad news? Well, no: professional journalists are not all cynics simply looking for bad stories. News is about the unexpected. We all hope for good news; it's when things take a surprise turn - for good or for the worse, that they become news.

Before you even begin to write a press release, think of your intended readers and ask yourself for whom you are writing and what makes your announcement a news story worth publishing. Your local newspaper or broadcast editor will have a clear idea of his target readership. But what else makes a 'good' story?

The ingredients of a ‘good’ news story

The essential element of a story is that it's new
News is about necessary information and unusual events
It will obtain observable facts
News should be free of the reporters opinion
A news story should be succinct but also colourful
A good story will interest its readers

What makes a story interesting?

Impact or broad appeal: events that affect many people – the more people, the better the story. For instance, a proposed income tax increase may, at first sight, seem boring; but it has impact, because it will affect many people.

Timeliness or immediacy: news gets out of date quickly; it's timely if it happened recently. "Recently" is related to the publication cycle of the news medium in which the information will appear. On the BBC News Channel events that happened during the past half hour are timely. In your monthly parish magazine events that took place over the past 30 days are timely.

Prominence: stories involving well-known places, companies, groups or people, especially celebs. If you or I trip and fall in church, no one will take much interest, because we aren't well known. But if the Archbishop of Canterbury trips and falls during a service, that's a news story.

Proximity or closeness to home: events occurring in the newspaper circulation area or the broadcast area are likely to be of most interest. 2,000 job losses in Taiwan won't get a mention. 20 redundancies in Cambridge may well make the front page of the local paper. The success of your summer fête will be an essential story for your parish magazine.

Conflict: stories about people or organisations at odds with each other. Information has conflict if it involves some kind of disagreement between two or more people. Conflict has drama.

Bizarre or out-of-the-ordinary: what deviates sharply from what you would expect and experience of everyday life, unusual, strange or wacky.

Currency or flavour of the month: events and situations that are currently in the news and being talked about.

Human interest: people are interested in people, so personalise your story.

About people’s everyday problems or interests: food, health, housing, schools, work, money problems.

An interesting news story will contain some of these elements, but it’s unlikely it will contain them all. However, all stories should be accurate and truthful.

So do you have a story to tell the press?

Remember the old adage attributed to the famous New York Sun editor, Charles A. Dana. "If a dog bites a man, that's not news", because it happens so often, "but if a man bites a dog, that's news!" These stories chronicle the events that raise eyebrows, grab people’s attention and often make the front page. Sometimes religion features in these stories.

Be careful with the "conflict" stories. Church leaders, like politicians, frequently debate their differences publicly. Clergy are, unlike their business and commercial counterparts, free to air widely their views and beliefs in the media. But that makes the Church vulnerable to damaging press stories. And a journalist, hungry for sensationalism, may be tempted to present such harmless dialogue as ‘the Christian Church tearing itself apart’. Is that the image you want to convey? If not, take care when you speak out.

In practice, many newspaper stories are not over-hyped, particularly those in the category of business, technical and scientific news.

The churches have a wealth of interesting everyday stories that can generate good publicity for their cause. Local press and radio are hungry for news of events, appointments, fundraising appeals and anniversaries. The national press often publishes strong, but sound opinion features, such as the merits of Government action or social policies.

So my advice is to be pro-active and to keep in touch with the media whenever you feel you can. Beware: if you don’t use the media, it will use you.

9 March 2009