About Media, Content, and Communicating

And oldie, but it works

It is one of the first things you learn in a basic news writing course, and it will serve you well throughout  your career, be it in news, public relations or some other area of media-related writing.

I’m talking about the venerable inverted pyramid.

When I was an editor with Gannett several years ago, we called it the "first five" or "first five grafs." The idea was simple. Write your story so that if a reader stopped after paragraph number five, he still knew the entire story. Gannett could call it what they wanted, but it is still the inverted pyramid.

Chip Scanlan of the Poynter Institute published a great piece on the pros and cons of the inverted pyramid some time back and it is worth reading. And for those of you interested in history and academic research into the topic, you might enjoy this article.

Now, it is not the only way to structure a story in journalism, nor is it always the best structure to use, but I have been thinking lately that its value is expanding as the use of content expands.

The major advantage is that the most important information is all presented up front. As the story is told, more information is presented, supporting quotes, facts and additional detail is written into the story and color is added. Yet a reader could stop after the first couple of paragraphs and still have the basic understanding of what happened.

There’s value here beyond journalism. Not wanting to waste and editor’s time, I always write press releases in an inverted pyramid format. That way, the editor knows in the first paragraph or two what the press release is about. If his or her interest is piqued, further information is provided down in the release.

But what of the web? I think it is even more important for online.

On the web, people tend to scan information more than they sit down and read.

For this reason, it is even more important than in print to present useful information up frontin a story - information that can be picked out with a quick scan of the content. And that is where the inverted pyramid shines. With it, you can deliver bite-sized chunks of easily digestible complete information in a couple of paragraphs.

And in my view, online content is all about delivering the most complete information in the most effective, fastest format possible. And when that format is deemed to be writing, the inverted pyramid certainly delivers the most in the fewest words.

Covering a blogger's accusation

A rare second posting in one day for me, but I just read this article at the Poynter Institute's web site and thought it fascinating and timely.

Without speaking to the allegations, I think Al Tompkins raises some excellent questions in his column ... certainly information worth thinking about.

But it also brings up this question, which I ask as a publisher who has seen his business ruthlessly attacked by a blogger making completely unfounded and unsupported allegations.

How would you advise your client to respond to such an attack?

Content Recycling

I had a conversation with a friend who is also a business owner recently and we got on the topic of content marketing.

Now, he's not a client (I try not to do business with my closest friends because, well, I want them to remain friends) but we often discuss business matters, including marketing, as well as an array of non-business topics.

He understands the strength and basic concepts of content marketing, but then he posed a challenge. "Bottom line it for me in a way I can measure versus other marketing." A dollars and cents question from a dollars and cents guy.

I hesitated, because I have an answer - recycling - but that answer may fly in the face of one of my personal goals, which happens to be more billable answers.

However, my response was something along the lines of this.

You write a special report or a white paper. You of course can print it and distribute the hard copy. You can create a PDF file and e-mail it or have it available for free download on your web site or via social media - which of course saves printing costs.

But it doesn't stop there. The exact same content can easily and quickly be retooled into a blog post or series of posts. Or if you don't blog, a series of informative articles on your web site.

Speaking of articles, it can be retooled into an article and placed in a trade publication or on a trade web site. It can be retooled into a press release and distributed to appropriate media - print and online.

But wait, there's more. The same copy can also be used as the foundation for a speech to a trade or civic club, or as the basis for a curriculum for a course to offer to your target market (particularly effective in B2B).

It might also be easily revamped into a script for video or audio.

And going old school, it can serve as copy for a print ad or a radio or television commercial.

As I told my friend, the one core piece of content can serve as the foundation for a complete marketing campaign. The copy provides a common denominator that ensures each piece of the campaign reinforces the others and ensures continuity of your message across multiple platforms, even if you are providing a free booklet, writing a blog, sending out a press release, doing a print ad and addressing the Chamber luncheon.

This saves the business money for a simple reason. You aren't starting from scratch on each aspect of the campaign. Also, the focus on the message of your content ensures you don't inadvertently do something that is a wild turn away from your marketing plan, which would weaken your campaign - and cost you dollars.

Local, Local, Local

Gannett, the newspaper giant, announced a new "start up" last week on their blog, which will target local small and mid-sized businesses.

GannettLocal is meant to deliver a variety of marketing solutions in an effort to pump up advertising revenue.

My opinion is that what they are doing is why community newspapers - small town weeklies and dailies - have held up a little better during the recession and the tumble in print advertising. As a publisher, throughout my career, I was told that local advertisers are partners and that we are in the business of providing marketing solutions, not selling ads.

Also of note is that many larger and/or metro print dailies priced their advertising out of reach of most "small" businesses.

I think the GannettLocal plan can indeed work. However, they must do two things. First, they must address pricing issues, which really do exclude a very large portion of a local market. And second, they must be seen as trying to be a partner to local businesses. And that must be genuine, not viewed as a marketing tool.

Social Snafu

Last week, I stopped following a couple of folks on Twitter. The reason was simple. I follow people for a specific, professional reason. One went into a tirade against certain government policies, then a little later revealed she was in a bar. I think she was drunk tweeting!

Another I was following was engaging in some friendly banner with a buddy.

The point is that I did not get what I sought from their tweets.

Same with Facebook. I have two Facebook pages. One is for work (Nashville Copywriter) and one is for personal use (Clay Morgan). The reasons are simple. I don't want a potential client or current client to read about my 14-year-old niece's trip to mall on my wall, or see my update about my most recent illness.

An article I found just this morning indicates that a lot of people regret posting something on a social media site. And we've all heard of people getting fired for something they posted on Facebook - heck I know someone personally who was fired over a Facebook post.

And if you can lost a job, then you can certainly lose a client, or fail to land a prospect, because of social media...just as you can certainly gain a new client.

The web is full of comments and articles about how social media is a powerful tool. And no doubt it is. But it's like a sharpened lawn mower blade. Use it correctly and it can be a great tool. Use it wrong and it'll cut you.

Leading Ledes

There I am a week ago reading a report on the flooding in Nashville. It's not my desire to pick on anyone, so I will not name any names.

However, the lead paragraph of the news report was one sentence long - one very long sentence. It was 62 words long and ranged from what was damaged, to dollar value of damage, to the declaration of a federal disaster area to who was expected to next be declared a disaster area.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the information contained in the paragraph - it was all pertinent. But the structure and the length created a lack of a hook.

Another news report, same county, had a buried lead. The early information was fine, but the one piece of information that told the whole story - that the county was declared a federal disaster area - wasn't revealed until the sixth paragraph.

For years in journalism, a few things about leads (sometimes spelled lede) were pounded into my brain.

It should be one sentence. It should be brief. It should grab the reader's attention and draw them into the story.

One of the easiest ways to write a great lead is to remember those old journalism questions: who, what, where, when, why and how. Convey this information in as few words as possible.

Chef John Doe hung his apron up for the last time Friday, saying farewell to John's Diner, the downtown eatery he established 40 years ago.

A very basic lead. It isn't perfect, but you know who the story is about and can easily make the assumption that the founder of the diner retired.

So in a nutshell, here are my lead writing tips. And these apply to news and feature stories, as well as press releases.

• Don't bury the lead. Get it out front so it can grab your reader.
• Get to the point. Be brief - and use those active verbs (not that I've ever preached that before).
• Don't use questions, quotes, statistics or other cliched leads.
• Watch out for conjunctions. Words like "and" indicate an additional point is about to be made. This violates the brevity rule and should be used cautiously in a lead.
• Work on it. Like a great headline, a strong lead takes a little time. You can't just throw it on the page and consider it done.

A few links

Here are just a few links over the last few days I've found interesting.

Facebook gains on Yahoo, Microsoft, in ads

How one paper is using cell phones in reporting

How collaboration and social media aided in Nashville flood coverage

The Newspaper

I've spent a good part of my career toiling in newsrooms, particularly community newspapers. But big or small, I've observed some things that have really hurt the industry.

I started thinking about this earlier today when I read an article at The Atlantic titled "How to Save the News."

The simple fact is that industry experts have touted their opinions for a very long time, but here are my real life, hands on observations.

1. We screwed up very early on by not charging for content. I believe the newspaper industry is largely responsible for the idea that online content is free...and it's too late to turn back now.
2. For that very reason, and for the fact that circulation revenue has never amounted to much more than 20 percent of total revenue, talk of paying for content will never be the solution. Admittedly, there are some types of content that have value, but I think online readers will not pay for general news.
3. Newspapers allowed aggregate sites to use content for free. But then again, those sites drive traffic to the paper's web site. Hmmm.
4. We were slow with the web. Early on, newspaper's web sites were nothing more than an electronic version of the print edition. And it was published on the same schedule. Here we are, in May 2010, and I can name newspapers that update their web site one time a week after the print edition comes out.
5. Given the problems - which amounts to nothing but reluctance - to adapting to the web, will we be able to adapt to other delivery mechanisms, such as e-readers, cell phones, etc.?
6. Newspapers, for print, must become more a la cart, offering up various options that provide readers with information and far greater depth than is being found online. And I think that means detailed analysis.
7. I think our biggest problem to ad revenue remains sales representatives. To this day, many claim to not understand web advertising, and without a doubt selling the web is different than selling print. But, those that cannot adapt should leave. Harsh? Yes. But we're talking survival. The numbers clearly exist - numbers that will allow newspaper web sites to dominate online advertising...they just need someone to sell it. And I believe that is the number one problem newspapers today face.

As I mentioned, there is plenty of information out there that indicates a bright future for newspapers. A report recently by Nielson Online indicates that readership of newspaper web sites continues to grow, and Q1 2010 was a record setting quarter with an average of 74.4 million unique visitors a month heading to newspaper web sites. You can also read the full report, which is supported by another study conducted by comScore.

The numbers are there. The industry just needs to take advantage of them

Yes, more on Nashville flooding and the media

There is an article on the Poynter Institute's web site, with several local TV news directors, which makes for interesting reading about how they covered the flooding in Nashville.

There have been a lot of thoughts on media and the flooding. There's this interesting blog from Lovell Communications. And this bit from the Everyday PR blog written by Susan Hart of Hart Public Relations.

Other media firms took a different approach to "covering" the flood. Atkinson Public Relations wrote this post in their Flack Seeds blog.

And others took a more inspirational approach. An example is Trey Campbell's guest blog, which I read on the Everyday PR site. Trey is the director of communications for the Southwestern Company, and is the president of the Nashville Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

I will remember the flood of 2010 for many reasons, but if I may brag a little, there is one more reason.

In the tiny town of Lafayette, near the Kentucky border, a small weekly newspaper, whose newsroom has an average age of 23, was called upon to serve the community that, like so many others, was hard hit. And answer the call they did.

During the worst of the storm and immediate aftermath, which for Lafayette was mostly Sunday and Monday, the team posted two dozen stories and even more photos. As things calmed down, the stories did not. They ran stories in print. They ran stories online - as I write this, we're at nearly 40 stories and growing - and dozens upon dozens of photos.

They continue to publish pertinent local information.

I would note that people looked to their hometown paper for information, too. Analytics revealed that in the two-day period of Sunday/Monday, the web site's traffic increased over 10 times the norm.

While the focus, and rightly so, was on Nashville, there were young journalists working hard to provide their hometowns with hyper-local information. And it wasn't just in Lafayette. I noticed quite a few small town newspapers working hard to provide hyper-local content to their beleaguered readers.

What is most interesting is the information gathering they used. Yes, we had folks on the street pulling together art, information and stories. But we utilized our Facebook page as well to call upon readers and viewers to send us anecdotes, details of hyper-localized flooding, and photos. And the public came through.

To me it was an impressive and successful effort on the part of a very young newsroom that had never experienced such an event. Their performance was splendid, and I am proud to be their publisher.

Online Video

According to the journalism thinking-tank The Poynter Institute, online video made substantial gains in viewership. The numbers just don't lie - it is becoming increasingly important - maybe we're at the "vital" stage now - for online video to be part of any marketing and public relations mix.

You can also download and read the full 28-page report.