About Media, Content, and Communicating

What makes a great story

I was doing some research several months back for a piece of fiction I was working on. The topic I researched centered around seriously neglected children and feral children.

Then I ran across a story titled The Girl in the Window, written by Lane DeGregory at the St. Petersburg Times in July 2008.

I like to think of myself as a tough guy. I'm a journalist at heart. I've covered murders, horrific accidents, and national tragedies. I was on a Coast Guard law enforcement team. I'm a judo black belt. You get the point.

And I actually cried when I read this story. I challenge you to read it and not have the same reaction.

You can legitimately say this story is the reason why we need good old fashioned journalists still working our streets.

But from a writing stand point, I think this story offers several things.

It could have aptly and competently been told in a traditional news format.  A young girl, horribly neglected, removed from her home. But the impact would simply have not been the same.

Subject matter aside - and the topic is as heart-wrenching as they come - what makes this story so powerful is the technique used to tell it.

This isn't a news report. It is a story. And the use of a feature style of writing is what sets it apart.

There are so many sources talking about the young girl's condition that you begin to feel like you know here. And what scene can be more powerful than a police officer leaving the house and actually vomiting at what he saw?

Judges, doctors and child advocates - all of whom have seen things we can only imagine - in shock at this story.

The description of the child's eyes is haunting, just as haunting, but in a different way, of the mother trying to defend her actions. Try to say she loves her child.

This is a story of a little girl. You know the child at the end of it. You feel immense compassion, sorrow and even hope for her future.  And at no point is the child quoted. The story is told completely through the words, emotions and expressions of others.

And what a powerfully emotional story it is.

Jumping in on the action

Even great writers forget the importance of verbs. I know I do and I know I'm not alone, so this is more of a reminder than anything.

One of Ernest Hemingway's rules for writing simply states "use vigorous English." One interpretation, or mine anyway, is to use action verbs.

An action verb describes, well, action...something that is happening. It adds strength and description to a story while often helping to control the word count. Brevity counts, particularly in online writing, so action verbs are just as important to writing for the web and for social media as for traditional media.

The best, simplest example I can give of action verbs are simply this.

I went to the store. Or I drove to the store. I walked to the store. I biked to the store. In each case, drove, walked and biked is a stronger verb than went. It relays more information - by telling you exactly how I went to the store - without using one word more than the weaker sentence.

For me, action verbs are deliberately included in my writing process, which goes something like this:

• Write a rough draft as fast as I can.
• Rewrite number 1 is for story continuity and to clean up the loose ends.
• Rewrite number 2 focuses on action verbs and the elimination of most adverbs.
• Rewrite number 3 deals primarily with general grammar and spelling.

When rewriting and revising, yes, I'm on the hunt for grammatical errors and spelling errors, but at the same time, I'm very specifically looking for passive verbs and rewriting sentences in the active voice.

Of course, it is easy to get out of hand when using the active voice. Stephen King, in his book "On Writing" has one of the best examples. He points out that if you take any noun and put it with any verb, you have a legitimate sentence. But they don't always make sense, as in his example "Plums deify." 

Like many skills, becoming a strong, active voice writer simply takes time, practice and study. And as much as I hate to say it, one of the best places to start is your old high school grammar book. Like it or not, it will improve your writing.

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