Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Not Every Story Makes It

Covering everything is not an option. We simply can not be every where, all the time. So we have to pick and choose not only what we cover but how we cover it.

The first thing we have to decide is if we want to cover the story. Honestly, some stories are simply passed over. Let me also just say, news judgment is an art. It’s beauty is in the eyes of its beholder. Not everyone agrees.  Once that is decided, the next question is whether or not the story requires a reporter.

Stories that require an extensive amount of digging for information are almost always assigned to reporters. This allows one person to focus on the story rather than a content coordinator who may be working a dozen or more stories on any one particular day.

Other stories can be told without a reporter. This means we send a photographer to the event, maybe grab an interview or two, and that’s it. And, some stories we just simply can’t get to because other things were going on at the same time.

So what happens to those stories that we don’t cover? We look for opportunities to tell the story on a future day.  Some stories are what we call “evergreens”. These are stories that can be told at any time. They are stories that don’t have a definitive event, date or time attached to them.

Fear not! There are some things you can do to help get your story covered by the media. Coming up Wednesday, I’ll give you some tips to getting your story covered!

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-Jason