When considering whether to write a story, a journalist always
begins with two questions:
1. What’s new? 2. Who cares?
The first point is obvious. If something isn’t new, then it
can’t be news. Most folks understand this instinctively.
It is the second point that most people have trouble
understanding. It isn’t enough for your item to be new. To
qualify as news, your story must appeal to a broad audience. It
must have significance for other people, and lot of them.
For example, consider the Taliban, the former rulers of
Afghanistan.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, few news media paid any attention whatsoever to
the Taliban. After Sept. 11 and through the fall of the Afghan
regime, the media couldn’t get enough stories about the Taliban.
What changed to make this happen? It wasn’t the Taliban. What
changed were the media’s attitudes toward the Taliban:
1. What’s new? Terrorists have attacked the United States and
they are being harbored by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
2. Who cares? Virtually everyone.
Those two questions pushed the Taliban to the forefront of every
mainstream newspaper, magazine, TV news program, radio news
program and Web news site in the world.
This is an extreme example, but it makes the point.
If you want a story in the mainstream media, your story idea
must appeal to a well-defined audience. If you want your story
to appear in a trade magazine for nanotech engineers, then your
story idea must appeal to nanotech engineers. If you want your
story to appear in a suburban weekly, then your idea must appeal
to the geographical, provincial interests of that weekly’s
subscribers.
The PR Rainmaker knows: If you want the news media to write
about you or your company, you must clearly and concisely answer
the questions “What’s new?” and “Who cares?”
Copyright 2003 by W.O. Cawley Jr.
About Author :
Rusty Cawley is a 20-year veteran journalist who now coaches
executives, entrepreneurs and professionals on using the news
media to attract customers and to advance ideas. For your free
copy of the hot new ebook “PR Rainmaker,” please visit
www.prrainmaker.com right now.
