Our weekly goal for most of the rest of the summer will be to come up with a story pitch that we will then turn into a developed trend or issue story from our geographic beat. We will do this every week!
The exercises we have done until now have been to get you familiarized with your beat and the sorts of trends and issues percolating on the grass-roots level. Now, we need to take one of our ideas and start developing it.
Every week for our story pitches, we need to settle on a trend or issue topic; summarizing what you think what may be most interesting, relevant and/or useful about your story FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A READER WITHIN YOUR BEAT; thinking about what kinds of sources you'll need; and then sending a summary of all that to me. (Examples of story pitches are included in the next blog post here.)
Your pitches will be due every Monday by 9 a.m. to my email, with your actual story due the following Wednesday by 9 a.m. to my email. So, every week you will be turning in a pitch for the next week's story, and then turning in that week's final story version. Then I will publish your story publicly on your beat's Web site.
It's important that we make sure we don't work on duplicate topics, so I ask that each group work on some way to coordinate what topics you're each working on. That may be by emailing each other or forming a Facebook or Google group where you can keep track of who is working on what story idea.
In the event of a tie, the topic goes to who turned it in first, so you have an incentive to turn in your pitch as soon as possible!
Either way, I won't allow more than one person to do the same topic as another has done, or that has already been done by the group this semester. For the Lansing group, that means all pitches this summer have to be ones not done by others. For the Spartan group, you may only do one topic per town that is covered by the group.
Be sure you're reviewing what stories are going up on your site this summer so that you don't duplicate what's already been done. But stories that update an earlier story with legitimate new information are allowed.
In developing a pitch, if you feel like you don't have a strong handle on a good topic, look at revisiting or even redoing the exercises we have done to date. That includes:
The exercises we have done until now have been to get you familiarized with your beat and the sorts of trends and issues percolating on the grass-roots level. Now, we need to take one of our ideas and start developing it.
Every week for our story pitches, we need to settle on a trend or issue topic; summarizing what you think what may be most interesting, relevant and/or useful about your story FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A READER WITHIN YOUR BEAT; thinking about what kinds of sources you'll need; and then sending a summary of all that to me. (Examples of story pitches are included in the next blog post here.)
Your pitches will be due every Monday by 9 a.m. to my email, with your actual story due the following Wednesday by 9 a.m. to my email. So, every week you will be turning in a pitch for the next week's story, and then turning in that week's final story version. Then I will publish your story publicly on your beat's Web site.
It's important that we make sure we don't work on duplicate topics, so I ask that each group work on some way to coordinate what topics you're each working on. That may be by emailing each other or forming a Facebook or Google group where you can keep track of who is working on what story idea.
In the event of a tie, the topic goes to who turned it in first, so you have an incentive to turn in your pitch as soon as possible!
Either way, I won't allow more than one person to do the same topic as another has done, or that has already been done by the group this semester. For the Lansing group, that means all pitches this summer have to be ones not done by others. For the Spartan group, you may only do one topic per town that is covered by the group.
Be sure you're reviewing what stories are going up on your site this summer so that you don't duplicate what's already been done. But stories that update an earlier story with legitimate new information are allowed.
In developing a pitch, if you feel like you don't have a strong handle on a good topic, look at revisiting or even redoing the exercises we have done to date. That includes:
- Googling your community to look for good topic ideas
- Doing environmental observation by walking around your community, being curious and then acting on your curiosity
- Polling passers-by to try to get a sense of what the concerns are of the community
- Looking at Census data online to see if there are statistics that underscore a potential trend or issue worth exploring
- Reviewing earlier blog posts on how to develop story ideas
You can also supplement what you've done by scheduling meet-and-greets with civic leaders like mayors, city managers, police chiefs, chamber of commerce officials, and such. Ask them what are key issues and challenges facing the community and what is being done about them. For the Lansing team, many Lansing officials are already used to Listen Up Lansing teams from the past contacting them; don't assume they'll blow you off. They may, or they may not.
If you need any help; please contact me at 702-271-7983 or omars@msu.edu.
Good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment