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Lesson 2: Finding and Reporting the News
How to Approach a Story
Every piece of news that’s created is a combination of deciding what is newsworthy and how to appropriately gather and present information to your audience. Regardless of the format (story, Tweet, 60-second TV spot, etc.), a reporter will approach each story by asking these three basic questions.
Click each question to learn more.
What do I know?
This information would be "a given" or obvious to even a casual observer. Say, for example, you are heading home after work or attending a sporting event, and you spot smoke and flames bursting from a building. It would be reasonable to believe that a building has caught on fire. (Before writing the "fire" as fact, we would need to confirm our belief.)
What do I need to learn so I can provide the public with the information they require?
If you are a news reporter, here's where you start to earn your paycheck. Drawing on your critical thinking skills, you must figure out the questions you need to ask to produce an informative story about what you've witnessed.
If you were writing about a fire that happened in your community, the questions might look like something like this:
- What, exactly, caught fire?
- When did the fire start?
- How long did it burn before it was brought under control?
- How much damage occurred?
- Who was in the building? What happened to them?
- Was anybody injured? If so, how badly?
- Why did the fire start?
- Were any nearby buildings affected?
- Will the damage be covered by insurance?
- How long before the mess gets cleaned up?
Who or what can tell me what I need to know?
Again, we'll draw on our critical thinking skills to identify the people we need to interview, or the documents we need to consult, for our story. We'll call those people and documents the sources for our story. Using the building fire example, we'd want to:
- Interview the residents of the building and others who witnessed the blaze firsthand.
- Speak with firefighters and investigators who can provide an "official" account of the incident. As the reporter, you might be able to answer some of the questions you identified in stage 2 based on your personal observations. But, unless you're a trained fire investigator, you won't be in a position to determine the cause of the blaze or the dollar amount of the damage!
For professional news reporters or students in COMM 260W, questions 2 and 3 in the process are critical to achieving informational value for their stories.
Anybody who was in the neighborhood that day would know there was a fire. Why should they take time to read, view or listen to your story if it simply tells them what they already know? That's why solid reporting and smart use of sources are vital.