the news peg: how to make the important interesting
DESCRIPTION
There’s a cold fact you have to accept if you are going to write stories that your client’s customers will want to read: News is never about what’s important. It is always about what is interesting. Don’t believe me. Watch the cable news networks. Check out the cover of magazines on the newsstand. Producers and editors have a job, and that’s to attract an audience. A debate over the tax code may be more important, but the launch of a cutting-edge smartphone is far more interesting. As copywriters, we face the same dilemma. We have to learn how to make the important interesting. That is, our job is to connect what our clients find important with what their audiences will find interesting. How to do this? We do it the same way that news media have done it since the dawn of daily journalism. We look for a news peg.TRANSCRIPT
The news peg: How to makethe important interesting
Rusty Cawley, APR
News is never about what’s important. It is always about what is interesting.
• We have to learn how to make the important interesting.
• Our job is to connect what our clients find important with what their audiences will find interesting.
• How to do this? We do it the same way that news media have done it since the dawn of daily journalism. We look for a news peg.
What is a news peg?
• The element of timeliness on which a journalist ‘hangs a news story.– Makes the story relevant.– Explains why you are telling the story right now.
• With timeliness, you have news.– Without it, you have an entry for an encyclopedia.
Your copy must combinethree important aspects
A. The information your client wants to present.B. The information your client’s target audience
wants or needs to know.C. The news peg that will heighten the
audience’s interest in the information.
Three strategies forfinding a news peg
1. Respond to current events2. Tap into cultural changes3. Make any season your season
1. Respond to current events
• Look for current events that offer a long-term time frame that gives you a chance to respond. – Usually traumatic events that cause your
audiences to look for answers to new problems that they didn’t have – or didn’t recognize -- before the event.
– Follow the news carefully, and look for opportunities to tie your client’s products to what is happening the world.
Example: industrial safety prodcuts
• Any time there’s a major industrial accident, there’s an opportunity to create a how-to news feature that:– Teaches a targeted audience protect their
employees and their property.– Allows your client to communicate information
about its products or services.
Example: Financial or tax services
• Any time there’s a significant change to the nation’s tax code …– … or even a small change that has a large impact
on a particular business sector or income level …– … that’s an opportunity to create a how-to feature
that helps your client’s customers.
2. Tapping into cultural changes
• Popular culture evolves slowly.– Even changes that appear to happen in a blink are
actually the result of a long process that begins at street level and bubbles up the mass media.
• Explore the street level.– Look for anything that might eventually gain strength,
bubble to the surface, and become relevant to your client’s target audiences.
• Always keep the end game in mind.– Help your audience join the trend by using your client’s
product.
3. Making any season your season
• The easiest and most effective technique– More return on effort over a longer period of time. – Once you create a seasonal story, you can update it and
use it over and over again.• Some seasons are man-made.– Mother’s Day, the Fourth of July, Christmas, fashion
season, March Madness, Black Friday• Others are naturally occurring.– Gardening season, mosquito season, the dog days of
summer, the coming of cold and flu season
How to become more familiarthe seasonal peg
• Ask editors to send you their publication’s editorial calendar.– Study how the ebb and flow of the seasons affect the
mass media’s coverage of news.• Collect a year or two of back issues from a special
interest magazine, and study the covers.– Note how the headlines reflect the change of the
seasons. Those changes are news pegs. – They say to their readers, ‘In this issue, we have this news
item that you will find relevant and interesting right now.’
Example: Veterinary diagnostic tests
• Most customers are veterinarians.– Their problems change predictably with the weather.– Summers bring out the mosquitos.– That gives us an opportunity to:
• Remind vets to look for diseases mosquitoes may carry.• Inform them about the newest and most effective options.
• Next summer, same opportunity– Update the story with the latest information.– For all practical purposes, that story is evergreen.
Develop your eye for news pegs
• Once you do, you will see them everywhere – even when you aren’t particularly looking for them.
