One of the surprising aspects of writing about professional services firms is that many people I meet have never met a journalist before and are not regular newspaper readers beyond the nightly news and their daily clipping service.
This leads to problems around expectations of what we should write, and what constitutes news. Members of a firm naturally think about their position in the market as a starting point. Our starting point is what is interesting and important for our audience to know about.
For example, my paper, The Australian Financial Review, is aimed at decision makers (business and political), decision maker aspirants and (my area) service providers to the first two groups.
I’ve had a go (with some feedback from a few in the newsroom) of putting into words the elements that make a story. I should probably assign percentages and reveal the taxonomy of firms and topics by subscriber interest, but that’s might be overdoing it.
Story elements:
Importance of the story - A measure of the general value of the story to the wider public and our core audience.
Newness of the information
The firm, the people and the topic - For a story of the same weight, the reader interest will vary based on the firms involved, the individuals being written about or quoted, and the topic.
Placement (publication decisions):
The placement of the story on the web and in the paper (This is a function of the story elements)
Web publish time
Social media promotion by the paper and its journalists
External (environment factors):
The currency of the story. Is it a story that fits into the stories of the day/week/month etc?
Shareability of the story. The topic will determine if readers share the story. Positive, neutral stories are more likely to be shared by people within the firm and vice versa. A function of the story and placement factors.
A very clear explanation Edmund. Thanks Sam.