Crash course in journalism, lesson 6 : "The something else"
Note: this post is a part of a crash course in journalism. If this is the first post from the series you encountered, it is highly recommended to start the course from the beginning. See index of previous lessons at the end of the post.
Champions want to score. If you are really driven to do something, there is nothing more thrilling than seeing it done. Newspaper journalists want to see their story printed. The team of “Sixty minutes” want to see this week's magazine on air already. Your greatest desire as online journalists is to press “Send”.
But hang on a minute.
You see, the greatest mistake you can make as journalists is to press “Send” too early.
And I am not talking about pressing “Send” before you proof checked the text one more time. I am talking about cases when the story looks just perfect. You verified all the facts, you proof checked it once and again, it is well written and you are sure it is interesting, but still you should not publish it just yet.
You have to make it has “the something else”.
“The something else” is what determines whether your story will have impact or not. Whether it will make your readers think, “ahah!”, or just, “hm…”. “The something else” is the string that you leave for the readers to pull, so that all the pieces of the story will fall into place.
How do you know that you have “the something else” in your story? It's simple. “The something else” is what stands out from a balanced research. If you made your research right, while overcoming your pre-judgment and looking at all sides of the story, then either there will be something left standing out, that will make you think “eureka!”, or you don't really have a story.
Make finding these “eureka!” moments your primary goal, and pressing “Send” your secondary goal, and you are on your way to become a true journalist.
Index of previous lessons:
Lesson number one: Buy a notebook
Lesson 5: Using your notebook in the field
