The six questions are What? Why? When? How? Where? and Who?

And it’s worth asking yourself these questions to ensure you have not missed out anything which ought to be included in your story.

You don’t have to answer all six questions.

There might be times when you choose leave out one or more of them. That’s fine, as long as you have made a conscious decision to do so.

But use the six as a checklist. Run through them as a matter of routine to assure yourself that you have not omitted anything by mistake.

What – happened?
Why – did the event to take place (the cause)?
When – did it happen?
How – did it happen?
Where – did it take place? and
Who – are the people involved?

Usually, the two most important questions are who? and what?.

News is often about people doing things (or sometimes not doing things) so the who and the what are frequently the most crucial parts of your story.

How much other detail you include is down to your news judgement and the time and space available to you.

But never try to answer all six questions in your opening sentence or paragraph.

It will result in a cluttered report and leave you with little else to write about.

Try this example.

“A climate change protester, John Smith, today drove the wrong way down the M6 motorway in Birmingham in a protest against the building of a new runway at Heathrow airport.”

All six questions have been mentioned, but the sentence isn’t elegant or interesting.

Ration your information. Use it sparingly and to good effect. Try to keep your audience interested.

In this case, the what is more interesting than the identity of the who, so something like this would have more impact:

“A climate change protester caused mayhem today by deliberately driving the wrong way down a motorway.”

There are lots of other ways of writing this story, but however you choose to start, the other details can be incorporated into the next two or three sentences.

In the next lesson we look at story construction.

This lesson is based on an article written by John Allen. The image at the top is licensed through Can Stock Photo Inc / PixelsAway in accordance with the End User License Agreement (c) – License # 1397576 and released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.

The post The questions every journalist should ask first appeared on Media Helping Media.

A journalist needs to be well-prepared when planning an interview. However, after all your research, try to keep the interview to three questions, because if you haven’t worked out in three what you want to find out from the person you are talking to you, you probably never will.

And try to avoid looking at your notes, but, instead, pay attention to what the person you are interviewing is saying, otherwise you might miss the news story. Here are a few tips for planning and executing an interview.

20 interviewing tips for journalists

1: Never give an interviewee questions in advance. It’s fine to give a general idea about the interview themes, but being too specific may limit what you can ask in the interview. It also risks being overtaken by events and allows the interviewee to rehearse answers.

2: Be on time. There’s nothing worse than keeping someone waiting.

3: Always check that your equipment is working and fully charged before you leave the office.

4: Treat the interviewee with respect whether they are a president or a man or woman in the street. A warm but not over-enthusiastic greeting is a good start.

5: Take control of the location. It’s your interview. You need to choose a place that isn’t too noisy and where there are not too many distractions.

6: You are not meant to be the centre of attention. The interview is not about you. You are there to get the perspective of the interviewee, not give your own.

7: Do the research you need to, but don’t try to cram it all into your questions. Put yourself in the shoes of a member of your audience before you start the interview. If they were here, what would they ask?

8: Ask the most important question first. The more pressed the interviewee is, the less time they will have, and the more likely that they will cut the interview short.

9: The interview is a conversation, it’s not a confrontation. You are not there to make the interviewee look stupid.

10: Try to avoid looking at notes. If you look at your notes, the interviewee may be distracted. And it’s difficult for you to read and listen at the same time.

11: Maintain eye contact at all times. Keep your body language in check. If you nod your head, your subject may take this to mean that you agree with them and assume that there is no need to explain further. You may miss the chance to discover more.  If you shake your head, or recoil with a shocked facial expression, you risk making your subject clam up. You will have shown them that you find their views offensive and so they are likely to stop short of saying even more in the same vein.

12: Try to ask a maximum of three or four questions. An interview is not a fishing expedition. If you can’t get to the essence of what you want the interviewee to say in three or four questions, change the questions.

13: There are six basic questions: what, why, when, how, where and who.

14: Shorter questions are better than longer ones. Never ask more than one question at a time. Combining questions makes it easy for the interviewee to avoid answering one altogether. Be as direct as you can without being rude.

15: Be sure of your facts. There’s nothing worse than being told you are wrong by an interviewee – especially when it’s live.

16: Listen to what the interviewee is saying. They might want to use your interview to announce something important that you were not expecting.

17: If the interviewee is not happy with the way they answered a particular question, don’t give in to appeals for them to do it again – unless there is a factual error in the answer or there is a risk of serious confusion.

18: At the end of the interview, no matter how difficult the interviewee has been, always say thank you

19: Always check the interview has been recorded before the interviewee leaves.

20: When you’re editing, don’t take answers out of context. That’s dishonest.

Related training modules

How to interview politicians

Why would anyone want to talk to a journalist?

Interviewing integrity – scenario

Interview tips for video journalists

The post Preparing for and carrying out an interview first appeared on Media Helping Media.

How do journalists spot a good story?

What are the telltale signs that distinguish fact from fiction? How do you know when you are on the right track? The following are some suggestioins for helping you ensure that you spot real news stories and dig out important facts.

Is it interesting?

This is perhaps the most important criterion. If it’s not interesting, why tell it? Your story should make the viewer, listener or reader stop in their tracks, look up from their breakfast, and want to tell the story to someone else. A good test is if one of your colleagues says “so what?” – if you can’t answer that question, then it might not be quite the story you thought it was.

Did you know about it before?

If you consume news voraciously – and you should – you’ll know if your story is fresh and original. A colleague in your newsroom might be able to help; there is often someone with a fantastic memory for every story that’s ever been done. If they haven’t heard the story before, the chances are it’s new. So don’t be afraid to ask around to find out whether anyone has any more information. You could end up with some important new angles to follow.

Does someone want to keep it quiet?

Once you’ve done all your preparatory research you will be ready to set up the interviews. However, you might find that the main interviewee avoids taking your calls, refuses to take part, or doesn’t answer your questions. If that’s the case it could be that the person at the centre of the story has something to fear or something to hide. Of course that is not proof that the story is true, nor is it proof you are on the right track. There could be many reasons the person wants to remain silent. However, it could indicate that there are issues that you need to investigate further.

How many people will it affect?

It might be the greatest story in the world, but it may affect only one person. That would not rule out telling the story, but the more people your story affects, the more likely it is to be of interest to your audience. And even if it affects only one person, your job is to think through and explain whether it could, or does, have any wider significance. There are usually other people in a similar situation who might benefit from your research and fact-finding.

Is the story difficult to tell?

A good rule of thumb, based on the hundreds of stories I have covered in my time, is that the more difficult the story is to tell, the more likely it is to be a great story. If it were easy to tell, the chances are that someone else will have already done so. This also underlines the importance of not giving up too easily. When covering an important story you might get to the point where you feel like giving up. Don’t. It’s okay to walk away from it for some time, but try to figure out why it’s proving difficult, because that blockage might be the nub of the story.

Does the story make sense?

The more incredible the story and the more removed from reality as you know it, the more likely the story you have is simply not true. That does not mean that such stories are not out there, it just means that you must be extremely sure of your facts before you publish or broadcast. Often the best stories are simply the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle – they make sense of what was already known before.

Are others likely to follow up your story?

If it’s a really great piece of original journalism, your competitors will follow up with their own take on the story. If it’s an outstanding piece of journalism, politicians, campaigners, decision-makers, and those with an interest in the issue, will do something. This is why you should always have your own follow up plan. If, once your story breaks, others follow your lead, then you need to be ahead of the game again. Jotting down a few follow-up angles is always a good idea (see next point).

Will there be related stories?

A really good story will have at least three related stories for you to chase. You have a head start on your competitors, so you should be anticipating where the story will go even before it is published or broadcast. However, when your story breaks, they, too, will be looking for that fresh angle to follow so that they take ownership of the story. You need to be ahead of them. When carrying out your initial fact-finding, write down a story plan with ideas of how it could develop and who the other characters in the story might be. Find those people, talk to them, gather more exclusive material, and develop new angles. Your job is to keep the momentum going.

Will anything change as a result of your story?

If you tell your story, will anything be different? Will other people’s lives improve or get worse? If they improve, that’s a good sign. If they are likely to get worse for many people, think again about whether to publish or broadcast it. This is all part of the public interest test, which can help you decide the strength and validity of your story.

Will you still be able to approach your contacts?

When you tell the story, will you still be able to look your contacts in the eye, and will they still talk to you? A controversial story told well and fairly will earn you respect. A controversial story told badly and unfairly will make it harder for you to work as a journalist. This doesn’t mean you should compromise or water down your material. But it does mean that you need to be fair, honest, objective, impartial and accurate in all you do. See the training modules in our editorial ethics section.

Related training modules

How to create a structured news report

Story development, ensuring all angles are covered

Public interest – scenario

Journalism and the public interest

The post How to spot a news story first appeared on Media Helping Media.

10 suggestions for journalistic success

Hard work and self-discipline are at the heart of good journalism.

Journalists should be accurate, first with news, trusted, easy to understand, straight, aware, disciplined and realistic.

They should always be contactable, and totally committed to finding original stories and telling them in a way that makes sense to the audience.

Here are a few tips from a lifetime of trying to get it right.

1: Be right

You are offering your journalism as a thing to be trusted. You have to build up trust with your readers, listeners and viewers. They want to know that they can rely on you to be accurate. Accuracy is the most important quality – even more than timeliness. Better to be second and right than first and wrong. But better still to be first and right.

2: Be first

Journalism is, by definition, timely. The best way to be timely is to be first. What’s the point of telling people things they already know? You are there to tell them things they don’t know. So chase that news and get it first.

3: Stick to what you know

It’s vital to stick to the facts that you know. Often you need more facts than you’ve so far gathered in order to tell a story properly. Instead, you may have only an incomplete picture. It’s unsatisfactory and frustrating. But don’t be tempted to speculate or – even worse – imply things you’re not sure about. Get the story out there in terms that you know to be true. You can develop it later.

4: Keep it simple

Journalism is not art. It’s important to present the story in an interesting way – but don’t waste time trying to fashion fancy sentences. Use simple language that tells the story as clearly and unambiguously as possible. Keep the sentences short. Be logical in the way you order the facts. Don’t impose on your viewers or readers or listeners. Make it easy for them to digest the information.

5: Play it straight

Journalism is a competitive business. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to cut corners. Don’t do it. Your trustworthiness is your main asset. Keep the journalism scrupulously accurate and your personal conduct ethical. Don’t do the dirty on your competitors – even if they do it to you. Always maintain your standards.

6: Know your market

Journalism is always aimed at someone. Who makes up your target audience? How old are they? Where do they live? Where do they work? What are their lives like? What interests them? What are they worried about? What do they want to know? What information do they need to take a full part in society? Remember you’re there to serve them – not to impress your peer group.

7: Be aware of the competition

Competition is what keeps us on our toes. With a bit of luck it will keep us honest. Always watch what the competition is doing. Judge yourself against its output. Try all the time to be better – get your stories faster, tell them better, find more interesting angles. Be willing to learn from the competition when it does a better job.

8: Be disciplined

There are all kinds of deadlines. With breaking news, the deadline is now: you’ve got to get the information out straight away, usually in very brief form, and add to it as soon as you get more. Then there are the fixed deadlines for TV and radio bulletins, and newspaper print runs. Respect them. An item for the top of the One O’Clock News is no good if it’s not ready until one minute past. A page lead for a newspaper is no good if you can’t get it into print in time to catch the delivery trucks. If you can’t meet deadlines, you are not fit for the job.

9: Be realistic

Think of when the story has got to be ready and think of everything that’s needed to make it work. Figure out how much time you can allow for each stage. Don’t set yourself impossible deadlines. Build in a bit of a margin, for safety. Deliver early if you can – but don’t sacrifice important content.

10: Keep in touch

Never underestimate the importance of good communications. It’s no use having a story if you can’t communicate it. Always know exactly how you’re going to be in touch with the office, whether it is by mobile phone, land-line, the internet, satellite phone or broadcast circuit. Whatever it is, try to have a backup. Check and double-check your communications.

The post What it takes to be a journalist first appeared on Media Helping Media.