PEOPLE often ask me ‘how do editors decide what stories to run?’ There’s not much science to it – none at all, actually.
It’s what grabs me. Grabs me by the throat and screams ‘read me’. It has to be a story with blood and guts hanging from the ceiling – either physically or metaphorically.
If you had to tweet the story of little red Riding Hood in one sentence, how would you do it? What about this:
A vicious, transvestite wolf yesterday abducted an old woman and her grand-daughter, but they were miraculously rescued by a passing axe-man.
You are reading. You want to know more. And then, you’ll tell your friends.
So, that’s the big challenge. What’s the exciting, rip ’n’ read element in your story?
Appointments of new people are not – per se – exciting news. But, what they say about the market is news.
So, turn your story around. Kenny Koala is joining the superannuation fund as ‘disclosure advocate’. Is this exciting? No. What is exciting is that the super fund is sniffing the wind and discerning that disclosure of holdings is the next big Mack truck coming over the horizon for funds.
Disclosure to members of what fund managers are being retained, what their styles of asset allocation are, what the stock holdings are, what constitutes ‘fixed interest’, ‘infrastructure’, ‘property’.
By the way, if anyone wants to improve on my Tweeted Little Red Riding Hood, then please send it in! Let’s tweet it up!
Philippa Yelland, newsroom editor and story development. Chris Hocking Strategies: SMSF and financial services public relations. Sydney based with clients nationwide.