Journalists are renowned for sniffing out a good story; they instinctively know how to get to the crux of a matter, asking the right sort of questions to get to the truth, and can decipher complicated subject matters succinctly for everyone to understand.
Pick up any newspaper or magazine and you’ll find it packed with a wide variety of content with something for everyone; from hard-hitting news investigations to human-interest features, opinion-based columns and picture stories.
Print media may be on[1] the decline, but there is a lot that content marketers can learn from this profession. While content that targets a Google algorithm is a good strategy to have, you should also create content that builds and engages with people.
Back to the start
My career in journalism began in 1989, when I joined the Bucks Herald as an editorial assistant. One of the first lessons I was taught was how to write attention-grabbing content to grab attention from the very beginning.
I had been shadowing a senior reporter and went with her to the local police station to find out what crimes had been committed overnight. We then had to come back to the newsroom to write a series of short, snappy articles – news in brief (NIBs) – to publicize the incidents.
I started my first story: “A house in Wendover was broken into on Wednesday night and £300 worth of jewelry was stolen.” But this was quickly edited to read: “Heartless thieves stole £300 worth of jewelry from a house in Wendover on Wednesday night.”
The senior reporter explained that although my attempt was factually correct, starting with ‘A house’ was not anywhere near as powerful as starting