"Who Is Your Reader?"

Q: How do you make a hormone?
A: Don’t pay her.
However,  more to the point:
Q: How do you make a journalist moan?
A: By insisting they answer YOUR  questions.

    Like years ago, I did time as a writing coach at the Sun-Sentinel – where it was my job to help the newspaper’s editors and writers produce more interesting stories.
    Better I should have opened a fresh pork stand in downtown  Tel Aviv.
    Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the two-legged products spawned by most journalism schools, is that these well-meaning souls don’t know the difference between  what is interesting and what is not.
     I remember, for example, asking the current City Editor of the Sun-Sentinel why – as the then County Government reporter -- she’d written an 16-inch story that was (a) totally irrelevant and (b) duller than last week's shipping news.
    “They had a hole for it on 3-B  and it  was in the news budget,” she said – indignant that I’d even dared to ask.
    “But it doesn’t mean anything,’ I said.
    “I know,” she shrugged. “How do you think  I felt having to write it?”
    Anyhow…
   Here’s a collection of questions I’d assembled during my Quixotic years as a writing coach – each one designed  to force journalists to think about what they are doing and why BEFORE they put fingers to keyboard:
   1.) Who is going to read your story?
   2. What makes it interesting?
   3. Is your story “good” news or “bad” news for your reader?
   4.) What will this story to and for your reader?
   5.) Does your reader NEED to know the facts in your story?
   6.) Did you enjoy producing this story?
   7.) Will your reader enjoy reading it – all the way to the end?
   8.) Will the material in your story make your reader’s life better or worse?
    NOTE: Next time you wade through the daily "product" produced by your local newpaper -- either on the web or on paper -- see if you can tell how many of these questions were asked before all the words became "news." JKdeG

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