March 14, 2014
Newspapers and magazines (print or online) don’t announce that they’ll be late because they’ve run out of stories. Yet it’s common for corporate publications.
Newsgathering is a formally-taught skill involving directed questioning, a contacts system, discipline and a strong ‘news sense’. The latter is difficult to teach even to journalists – most pick it up through experience.
Some companies think they’re ‘newsgathering’ if they have a list of managers to call regularly and ask “have you any stories?” They’re baffled when this generates increasingly smaller yields.
The reason is simple: it isn’t newsgathering. It’s an inefficient, unproductive, bureaucratic hassle.
Those charged with executing it will get used to generating poor results and often acquire an air of defeated resignation which will contaminate the entire project.
What most companies mean by ‘we’ve run out of stories’ is that managers haven’t much to announce – a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of corporate newsletters.
Without professional newsgathering, ‘running out of stories’ is a genuine risk. Professionally-trained journalists simply won’t have that problem in the overwhelming majority of companies.
Professional publications become part of the background tapestry of readers’ lives and arrive reliably on computer screens precisely when they’re supposed to.
Amateur publications don’t.
All our blogs are now carried at http://www.bluerockfox.com
bluerockfox200 