Dig Deeper. Be more interesting.
Showing up means not just reading the press release about the new product at Starbucks or new flavor of Doritos. After all, every show across North America will be reading the same copy from the prep sheet.
How can you make a news story more interesting? One way is to ignore it altogether, unless you add personal perspective – your unique point of view – to the story.
The other way is to be more interesting, to spend five minutes to dig just a little deeper to see if there’s anything you can add to the story that people won’t hear anywhere else.
Google is your friend.
I came across a website for news writers that suggested some creative googling by using keywords to find interesting angles. I’ll use National Oreo Day as an example since this is typical, generic content, but you could use this with any topic you’re discussing.
I tried the keywords they suggested, using Oreos as my topic idea.
How do I make a news story about Oreos more interesting?
Here’s what I came up with:
the Oreo incident (Football players suspended for naked Oreo run)
the Oreo effect (People make room in budget for sweets even during tough times)
the Oreo dilemma (a real psychological phenomenon, when we get analysis paralysis because of too many flavors to choose from)
the Oreo problem (Oreo cookies kept crumbling)
the Oreo paradox (Why are Oreo Thins 42% more expensive than regular Oreos even though they're about 30% lighter?)
The Oreo scandal (Is Oreo grooming children?)
Oreo + bizarre (the strangest specialty Oreo flavors)
Oreo + funny (memes of fake/hilarious Oreo flavors)
Oreo + controversy (Oreo shrinkflation)
Oreo + mystery (Oreo had a mystery flavor campaign)
Oreo + happy news (you can order a Happy Birthday Oreo gift box from their website)
Oreo + good news (Oreo themed Christmas presents)
Other keywords: Illegal, lawsuit, affair, dilemma, effect, incident, revolution, incredible, unusual, surprising, profound, lucky.
A quick Google search will uncover angles that other media outlets were too lazy to discover.
These keywords are also helpful for a "fun facts" type break or a source for trivia questions.
Have fun with it and let me know how it goes. Keep showing up!
~ Angela
Hat Tip: Ten More Tricks for Finding Stories from transom.org