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WHAT IS JOURNALISM?
Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and
information. It is also the product of these activities. Journalism can be distinguished
from other activities and products by certain identifiable characteristics and practices.
These elements not only separate journalism from other forms of communication, they
are what make it indispensable to democratic societies. History reveals that the more
democratic a society, the more news and information it tends to have.
WHAT MAKES JOURNALISM
COMMUNICATION?

DIFFERENT

THAN

OTHER

FORMS

OF

The world, and especially the online world, is awash in communication. The vast
majority of this communication, however, is not news and especially not journalism.
Almost 70 percent of email traffic is spam, according to web security company
Symantec. In 2012, there were an average of 175 million tweets each day. But almost all
99% consisted of pointless babble, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon
University.
While journalism occupies a much smaller space than the talk, entertainment, opinion,
assertion, advertising and propaganda that dominate the media universe, it is
nevertheless perceived as being more valuable than most of the stuff out there. That
value flows from its purpose, to provide people with verified information they can use
to make better decisions, and its practices, the most important of which is a systematic
process a discipline of verification that journalists use to find not just the facts, but
also the truth about the facts.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF JOURNALISM?
The purpose of journalism, write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of
Journalism, is not defined by technology, nor by journalists or the techniques they
employ. Rather, the principles and purpose of journalism are defined by something
more basic: the function news plays in the lives of people. News is that part of
communication that keeps us informed of the changing events, issues, and characters in
the world outside. Though it may be interesting or even entertaining, the foremost
value of news is as a utility to empower the informed. The purpose of journalism is thus
to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions
about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments.
THE ELEMENTS OF JOURNALISM
In their book The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel identify the
essential principles and practices of journalism. Here are 10 elements common to good
journalism, drawn from the book.

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JOURNALISMS FIRST OBLIGATION IS TO THE TRUTH

Good decision-making depends on people having reliable, accurate facts put in a
meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical
sense, but in a capacity that is more down to earth. All truths even the laws of science
are subject to revision, but we operate by them in the meantime because they are
necessary and they work, Kovach and Rosenstiel write in the book. Journalism, they
continue, thus seeks a practical and functional form of truth. It is not the truth in the
absolute or philosophical or scientific sense but rather a pursuit of the truths by which
we can operate on a day-to-day basis. This journalistic truth is a process that begins
with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try
to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, subject to further investigation.
Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so
audiences can make their own assessment of the information. Even in a world of
expanding voices, getting it right is the foundation upon which everything else is
built context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate. The larger truth,
over time, emerges from this forum. As citizens encounter an ever-greater flow of data,
they have more need not less for suppliers of information dedicated to finding and
verifying the news and putting it in context.
ITS FIRST LOYALTY IS TO CITIZENS
The publisher of journalism whether a media corporation answering to advertisers
and shareholders or a blogger with his own personal beliefs and priorities must
show an ultimate allegiance to citizens. They must strive to put the public interest and
the truth above their own self-interest or assumptions. A commitment to citizens is an
implied covenant with the audience and a foundation of the journalistic business model
journalism provided without fear or favor is perceived to be more valuable than
content from other information sources. Commitment to citizens also means journalism
should seek to present a representative picture of constituent groups in society.
Ignoring certain citizens has the effect of disenfranchising them.
The theory underlying the modern news industry has been the belief that credibility
builds a broad and loyal audience and that economic success follows in turn. In that
regard, the business people in a news organization also must nurture not exploit
their allegiance to the audience ahead of other considerations. Technology may change
but trust when earned and nurtured will endure.
ITS ESSENCE IS A DISCIPLINE OF VERIFICATION
Journalists rely on a professional discipline for verifying information. While there is no
standardized code as such, every journalist uses certain methods to assess and test
information to get it right. Being impartial or neutral is not a core principal of

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journalism. Because the journalist must make decisions, he or she is not and cannot be
objective. But journalistic methods are objective. When the concept of objectivity
originally evolved, it did not imply that journalists were free of bias. It called, rather, for
a consistent method of testing information a transparent approach to evidence
precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of the
work. The method is objective, not the journalist.
Seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking
various sides for comment, all signal such standards. This discipline of verification is
what separates journalism from other forms of communication such as propaganda,
advertising, fiction, or entertainment.
ITS PRACTITIONERS MUST MAINTAIN AN INDEPENDENCE FROM THOSE
THEY COVER
Independence is a cornerstone of reliability. On one level, it means not becoming
seduced by sources, intimidated by power, or compromised by self-interest. On a
deeper level it speaks to an independence of spirit and an open-mindedness and
intellectual curiosity that helps the journalist see beyond his or her own class or
economic status, race, ethnicity, religion, gender or ego.
Journalistic independence, write Kovach and Rosenstiel, is not neutrality. While
editorialists and commentators are not neutral, the source of their credibility is still their
accuracy, intellectual fairness and ability to inform not their devotion to a certain
group or outcome. In our independence, however, journalists must avoid straying into
arrogance, elitism, isolation or nihilism.
IT MUST SERVE AS AN INDEPENDENT MONITOR OF POWER
Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and
position most affect citizens. It may also offer voice to the voiceless. Being an
independent monitor of power means watching over the powerful few in society on
behalf of the many to guard against tyranny, Kovach and Rosenstiel write.
The earliest journalists firmly established as a core principle their responsibility to examine
unseen corners of society.
The watchdog role is often misunderstood, even by journalists, to mean afflict the
comfortable. While upsetting the applecart may certainly be a result of watchdog
journalism, the concept as introduced in the mid-1600s was far less combative. Rather, it
sought to redefine the role of the journalist from a passive stenographer to more a
curious observer who would search out and discover the news.

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The watchdog role also means more than simply monitoring government. The earliest
journalists, write Kovach and Rosenstiel, firmly established as a core principle their
responsibility to examine unseen corners of society. The world they chronicled captured
the imagination of a largely uninformed society, creating an immediate and enthusiastic
popular following.
Finally, the purpose of the watchdog extends beyond simply making the management
and execution of power transparent, to making known and understood the effects of
that power. This includes reporting on successes as well as failures. Journalists have an
obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or
exploiting it for commercial gain.
IT MUST PROVIDE A FORUM FOR PUBLIC CRITICISM AND COMPROMISE
The news media are common carriers of public discussion, and this responsibility forms
a basis for special privileges that news and information providers receive from
democratic societies. These privileges can involve subsidies for distribution or research
and development (lower postal rates for print, use of public spectrum by broadcasters,
development and management of the Internet) to laws protecting content and free
speech (copyright, libel, and shield laws).
These privileges, however, are not pre-ordained or perpetual. Rather, they are conferred
because of the need for an abundant supply of information. They are predicated on the
assumption that journalism because of its principles and practices will supply a
steady stream of higher quality content that citizens and government will use to make
better decisions. Traditionally, this covenant has been between news organizations and
government. The new forms of digital media, however, place a responsibility on
everyone who publishes content whether for profit or for personal satisfaction in
the public domain. The raw material cast into the marketplace of ideas sustains civic
dialogue and serves society best when it consists of verified information rather than just
prejudice and supposition.
Journalism should also attempt to fairly represent varied viewpoints and interests in
society and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of
debate. Accuracy and truthfulness also require that the public discussion not neglect
points of common ground or instances where problems are not just identified but also
solved.
Journalism, then, is more than providing an outlet for discussion or adding ones voice
to the conversation. Journalism carries with it a responsibility to improve the quality of
debate by providing verified information and intellectual rigor. A forum without regard
for facts fails to inform and degrades rather than improves the quality and effectiveness
of citizen decision-making.

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IT MUST STRIVE TO KEEP THE SIGNIFICANT INTERESTING AND RELEVANT

Journalism is storytelling with a purpose. It should do more than gather an audience or
catalogue the important. It must balance what readers know they want with what they
cannot anticipate but need. Writing coaches Roy Peter Clark and Chip Scanlan describe
effective news writing as the intersection of civic clarity, the information citizens need
to function, and literary grace, which is the reporters storytelling skill set. In other
words, part of the journalists responsibility is providing information in such a way
people will be inclined to listen. Journalists must thus strive to make the significant
interesting and relevant.
Quality is measured both by how much a work engages its audience and enlightens it.
This means journalists must continually ask what information has the most value to
citizens and in what form people are most likely to assimilate it. While journalism
should reach beyond such topics as government and public safety, journalism
overwhelmed by trivia and false significance trivializes civic dialogue and ultimately
public policy.
IT MUST KEEP THE NEWS COMPREHENSIVE AND PROPORTIONAL
Journalism is our modern cartography. It creates a map for citizens to navigate society.
As with any map, its value depends on a completeness and proportionality in which the
significant is given greater visibility than the trivial.
Keeping news in proportion is a cornerstone of truthfulness. Inflating events for
sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping, or being disproportionately negative all
make a less reliable map. The most comprehensive maps include all affected
communities, not just those with attractive demographics. The most complete stories
take into diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Though proportion and
comprehensiveness are subjective, their ambiguity does not lessen their significance.
ITS PRACTITIONERS MUST BE ALLOWED TO EXERCISE THEIR PERSONAL
CONSCIENCE
Doing journalism, whether as a professional writing for a news organization or as an
online contributor in the public space, involves ones moral compass and demands a
personal sense of ethics and responsibility. Because news is important, those who
provide news have a responsibility to voice their personal conscience out loud and
allow others to do so as well. They must be willing to question their own work and to
differ with the work of others if fairness and accuracy demand they do so.
News organizations do well to nurture this independence by encouraging individuals
to speak their minds. Conversation and debate stimulate the intellectual diversity of

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minds and voices necessary to understand and accurately cover an increasingly diverse
society. Having a diverse newsroom does little if those different voices are not spoken
or heard.
Its also a matter of self-interest. Employees encouraged to raise their hands may save
the boss from himself or protect the news organizations reputation by pointing out
errors, flagging important omissions, questioning misguided assumptions, or even
revealing wrongdoing. Having a sense of ethics is perhaps most important for the
individual journalist or online contributor.
Increasingly, those who produce the news work in isolation, whether from a
newsroom cubicle, the scene of a story, or their home office. They may file directly to
the public without the safety net of editing, a second set of eyes, or the collaboration of
others. While crowd sourcing by the audience may catch and correct errors or
misinformation, the reputation of the author and the quality of public dialogue are
nevertheless damaged.
CITIZENS, TOO, HAVE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES WHEN IT COMES TO
THE NEWS
The average person now, more than ever, works like a journalist. Writing a blog entry,
commenting on a social media site, sending a tweet, or liking a picture or post, likely
involves a shorthand version of the journalistic process. One comes across information,
decides whether or not its believable, assesses its strength and weaknesses, determines
if it has value to others, decides what to ignore and what to pass on, chooses the best
way to share it, and then hits the send button.
Though this process may take only a few moments, its essentially what reporters do.
Two things, however, separate this journalistic-like process from an end product
that is journalism. The first is motive and intent. The purpose of journalism is to give
people the information they need to make better decisions about their lives and society.
The second difference is that journalism involves the conscious, systematic, application
of a discipline of verification to produce a functional truth, as opposed to something
that is merely interesting or informative. Yet while the process is critical, its the end
product the story by which journalism is ultimately judged.
Today, when the world is awash in information and news is available any time
everywhere, a new relationship is being formed between the suppliers of journalism
and the people who consume it. The new journalist is no longer a gatekeeper who
decides what the public should and should not know. The individual is now his or her
own circulation manager and editor. To be relevant, journalists must now verify
information the consumer already has or is likely to find and then help them make
sense of what it means and how they might use it.

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Thus, write Kovach and Rosenstiel, The first task of the new journalist/sense maker is
to verify what information is reliable and then order it so people can grasp it
efficiently. A part of this new journalistic responsibility is to provide citizens with the
tools they need to extract knowledge for themselves from the undifferentiated flood or
rumor, propaganda, gossip, fact, assertion, and allegation the communications system
now produces.
WHAT DOES A JOURNALIST DO?
Asking who is a journalist is the wrong question, because journalism can be produced
by anyone. At the same time, merely engaging in journalistic-like activity snapping a
cell-phone picture at the scene of a fire or creating a blog site for news and comment
does not by itself produce a journalistic product. Though it can and sometimes does,
there is a distinction between the act of journalism and the end result.
The journalist places the public good above all else and uses certain methods the
foundation of which is a discipline of verification to gather and assess what he or she
finds.
THE JOURNALIST AS A COMMITTED OBSERVER
Gil Thelen, the former publisher and president of The Tampa Tribune, believes the
journalist has a very specific role in society. He calls it the committed observer. What
he means by that, Thelen explains, is that the journalist is not removed from
community, though at times may stand apart from others so as to view things from a
different perspective.
Rather, says Thelen, journalists are interdependent with the needs of their fellow
citizens. If there is a key issue in town that needs resolution and is being explored by
local institutions, we have a commitment to reporting on this process over the long
term, as an observer. The journalist helps resolve the issue by being a responsible
reporter who supplies background, verifies facts, and explains the issues involved.
Thelens ideas are echoed in the words of other journalists as well, who talk about the
press creating a common language, a common understanding, or being part of the glue
that defines and adheres a community together.
The notion of the committed observer also provides language to clarify the journalistic
role when reporters may be confused about how patriotic versus independent they
should be, and citizens are often either confused or angered by the coverage of
controversial issues or the disclosure of secrets.
This confusion, note Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach in The Elements of Journalism,
doesnt serve anyone well. Other professions are much clearer about their role and

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citizens as a consequence are much clearer about the need for their doing controversial
things.
People understand and accept, for instance, that doctors serve a Hippocratic Oath that
requires they try to save people they may hate, whether the enemy soldier in war or the
wounded gunman who just shot a police officer. Or that lawyers are required to
provide a zealous defense for even the worst people in society.
Journalists need to be equally clear about their role, both to themselves and to the
public. A journalist is not aloof from society. They are citizens. Even patriots. Journalists
express their commitment and duty by performing the prescribed role of observer to
provide their fellow citizens with the information they need to make judgments and
decisions. Even in times of war or national crisis, that means not only providing people
with information they might find scary, but information the government or other
powerful institutions do not want revealed.
THE THEORY OF THE INTERLOCKING PUBLIC
The splintering of mass media audiences and the migration of information consumers
to tens of thousands of niche web sites is further evidence that everyone is interested,
and expert, in something. The diversity and magnitude of the public, in fact, is its
strength. A mix of publics is usually much wiser than a public comprised of just the
elite or one segment of special interest.
The wisdom of decision-making by an interlocking public is embedded in the notion
that government by the people means citizens have the duty to keep themselves
informed. Moreover, says historian Paul Starr in The Creation of the Media, Political
Origins of Modern Communication, government played a central role in equipping
citizens with news and information as well as the tools, the ability to read and write, so
they could consume it.
Early Congresses passed laws making education and literacy priorities that required the
establishment of public schools. Women, who could then not vote, were included in
part so they could educate their children. Education also emphasized useful
knowledge, which included current events.
The distribution of news, meanwhile, needed a way to keep up with citizen pioneers as
they moved westward from population centers on the East Coast, and Congress
addressed the problem when it created the Post Office. Rejecting the European model in
which every local post office was required to generate enough revenue to pay for itself,
it was decided that in the U.S., every county seat should have a post office and that the
mailing of newspapers and books should be subsidized with lower postal rates.

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Starr notes that by 1830, the Post Office was delivering one-fourth of all newspapers
and 2 million more newspapers than letters. A century later, Congress allowed
commercial broadcasters to use the public airwaves to distribute their programming, a
part of which was news and information.
This vision of governance is central to the notion that journalism should also be
pluralistic. Collectively, it serves a broad and diverse audience that is both complex and
dynamic but whose individual members must be able to sort out the truth in order to
make personal decisions about their lives and collective decisions about government
and society. Journalism helps the interlocking public make decisions about the truth.
BIAS AND OBJECTIVITY
Journalism attempts to be fair and accurate. It does this through objective methods and
managing bias. The guides in this section help you understand and navigate those
processes.
THE LOST MEANING OF OBJECTIVITY
One of the great confusions about journalism, write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel
in The Elements of Journalism, is the concept of objectivity. When the concept originally
evolved, it was not meant to imply that journalists were free of bias. Quite the contrary.
The term began to appear as part of journalism after the turn of the 20th century,
particularly in the 1920s, out of a growing recognition that journalists were full of bias,
often unconsciously. Objectivity called for journalists to develop a consistent method of
testing information a transparent approach to evidence precisely so that personal
and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work.
In the latter part of the 19th century, journalists talked about something called realism
rather than objectivity. This was the idea that if reporters simply dug out the facts and
ordered them together, truth would reveal itself rather naturally.
Objectivity called for journalists to develop a consistent method of testing information a
transparent approach to evidence
Realism emerged at a time when journalism was separating from political party
affiliations and becoming more accurate. It coincided with the invention of what
journalists call the inverted pyramid, in which a journalist lines the facts up from the
most important to the least important, thinking it helps audiences understand things
naturally.
At the beginning of the 20th century, however, some journalists began to worry about
the navet of realism. In part, reporters and editors were becoming more aware of the
rise of propaganda and the role of press agents.

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At a time when Freud was developing his theories of the unconscious and painters like
Picasso were experimenting with Cubism, journalists were also developing a greater
recognition of human subjectivity.
The method is objective, not the journalist.
In 1919, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, an associate editor for the New York
World, wrote an influential and scathing account of how cultural blinders had distorted
the New York Times coverage of the Russian Revolution. In the large, the news about
Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what men wished to see, they wrote.
Lippmann and others began to look for ways for the individual journalist to remain
clear and free of his irrational, his unexamined, his unacknowledged prejudgments in
observing, understanding and presenting the news.
Journalism, Lippmann declared, was being practiced by untrained accidental
witnesses. Good intentions, or what some might call honest efforts by journalists,
were not enough. Faith in the rugged individualism of the tough reporter, what
Lippmann called the cynicism of the trade, was also not enough. Nor were some of
the new innovations of the times, like bylines, or columnists. The solution, Lippmann
argued, was for journalists to acquire more of the scientific spirit There is but one
kind of unity possible in a world as diverse as ours. It is unity of method, rather than
aim; the unity of disciplined experiment. Lippmann meant by this that journalism
should aspire to a common intellectual method and a common area of valid fact.
To begin, Lippmann thought, the fledgling field of journalist education should be
transformed from trade schools designed to fit men for higher salaries in the existing
structure. Instead, the field should make its cornerstone the study of evidence and
verification. Although this was an era of faith in science, Lippmann had few illusions.
It does not matter that the news is not susceptible to mathematical statement. In fact,
just because news is complex and slippery, good reporting requires the exercise of the
highest scientific virtues.
In the original concept, in other words, the method is objective, not the journalist. The
key was in the discipline of the craft, not the aim. This point has some important
implications. One is that the impartial voice employed by many news organizations
that familiar, supposedly neutral style of newswriting is not a fundamental principle
of journalism. Rather, it is an often helpful device news organizations use to highlight
that they are trying to produce something obtained by objective methods. The second
implication is that this neutral voice, without a discipline of verification, creates a
veneer covering something hollow. Journalists who select sources to express what is
really their own point of view, and then use the neutral voice to make it seem objective,
are engaged in a form of deception. This damages the credibility of the craft by making
it seem unprincipled, dishonest, and biased.

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The impartial voice employed by many news organizations that familiar, supposedly neutral
style of newswriting is not a fundamental principle of journalism.
Reporters have gone on to refine the concept Lippmann had in mind, but usually only
privately, and in the name of technique or reporting routines rather than journalisms
larger purpose. The notion of an objective method of reporting exists in pieces, handed
down by word of mouth from reporter to reporter.
Developmental psychologist William Damon at Stanford, for instance, has identified
various strategies journalists have developed to verify reporting. Damon asked his
interviewees where they learned these concepts. Overwhelmingly the answer was: by
trial and error and on my own or from a friend. Rarely did journalists report learning
them in journalism school or from their editors. Many useful books have been written.
IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors) for instance, has tried to develop a
methodology for how to use public records, read documents, and produce Freedom of
Information Act requests.
By and large, however, these informal strategies have not been pulled together into the
widely understood discipline that Lippmann and others imagined. There is nothing
approaching standard rules of evidence, as in the law, or an agreed-upon method of
observation, as in the conduct of scientific experiments.
Nor have older conventions of verification been expanded to match the new forms of
journalism. Although journalism may have developed various techniques and
conventions for determining facts, it has done less to develop a system for testing the
reliability of journalistic interpretation.
UNDERSTANDING BIAS
For a time, bias was the term of choice to describe anything people hated about
journalism, whether the power and influence of corporate news organizations to the
choices reporters made in writing individual stories. In 2001, in fact, a book about
media unfairness entitled Bias was number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
In recent years the public seems to have adopted a more nuanced view of bias. Perhaps
this is because many critics have found their voice online where studies confirm that
half the blogs contain just the authors opinion or that one-sidedness has become a
successful business model, as Fox News Channel and MSNBC have demonstrated.
Journalists, nevertheless, often feel compelled to try to prove that they are unbiased.
But what if they took a different approach? What if journalists acknowledged that bias
does exist, that it is built into the choices they make when deciding what to leave in and
what to leave out? That bias is embedded in the culture and language of the society on

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which the journalist reports? And that news judgment does reflect the journalists
background as well as the news organizations mission and business model?
What if the journalist said, in other words, that bias may not always be a bad thing? That
it may serve to create narrative texture or make a story understandable.
What if journalists acknowledged that bias does exist, that it is built into the choices they make
when deciding what to leave in and what to leave out?
One can even argue that draining a story of all bias can drain it of its humanity, its
lifeblood. In the biases of the community one can also find conflicting passions that
bring stories to life.
A bias, moreover, can be the foundation for investigative journalism. It may prompt the
news organization to right a wrong and take up an unpopular cause. Thus, the job of
journalists is not to stamp out bias. Rather, the journalist should learn how to manage it.
And to do that, the journalist needs to become conscious of the biases at play in a given
story and decide when they are appropriate and may be useful, and when they are
inappropriate.
Biases that journalists and their audiences probably consider appropriate are such
things as a belief in representative government, open government, and social equality.
Yet an unquestioning adherence to policies based on these principles might
not always be the best thing. Is democracy, for example, the best form of government for
all people in all places at all times? Should government not be allowed to
have any secrets? How far should government go to promote social equality?
There are also biases that cut both ways.

Being a crusader against social ills is generally good, but you can lose perspective.
A bias toward official voices is necessary, but if it leaves out other voices its a
problem.
Being sensitive to sources is part of listening well but it can also mean that the
journalist is writing for them rather than the public.
Looking for the extraordinary, the man-bites-dog story, can also lead a journalist to
distort what is really going on or is important.
Subject: There is a bias built into the way journalists pick and cover stories. Certain
subjects are routinely covered or ignored. Do some subjects or communities only appear
when a crime occurs or when there is a special event or parade?
Boss: What stories are being done or overdone in order to please the boss?
Production: What stories are automatic because they are easy to do, but may be trivial
or incremental? Or how often does a journalist call certain sources because they know
the source will answer their phone or offer a perfect quote?
Against companies: Turning skepticism into negativity and the assumption that every
big and successful institution must be doing something wrong.
There are also more subtle biases, but ones every journalist will recognize.

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Market-oriented bias: This can be a pressure to produce stories that target market
segments with desirable demographics for advertisers.
Covering the bases: This means doing the stories everyone else is going to have in
order to cover the bases (and your rear end).
Balance is a long-honored notion, and can be a useful technique for a story that you
may not know much about. But how many sides does it take to balance a story? Is a
balanced story fair? Is it true to the facts? Should you still give equal space or weight
to all sides?
Political bias is something journalists hear a lot about from the public, but inside the
newsroom its less a topic of conversation. Journalists dont ask and dont tell. They
dont know each others politics. So therefore it isnt a problem. But is that enough?
Does not talking about something mean it isnt a problem?
Theres another sort of bias worth mentioning, too.
It used to be called pack journalism. It has also been called group think. It is the
story line that the press corps en masse is telling or repeating. A modern term for it is
the master narrative. Bush was a strong leader. Or he was dumb.
These master narratives can become a kind of trap or rut. The journalist picks facts that
illustrate a master narrative, or current stereotype, and ignores other facts.
In the end, making choices requires journalists to think. A journalist needs to be
conscious of biases so he or she can know what biases make it into stories.
TOOLS TO MANAGE BIAS
Examine your own biases
Paul Taylor, former chief political correspondent at the Philadelphia Inquirer and
Washington Post, says that if you are covering a political campaign or any other
ongoing, long-term story in which you could find yourself gravitating toward one side
or one person:

Periodically examine yourself for bias building up understanding what your views
are and why you have them is the best way to keep them under control.

Who do you personally like or dislike? Why?

How might that be coloring your judgment?

Read through some of your stories and be self-critical.

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BEFORE AND AFTER

One way Paul Taylor used to test this is a before and after tool.
When assigned a story that involves some substantial reporting, Taylor used to write
the lead at the outset, before he had done any reporting. Then he would test that lead
against the one he had written for real at the end of the reporting.
If the final lead was too similar to the one he wrote before doing the reporting, he
would know he hadnt learned very much. Thats a sign the reporter may have only
pursued information that confirms his biases, rather than overcoming preconceptions to
find new information.
ASK YOURSELF
Another test is to ask yourself at the beginning of the reporting what biases are at play
in the story. Identify them.

Do any of them help you tell the story?

Are there any you believe you should not deal with?

Is there anything you should do in presenting any of these biases that will help the
reader understand them?

What bias do I have going in that I should be wary of?

And ask one other question: What are my points of ignorance going in that I need to
note?
VERIFICATION AND ACCURACY
A journalists first job is to get it right. But how? The guides in this section help you
understand how to think about accuracy and practice verification.
JOURNALISM AS A DISCIPLINE OF VERIFICATION
Journalists often describe the essence of their work as finding and presenting the facts
and also the truth about the facts.
They also describe using certain methods a way of working which Bill Kovach and
Tom Rosenstiel describe in The Elements of Journalism as a scientific-like approach to
getting the facts and also the right facts.

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Called the Discipline of Verification, its intellectual foundation rests on three core
concepts transparency, humility, and originality.

Transparency means show your work so readers can decide for themselves why they
should believe it.
Dont allow your audience to be deceived by acts of omission tell them as much as
you can about the story they are reading.

Tell the audience what you know and what you dont know. Never imply that you have
more knowledge than you actually do.

Tell the audience who your sources are, how they are in a position to know something,
and what their potential biases might be.
Transparency signals the journalists respect for the audience. It allows the audience to
judge the validity of the information, the process by which it was secured and the
motives and biases of the journalist providing it.
Transparency signals the journalists respect for the audience.
This makes transparency the best protection against errors and deception by sources. If
the best information a journalist has comes from a potentially biased source, naming the
source will reveal to the audience the possible bias and may inhibit the source from
attempting to deceive you as well.
The journalists job is to provide information in such a way that people can assess it and
then make up their own minds what to think.
This is the same principle that governs the scientific method. By giving the audience the
background on how you arrived at a certain conclusion, you allow them to replicate the
process for themselves.
Humility means keep an open mind.
Journalists need to keep an open mind not only about what they hear but also about
their own ability to understand what it means. Exercise humility. Dont assume. Avoid
arrogance about your knowledge.
Assumption, as a veteran bureau chief once put it, is the mother of all screw-ups.
Journalists need to recognize their own fallibility and the limitations of their
knowledge. They should be conscious of false omniscience and avoid just writing
around it. They should acknowledge to themselves what they are unsure of, or only

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think they understand and then check it out. This makes their judgment more precise
and their reporting more incisive.
Jack Fuller, the author, novelist, editor, and newspaper executive, has suggested that
journalists need to show modesty in their judgment about what they know and how
they know it.
Gregory Favre, a longtime editor in Sacramento and Chicago, says his rule is simple.
DO NOT PRINT ONE IOTA BEYOND WHAT YOU KNOW.
First, you have to be honest about what you know, versus what you assume you know,
or think you know. A key way to avoid misrepresenting events is a disciplined honesty
about the limits of ones knowledge and the power of ones perception.
Originality means do your own work.
Information can be viewed as a hierarchy. At the top is the work you have done
yourself, reporting you can directly vouch for.
Journalists say the times they most often got something wrong was when they took
something from somebody or someplace else and failed to check it themselves.
THE HIERARCHY OF ACCURACY
Some facts, quotes, assertions and color are more reliable than others.
The stuff that comes from an eyewitness is better than that which is second-hand.
The stuff that you know for yourself is better than the stuff someone else supposedly
checked out or did they?
This idea was crystallized by Mike Oreskes when he was Washington bureau chief of
The New York Times. He said that as he looked back at the lessons of the Monica
Lewinsky scandal for the Times, he thought the most important was, Do your own
work.
Beware of the idea that you have to post a story because its out there floating
around.
In a sense, Oreskes is suggesting a hierarchy of verification. At the top of that is the stuff
you have verified yourself from sources with direct knowledge and they are better
than sources who do not have direct knowledge.

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The Times, as an example, had a third party witness story in the Lewinsky scandal. It
was slated to go. The paper was laid out. It was 6 p.m. Early edition deadline was
getting close.
The reporters who had worked the story, one of whom was John Broder, walked into
Oreskes office and said, Mike, we have been thinking this through, and we realized
our sources are second-hand. They are not the people who saw the president and
Lewinsky together. At best they are people who talked to people who saw them
together We really wonder if that is good enough to call the president a liar.
Oreskes called New York and said he thought they should hold the story. New York
argued with him. The editors said, you know this story is going to get out. But
Oreskes held firm, under significant pressure.
It was a pivotal moment. Not only was the third party witness story wrong, it became a
turning point in the Times coverage. Editors, moreover, were grateful for Oreskes
decision and thereafter stuck more closely to what The Times could verify for itself with
first-hand sources. Taking this even further, there is a hierarchy of what can be proved
in a more general sense.
You can argue that journalism is first concerned with the more external world. The
president said these words. The car came from this direction and hit the other car here.
Here journalism is on pretty solid ground.
The more interior world which includes things such as motive (why did the
president say these words, why did the government choose this policy, or why did
Osama bin Laden hate America) is necessarily more speculative.
The Hierarchy of Information and concentric circles of sources
You can categorize the information you possess in a series of concentric circles.
The innermost circle is the information you know first-hand. Youre standing on the
corner and see a dump truck run a stoplight and crash into a bus.
The next circle is the information you have second-hand. Youre having coffee at an
outdoor cafe and someone runs up to get help, saying she just saw a truck hit a bus.
The outer-most circle is the information thats third-hand. Youre in the newsroom and
get a call from someone at the cafe, relaying news that they heard a truck has hit a bus.

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Most of the information journalists deal with lies in the second or third circles. But most
facts are found that within the first innermost circle, usually from a participant, an
eyewitness or from physical evidence.
This does not mean the closest perspective is the most truthful or even the most
accurate. Eyewitness descriptions of crime suspects, for example, are often unreliable.
Nor does embedding a journalist with a platoon necessarily provide a true picture of a
larger war.
But failing to find and verify basic facts is equally problematic. Bad facts produce
inaccurate assumptions. In the hierarchy of information, a story that rests on inaccurate
assumptions will eventually collapse.
So with each concentric circle of information you move outward, your guard needs to
be ever higher for verification.
Basically, it comes down to a hierarchy of information. In terms of facts, the stuff that is
closest to an eyewitness account is better than that which is second-hand.
CASE STUDY: THE GABBY GIFFORDS SHOOTING
Concentric circles and the best sources of the most accurate facts will likely change
as a story unfolds. Sometimes it can happen very quickly a matter or minutes or
hours while for other stories it may occur over a period of days or even weeks.
There were, for example, at least three different sets of concentric circles in just the first
few hours after a gunman shot Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 18
others, six of whom died, at a constituent meeting in January 2011 in a Tucson suburb.
The first set of circles was at the scene, a parking lot outside a supermarket. Those
closest to the event, participants and eyewitnesses, provided the most accurate accounts
of what actually occurred (security camera footage reportedly exists but has never been
made public).
They saw the shooter fire at Giffords and then the crowd, apparently randomly.
Witnesses said the shooter stopped to reload but dropped the loaded magazine to the
sidewalk where a bystander grabbed it. Another bystander, meanwhile, clubbed the
back of the assailants head with a folding chair. Then a 74-year-old retired Army
colonel, who himself had been wounded, tackled the shooter to the ground and others
piled on the man until police arrived. A Giffords staff intern applied pressure to the
gunshot wound on her forehead and made sure she did not choke on her blood while a
married doctor and nurse who were shopping in a nearby store set up triage and begin
treating the most seriously wounded.

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These descriptions were vivid, emotional, and very personal. Accounts from
participants at the center of a concentric circle are often intense and narrowly focused
confined to what they saw, and felt, and did.
Farther away, an employee at a nearby store didnt see anything but said he heard 15
to 20 gunshots.
The first journalist on the scene was Peter Michaels, the news director of the local NPR
affiliate, whod been alerted by his wife, who was shopping at a nearby store.
Michaels got close enough to observe at least five bodies, adult bodies, strewn on the
sidewalk in front of the store underneath the sign Gabrielle Giffords Congress on your
Corner. I saw the congresswoman slumped in the corner with an apparent gunshot
wound to the head. She was bleeding down her face. She had a red dress on. Seconds
later, they took her on the gurney. Based on Michaels account, NPR became the first
national news organization to report the breaking news.
During the first hour of the shooting, information came from sources in or near the
concentric circle at the crime scene. The details were about what, when, and
where specific facts that were reported, on the whole, accurately.
But then the story moved to another location, the hospital where doctors were furiously
working to save Giffords life. This second concentric circle was centered in an
operating room and the best sources her doctors and those close relatives and staff to
whom the doctors might talk could not be reached.
News organizations thus begin to rely on sources at the distant fringes of the circle, in
one notable instance distant by a couple thousand miles. They also recycled sources
from the shooting scene and began to speculate on what those eyewitness accounts
inferred, that Giffords was seriously, perhaps mortally, wounded.
An hour after the shooting, NPR reported, incorrectly, that Giffords had died.
Other news organizations picked up the bulletin and repeated it on air and online, most
citing NPR. Fox News and CNN went a step further, saying they had matched the
NPR story from their own sources.
So what happened? According to a report by Alicia Shepard, then NPRs ombudsman,
editors begin relying on second or third-hand sources. In other words, information that
came from people far removed from the center of the concentric circle or from the
wrong circle entirely.

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One report came from a local NPR reporter (not Peter Michaels) who quoted sources
within the Pima County Sheriffs department. The other was an unnamed person in a
congressional office who was contacted by an NPR congressional correspondent and
confirmed that Giffords was dead.
Thus, said Shepard, NPR had two sources, though neither was identified in any way,
and should have been. Moreover, A critical question for each source was: How do
you know that? It turns out that neither source had accurate, first-hand information.
The congressional source had heard it in a meeting on Capitol Hill, where undoubtedly
rumors and half-truths were flying around.
Shepard quotes the local NPR reporter, Mark Moran, as saying his information came
from law enforcement sources, a another reporter from his news organization, and
very early reports on NPR.org. I felt supremely confident in the two sources I had,
but unfortunately those sources were relying on other sources, almost like a game of
telephone tag, said Moran.
An hour and a half after the shooting, the hospital confirmed that Giffords was in
surgery, but alive, and later doctors and her husband briefed reporters.
As the story progressed, a third concentric circle involved the shooter and police. Who
was the suspect and were others involved? What were his motives? What physical
evidence existed? Why might this have happened? And, was there anything that might
have been done to prevent or mitigate the carnage?
The most authoritative sources for this third phase of the story were police investigators
and prosecutors, who were more readily available to journalists. While withholding
some information, they could at least confirm or deny what reporters were hearing
from others or uncovering on their own.
As time went on, this third set of concentric circles became institutionalized and was
in fact codified in the legal process during which the suspect was declared competent
to stand trial, eventually plead guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
One can undoubtedly find other concentric circles in this example. With each, however,
the point is the same. People closest to the center of the concentric circle are likely to
have the best facts for that phase of the story. However, as the story evolves the
circles change and so to do the best sources of fact.

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THE PROTESS METHOD OF VERIFICATION

David Protess is president of the Chicago Innocence Project, a nonprofit investigative
reporting group that exposes wrongful convictions and other problems of the criminal
justice system. He previously served for 12 years as director of the Medill Innocence
Project at Northwestern University, where his students developed evidence that freed
12 innocent prisoners, five from death row.
Protess used the cases as a tool for teaching journalism students the importance of
verifying presumed facts. Among the lessons: Assume nothing is true. Go directly to the
source. Dont rely on just the authorities or officials. Touch all bases. Be systematic.
Each year Protess received thousands of letters from people on death row who claimed
wrongful conviction. He chose a handful and assigned his students to examine them.
Maybe the best way to understand my method is what I do for the students when they
come into my class, Protess explained in an interview. I draw a set of co-centric circles
on the blackboard. In the outermost circle are secondary source documents, things like
press accounts The next circle in is primary source documents, trial documents like
testimony and statements. The third circle in is real people, witnesses. We interview
them to see if everyone matches whats in the documents. And at the inner circle are
what I call targets the police, the lawyers, other suspects, and the prisoner.

The concentric circles of sourcing

Youd be surprised how much is in the early documents. There is a lot there, especially
early suspects, the police passed by.
In 1999, the appeal of Anthony Porter was one of the cases Protess used to introduce his
aspiring journalists to the value of skepticism.

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At the inner circle of the Porter case, Protess and his students found Alstory Simon, a
suspect the police quickly overlooked. Crosschecking the documents and sources,
Protess and his students found a nephew who had overheard Simon confess to the
murder on the night of the killings.
Simon was ultimately convicted of the crime for which Porter was about to die. On
March 19, 1999, Anthony Porter became the fifth prisoner wrongly convicted of murder
in Illinois freed by the work of Protess and his students.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD STORY?
A good story is about something the audience decides is interesting or important.
A great story often does both by using storytelling to make important news interesting.
The public is exceptionally diverse. Though people may share certain characteristics or
beliefs, they have an untold variety of concerns and interests.
So anything can be news. But not everything is newsworthy. Journalism is a process in
which a reporter uses verification and storytelling to make a subject newsworthy.
At its most basic level, news is a function of distribution - news organizations (or
members of the public) create stories to pass on a piece of information to readers,
viewers, or listeners.
A good story, however, does more than inform or amplify. It adds value to the topic.
The Elements of Journalism, in fact, describes journalism as storytelling with a purpose.
Creating a good story means finding and verifying important or interesting information
and then presenting it in a way that engages the audience. Good stories are part of what
make journalism different, and more valuable, than other content in the media universe.
Research proves two things about good stories:
Treatment trumps topic. How a story is told is more important to the audience than its
topic, what it is about. The best story is a well-told tale about something the reader feels
is relevant or significant.
The best stories are more complete and more comprehensive. They contain more
verified information from more sources with more viewpoints and expertise. They
exhibit more enterprise, more reportorial effort.
Good stories are important and interesting
Writing coaches Roy Peter Clark and Chip Scanlan are quoted in the Elements of
Journalism as believing that effective news writing can be found at the intersection of
civic clarity, the information citizens need to function, and literary grace, which is the
reporters storytelling skill set.

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There are many things journalists fail to do to engage the audience:

Time is frozen

Character is missing

Stories lack meaning

Relevancy is assumed

Storytelling is predictable

Limited use of digital media to amplify storytelling

One of the keys to engagement is finding ways to fix these problems.
UNFREEZE TIME
People are active, they are doing things have your stories show that. Jack Hart, the
former managing editor and writing coach at The Oregonian says 15-30 column inches is
a reasonable length for a narrative that can be produced in a day. The idea is to follow a
character through a complication and show how they resolve it. Think of a narrative
arc: the complication is introduced, then the action unfolds, the character has a
revelation, the character resolves the complication.

DEVELOP CHARACTER
Too much journalism fails to develop character. The people are cardboard, names and
faces fit into a journalistic template: the investigating officer, the protester, the
conservative Republican, the liberal Democrat. Often, just a little more reporting can
provide the kinds of details that avoid stereotypes and provide an interesting
dimension to the people who inhabit your stories.
TELL THE AUDIENCE WHAT IT MEANS
This is more than just decoding the latest zoning issues or the tuition increases. Tell
your audience why the world works the way it does, why a certain trend is happening,
why an event is or isnt taking place. Dont shy away from being an authenticator that
provides clarity.

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PROVE RELEVANCY
Readers view the news through the lens of their lives and filter the content based on
their interests and concerns. Though journalists may think, in fact may know, that
something is news, declaring it so doesnt make it true to the news consumer.
Relevancy should not be assumed. We need to prove it.
For example, how do you make local connections to the Asian economic market? The
Portland Oregonian did it by following an Oregon potato from harvest until it was sold
as part of a large order of French fries in a McDonalds in Singapore.
Data is also effective. As an isolated incident, a smash and grab from a parked car
probably wont rise to the level of news, except to neighbors on the same street. But if
crime-against-property statistics reveal a rash of larcenies from an auto, the
incident becomes representative of something thats happening in many
neighborhoods, and as such, is news.
EXPERIMENT WITH STORYTELLING
This is more than just dropping the journalists favorite crutch, the inverted pyramid
and telling stories. This is about thinking of stories differently. Maybe a graphic or map
is enough to tell the story. Maybe a photo will do the trick. Maybe the characters
themselves can write, or speak, in their own words.
Use the Web
Use the Web to enhance the power of storytelling and make the story more personal
and interactive. Video and audio make the reader an eyewitness. Comments, forums,
and other crowd sourcing feedback allow citizens to interact with the news. Maps help
readers see where an event occurred and also their proximity to it. And a calculator
allows users to translate big, abstract, numbers to his or her very personal situation.
Boring versus engaging stories whats the difference?
One way to view a boring story is as an issue of excess. Too long, too rambling, too
into the weeds.
The problem with this approach is what it implies, that merely cutting down and
tightening up a tale will fix it. Often, however, the central weakness of boring stories is
not length but the absence of elements common to good storytelling.

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This may reflect the reporters reluctance to make conscious decisions about the most
important elements in the story the central point, central evidence, central characters,
and the central place.
Good stories prove their relevance to the audience
People care most about things that affect them.
On one level, the relevance of a story can be a function of geography. The reader is
more interested in his local weather forecast than the national outlook. He is more
interested in knowing why a police officer is taking a report on his block than
somewhere else in the city.
A different kind of proximity involves emotions or interests. The reader may identify
with a range of life experiences, from the emotional shock of losing a job or worrying
about a sick child to mundane tasks like the weekly trip to the grocery store or filling
the car with gas. Readers also identify with their own special interests, whether a hobby
or sport or an important pocketbook issue like taxes, interest rates, school quality, crime
and safety, health care, or economic development.
Good stories dont just assume relevancy; they prove it. They make the case that, you
should take the time to read this story because its potentially important to you
personally or to your community.
Often this is done by illustration or comparison. The reporter might assume, for
example, that the reader will be among a large segment of the audience comprised of
stakeholders in a story taxpayers, consumers, or parents. The weakness of this
approach is one of degree. While it may lay the foundation of relevance, treating the
reader as a member of a large group or class may not be enough to demonstrate that the
issue or event is personally relevant.
The anecdote, however, helps bridge that gap by offering more detail specific facts,
opinions, or experiences the reader can compare to his own knowledge and beliefs. The
anecdote might focus on a person, in a story about Obama care perhaps someone
previously without insurance who is signing up. Or the anecdote may focus on a
situation, perhaps observing the person trying to sign up for healthcare navigate a
government website.
The strength of the anecdote is in the detail. The reader gets a set of specific facts or
thoughts with which to compare or contrast his own experiences. If a connection occurs,
the story becomes relevant on an emotional, as well as intellectual, level. Good stories
dont just ring true, theyre also engaging and compelling.

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Using data is another way to prove relevancy. In a story about the impact of recession,
the proprietor of a candy shop in Tampa, Fla., can accurately be described as a small
business owner. This assumes, however, that the audience can understand the
significance of small business in the economic life of the community.
An alternative is to use two statistics from the Census and describe the shop as one of
15,000 Bay area business run by mom and pop that overall account for 10 percent of
local business activity. The statistics establish the appropriateness of the example, the
credibility of the owner as a source on local business activity, and telegraph to readers
that the story involved a higher level of reportorial effort.
A reporter can also use maps, calculators, and other software to establish relevance. A
big topic like an approaching hurricane can be made more personally relevant by a
map showing the chances of low-level flooding in a community or even neighborhood.
Calculators allow readers can plug in their own data to determine how rising or falling
interest rates might affect their auto loans or mortgages. And crime maps not only help
people determine where incidents are occurring, but figure out how alert they should
be.
Finally, for a story that is obviously relevant, data can serve as an exclamation point.
When Target revealed that hackers had stolen the personal data of 70 million credit card
holders, several journalists pointed out that one-third of the countrys 240 million adults
were thus affected.
Good stories have strong central characters
Humans are the most interesting creatures on earth. Readers, in turn, are most
interested in other people. Its why the head shot an image of a persons face has
been and remains the most popular genre of news photograph.
When interviewing someone, give them the opportunity to reveal something about themselves
and their character.
Dr. Mario Garcia, CEO of Garcia Media and founder of the the graphics &
design program at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, has 40 years of experience
that includes redesigning The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Take a sample of a newspaper to a focus group, and it does not take a specialized eyetracking computer to see how the eyes rest on and read the head shots, Garcia writes.
They are quick encyclopedic references to who is in the story. Like headlines and
sometimes even more than so head shots alert readers to the what of the story as
well.
One approach to developing a strong central character is to think about what kinds of
information can make a head shot a character in a story come alive.

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A strong central character is more than an anecdote. Getting a quote and placing it in a
story like a piece of furniture provides words but little voice. Missing is the detail
about character or circumstance a reader needs to compare and contrast, to connect,
with the speaker. People are cardboard, names and faces fit into a journalistic template:
the investigating officer, the anti-abortion protester, the conservative Republican, the
liberal Democrat.
Often, just a little more reporting can capture the kind of detail that avoids stereotypes
and provides interesting dimension to the people who inhabit stories.
Consider the difference between the investigating officer and detective Jones, a
third-generation police officer who recalls his father having a similar case that he never
solved. Or between pro-life protester and a pro-life mother of three adopted
children. Or the conservative Republican versus a Republican who boasts that he has
voted against every tax increase in his career.
When interviewing someone, give them the opportunity to reveal something about
themselves and their character:

Ask what they are doing. Then ask why they are doing it.
Ask what they are feeling. Then ask why they feel that way.
Ask what they think. Then ask why they believe what they do.
Quotes are mere words. Good stories, however, capture the meaning behind the words.
Thats more likely to occur if the reader knows not just whos speaking but something
about the persons background and character.
Good stories use detail
Stories built on important or interesting themes supported by small but revealing detail
are more complete because they give the reader more to grab on to.
Observation is the key to finding detail.
It said something about the man, about the job, about the world. It was a telling detail that
opened up a window into this mans life.
Before he was a best-selling crime novelist, author Michael Connelly was a police
reporter at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Los Angeles Times.
In his 2004 book, Crime Beat,Connelly describes spending a week observing a homicide
squad and learning the single most important thing I ever saw as a crime writer.
On the final day, as he sat in the squad supervisors office going over last-minute details
before returning to the newspaper to write his story, Connelly observed the detective
remove his glasses to rub his eyes.

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When he dropped the glasses on his desk, writes Connelly, I noticed that the
earpiece had a deep groove cut into it. It was like spying a diamond in the sand, for I
knew exactly how that groove had gotten there. At murder scenes hed seen the
sergeant approach the victims body and take his glasses off, always hooking them in
his mouth.
I knew that when he hooked his glasses in his mouth, his teeth clenched so tightly on
them that they cut into the hard plastic of the earpiece. It said something about the man,
about the job, about the world. It was a telling detail that opened up a window into this
mans life. It said all that needed to be said about his dedication, motivation, and
relationship to his job.
Connelly says he instinctively knew that whether it was a crime story for a newspaper
or a novel about a detective, My life as a writer had to be about the pursuit of the
telling detail.
Using detail in a story is similar to presenting other facts. A good story is built not just
on facts, but on the right facts, information that sheds light on the truth about the
facts. Good stories reflect good choices or, as former news director and Poynter faculty
member Scott Libin says, selection rather than compression.
GOOD STORIES CONNECT TO DEEPER THEMES
The best stories reach us on some elemental level. They talk about a mothers love for
her children, a husbands pride in his country Theres something very important
thats always going on in a very simple way in good stories, says NBC correspondent
John Larson.
Look for the story of why things happen the way they do and then look for a way to tell
that story.
Sometimes someone behind the scenes is more important than those in the public eye.
Pulitzer Prize winning historian Robert Caro tells how a bureaucrat and urban planner,
Robert Moses, essentially re-made New York City, though he never won an election.
Caros The Powerbroker isnt just a biography, its a story about how power works.
Imagining an image that may be ordinary but representative, can help the journalist decide
what the essence of the story is.
Thinking visually about an iconic image or a brief picture in the mind can also help.
In the aftermath of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, a
Washington Post columnist declared that the bomber, Tim McVeigh, had, in effect,
become the countrys most influential architect.

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The proof was iconic and immediately recognizable to readers the cement jersey
barrier, thousands of which had been placed around government buildings across the
country to deter truck bombs.
Its not always easy to find an iconic image that represents the core of a story. But
thinking visually, imagining an image that may be ordinary but representative, can help
the journalist decide what the essence of the story is.
The iconic image can also help the journalist find ideas for stories. We see these images
all the time in our daily lives but often dont ask ourselves what they might mean.
Construction cranes punctuating the skyline, commuters at a bus stop all reading their
mobile devices, pieces of re-tread truck tires littering the side of a busy highway. What
questions might these images raise?
Thinking visually is what photographers do all the time. Thinking like a photographer
can help journalists focus on the core of a story as they navigate their way through the
fog of detail collected in the reporting process.
GOOD STORIES EXPLORE TENSIONS
Tension makes life, and the news, interesting.
Sometimes the tension is between characters, for example two candidates vying for a
public office. Or tensions may arise over different points of view about an issue or
event. A central character trying to decide what to think or do about something is an
example of an internal tension. When the reader faces a similar choice should I believe
the politician, should the city council close that street, should I support a tax increase
reporting on a central characters decision-making process can be both
interesting and relevant.
Journalists trying to cover tension often find themselves reporting on the extremes. This
is not surprising because the loudest voices are easy to find, reduce complex issues to a
few quote-worthy talking points, and provide an unequivocal voice; there is no doubt
where they stand.
The bi-polar approach, however, may not be particularly interesting or relevant because
it leaves out the vast middle ground, the place where most of the audience resides. The
reporter cannot explore internal tensions because the characters on each side have
already made up their minds. So instead of participating in a decision-making
experience, the reader is a relegated to the role of spectator.
Stories that focus on the extremes often result in a master narrative of conflict. There are
winners and losers, villains or victors, or score-keeping about money, power, or politics.

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Yet many stories dont play out within conflict frames. The public, in fact, is ambivalent
about many issues. Its not that people dont care or have no opinion. Rather, citizens
continually gather information, weigh various choices, develop theories they test in
conversation with others, and may not make a final decision until they have to.
If a journalist can get a character to share this thinking process which is often about
trade-offs or eavesdrop on characters as they discuss their feelings and beliefs,
ambivalence becomes interesting and also relevant to readers weighing the same issues
or concern.
The master narrative of tension is an alternative to the conflict frame. In most public
issues, says social scientist Richard Harwood, theres a tension. Theres a tension in
schools between excellence and opportunity. Theres a tension in communities between
further growth to increase the tax base and protecting the quality of life. Not that
theyre mutually exclusive. But theres a tension there. And we often pitch it as one or
the other but most people want to reach some balance.
The challenge for journalists, says Harwood, is to understand the essence of a story in
order to choose the most appropriate frame.
GOOD STORIES CAPTURE EMOTIONS
Emotion commands attention and creates a relevancy of shared feelings between a
character and the reader.
Yet the balance between emotion and news is delicate and, according to professor and
head of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago Zizi
Papacharissi, journalists have always struggled to manage their own emotions in the
name of objectivity or finding appropriate ways to integrate sentiment into a story.

A good story offers detail the reader can use to make his or her own judgments and, perhaps,
forge an emotional connection with a character.
The most masterful journalists, in their most memorable reporting, attain this perfect
balance between emotion and information, color and news, the affective and the
cognitive. By contrast, the form of news reporting least memorable is frequently
characterized by excessive emotion, and the misinformation that excess produces.
Eli Sanders, a writer for The Stranger, a weekly alternative newspaper in Seattle, found
that balance in The Bravest Woman in Seattle, a story based on courtroom testimony in
which a 34-year old woman described the attack that took the life of her partner. It
began this way:

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The prosecutor wanted to know about window coverings. He asked: Which windows in the house
on South Rose Street, the house where you woke up to him standing over you with a knife that
nightwhich windows had curtains that blocked out the rest of the world and which did not?
She answered the prosecutors questions, pointing to a map of the small South Park home she
used to share with her partner, Teresa Butz, a downtown Seattle property manager. When the
two of them lived in this house, it was red, a bit run-down, much loved, filled with their lives
together, typical of the neighborhood. Now it was a two-dimensional schematic, States Exhibit
2, set on an easel next to the witness stand. She narrated with a red laser pointer for the
prosecutor and the jury: These windows had curtains that couldnt be seen through. These
windows had just a sheer fabric.
The story was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and you can read it
here.
You can read comments about the story from past Pulitzer feature writing winners as
well as excerpts from the two other feature writing finalists here.
When describing emotion, less is usually best. Hyperbole does not work. Dont tell the
reader how to feel or, except in rare instances, how you feel. A shocking
development says, in effect, that something should surprise or dismay. Maybe it
will, but thats up to the reader, not the reporter, to decide.
Rather than tell the reader how to feel or use the reporters feelings as a proxy for what
the audience thinks, a good story offers detail the reader can use to make his or her own
judgments and, perhaps, forge an emotional connection with a character.
GOOD STORIES PROVIDE CONTEXT
What background would a newcomer who is affected by the story need to know so that
they might care about it?
For example, on the issue of Medicare:

What is Medicare?

Where did the idea of Medicare come from?

What was life like before it?

Another virtue of asking what does my audience need to know? is that it can create
new entry points into stories such as asking, what background would a newcomer
who is affected, or has a stake in the story, need to know so that they might care about
it?

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The news can often seem like something only for news junkies, spoken in a language
that only the initiated understand, especially when wire copy is used as base material.
What new entry points can be created for the reader to feel as though he has a stake in
the story?
David Halberstam, a 1964 Pulitzer Prize winner for his coverage of the war in Vietnam
for the New York Times and best-selling author of The Best and the Brightest, The Powers
That Be, and many other works of non-fiction, talked about the value of providing
context in a conversation with Bill Kovach on Nov. 9, 1996.
We can make all kinds of stories interesting if we work at itlike the great Jimmy Breslin story:
The day that John Kennedy was killedeveryone covered the funeral. He went and found the
man who dug Kennedys grave. Use your imagination, be creative.
Making stories important. A sense of context. And what a journalist has to do in order to get
stories into the minds of the people. To show why this particular piece of information, why a
profile, is important. Why these things amount to something and provide a way to understand
the world that helps you the context of the stories is often more important than the event itself.
One of the reasons Bill Clinton was so successful is he spent his time designing a context within
which he could embed himself. And the journalist needs to figure out how to provide a context
outside of entertainment that works.
When I was in the Congo in 61 and 62, I could get into the New York Times every day. It was a
terrific ticket for me. And the reason was, not that the public was interested in a poor African
countrybut Africa at that moment was perceived to be a pawn up for grabs in the great
international struggle between us and the Russians. The moment the Berlin Wall comes down, it
became once again just a bunch of poor black people no longer of interest. It suddenly became
tribal again, and were not interested in a tribal struggle.
You can be passionate about your story and control that passionnot let the passion control
you. You can trust in the reader that if you do it right the readers interest and involvement will
be generated.
Listen, there is a hunger for good information out there. The Best and the Brightest was a huge
bestseller, much to the surprise of the author and the editor who published it, because it took all
those people who had flashed on the television screen all those times, and finally said, This is
who they are. And this is how they affect you. And this is what they mean to you.
GOOD STORIES SURPRISE THE READER
Surprise in a news story can take a couple of forms, information you didnt know or
something you didnt expect.

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Flipping through a newspaper and seeing an item you had no idea youd want to read
is an example of serendipity, a happy coincidence.
In a story, the surprise is planned and strategically placed.
Helen Pearson, chief features editor at Nature, says, good science stories are no
different to good stories about anything else theyre just a great read.
Pearson especially likes leads that surprise.
Ive opened stories with an unintelligible line of Jane Austen; 9,000 placentas stewing in buckets;
an impotent mouse; a phone call from a -80C freezer. In some cases, the opening might be the
moment in time where your story starts for example, one of my stories opened with the arrival
of a fax that told scientists they had found the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis. Often the
opening involves a person. I love it when youre reporting a story and something unscripted
happens (eg the freezer calls) and you think: thats my lead.
CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman is expert at building to and then springing
surprises on the viewers of his stories.
In a story aired on The CBS Evening News and The Osgood File on CBS radio, Hartman
offers up not one surprise, but several.
VO (Voice over pictures) Steve Hartman, CBS News Correspondent
Born to Chinese immigrants, 17-year-old Angela Zhang of Cupertino, California is a typical
American teenager. Shes really into shoes and is just learning how to drive.
SOT (Sound on tape) Angela Zhang
Every girl needs boots. (laughs)
VO Steve Hartman
Shes really into shoes and just learning how to drive.
But there is one thing that separates Angela from every other student at Monta Vista High
School something she first shared with her chemistry teacher. Its a research paper Angela
wrote in her spare time its a recipe for curing cancer.
SOT Kavita Gupta, Angela Zhangs chemistry teacher with Steve Hartman
(Hartman:) Cure for cancer?! (Gupta:) Cure for cancer a high school student. So, its just so
mind-boggling
SOT Angela Zhang
I just thought: Why not? (laughs) I mean, what is there to lose? So
VO Steve Hartman
So, when she was a freshman, she started reading doctorate level papers on bio-engineering. By
sophomore year, shed talked her way into the lab at Stanford
VO Steve Hartman
Angela thought: What if you mixed cancer medicine with a polymer that would attach to

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nanoparticles that would then attach to cancer cells and show up on the MRI, so doctors could
see where the tumors were?
Then, she thought: what if you aimed an infrared light at the tumors to melt the polymer and
release the medicine killing the cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells completely unharmed.
SOT Angela Zhang, with Steve Hartman
(Zhang:) I think it was more of a This is really cool, I want to see if it works type thing.
(Hartman:) And when you found out it did? (Zhang:) That was pretty amazing.
VO Steve Hartman
Itll take years to know if it works in humans but in mice, the tumors almost completely
disappeared.
Angela recently entered her project in the National Siemens Science Contest
She got a check for 100,000 dollars and promptly bought about a dozen more pairs of shoes.
SOT Angela Zhang
I got these shoes, cuz theyre purple and I didnt have purple yet.
VO Steve Hartman
Easy to forget, she is still high school. Its just her dreams that keep graduating.
SOT Angela Zhang
Im excited to learn just everything possible, she said. Everything in the sciences biology,
chemistry, physics, engineering, even computer science to make new innovations possible.
VO Steve Hartman
Pretty big flats to fill. How will she top her cancer discovery? We cant wait.
Good stories empower the reader
The purpose of journalism is to give people the information they need to make better
decisions. In other words, journalism is supposed to empower.
This definition implies that while journalists certainly inform, there is an assumption
the reader will sooner or later use the information to make a decision or engage in some
kind of activity.
Viewing the reader as less a consumer or audience member and more a decision-maker is a
good place for the journalist to start.
Empowering the reader thus involves anticipating how the information might be used
and what questions the reader might have about the issue or event.
Often its obvious and easy. A story about an eclipse will almost certainly include
where it can be seen and when.
Questions and answers about other stories are more difficult.

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Political coverage, for example, focuses on issues, personality, or the campaign process.
Often, however, stories leave out information the voter needs to make informed, as
opposed to emotional, judgments.
Issue coverage may fail to raise, much less answer, questions people care about. The
candidates decide what they want to talk about in the campaign while citizens are
relegated to being observers.
Personality coverage must compete with the carefully crafted images portrayed in
advertising, strategic communications, or political theater.
Coverage of a candidates strategy and methods can make the horse race more
interesting but does little to help the voter make a decision about issues or beliefs.
Viewing the reader as less a consumer or audience member and more a decision-maker
is a good place for the journalist to start. In one sense its about self-respect an
assumption the reporting will have some utilitarian value and respect for the reader, a
belief that the audience really does want to make the best possible decisions.
How to organize a story
Often, when journalists approach an assignment, they start one of two ways:
One way is to read previous stories or check the Web, see what has been written before,
then add whats new on top, refreshing whats already been said.
The other is to meet with an editor, develop a theme for the piece and pursue that,
adding in the background from the earlier stories.
The problem with both of these approaches is that they can leave out the audience.
If the purpose of journalism is to tell people what they need to know to navigate their
way through their world, it follows then that journalists need to keep our audience in
the forefront when making decisions about coverage.
The tools in this section help you understand how to organize your stories.
4 questions to find a focus for your story
Ask these questions during the editorial process: when planning a story, when doing
the reporting and photography, when writing and editing, when deciding how to
present it, and in determining if follow-up is warranted.

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1. What is the central point?

Whats the story really about? What question or questions must the story answer to be
worthwhile?
Why do people need or will want to know about it?

If its a big topic, how can it be broken down so its easier to explain?

If its a small topic, is there a story behind the story? Does it reflect a larger trend or
theme?

2. What is the central evidence?

What kinds of evidence can be presented to verify or explain the central point of the
story?

What kinds of evidence can be presented to prove that the story is relevant or
newsworthy?

How good is the evidence? Will the reader be able to distinguish verified information
from assumptions or assertions the story may also include?

3. What is the central place?

Where is the central place of the story?

Will the reporting and photography include covering the central place?

What information will come from somewhere other than the central place or places?

What will not be covered in the story?

4. Who are the central characters?
Where or from whom can the facts be learned?

Who can put the facts in perspective?

What is the relationship between the central characters and the central places of the
story?

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3 story structures
Here are three different strategies for putting together a story.
The hour glass
Writer Roy Clark has identified this structure. It is a hybrid of narrative and inverted
pyramid. You begin by telling the news, and then there is a break in the pyramid, and a
line that begins a narrative, as in, it all began when
You can begin to turn the characters and plot into something more interesting. And in
the end broaden the piece back out and come back to the point at the top.
Fly on the wall
This approach involves being there with the storys main characters when the event in
question happens. What is the conversation between them? What are their reactions? It
may take special access, which requires planning ahead, getting permission, and even
special agreements, such as allowing subjects to see a draft of your story ahead of time,
but, it may be worth the pay off.
In their own words
For one of the biggest scoops of Watergate, Jack Nelson agreed to have one source tell
his own story in his own words. Nelson interviewed him, taped him, wrote the story
and then let the source edit and put his own byline.
8 paths to defining a storytelling approach
Jacqui Banaszynski is a Pulitzer-prize winner and holds the Knight Chair in Editing at
the Missouri School of Journalism. She says one way to come up with different stories
on a topic is to approach it from eight distinctive paths:
1. A profile. Find the people behind a story, the characters driving the issue. You can
profile not just a person, but a place, an event, even a building.
2. Explanatory piece. Show readers why something happen or how something functions.
3. Issues and trend stories. Ask yourself if there is a larger picture to explore. Trends are
not exclusively related to culture or lifestyle; think crime or economy.
4. Investigative. Look into wrongdoing, follow the money, analyze power struggles,
and make use of available documents.
5. Narrative. A story with a character, scenes, and tension.
6. Descriptive/Day in the life. The alternative to a narrative, focusing on a particular
moment, such as a ride-along with the police, a visit to the new museum.
7. Voices or perspective story. Have people tell a story in a unique way: Q&A, roundtable
discussion, a rail of quotes, or vignettes.
8. Visual story. Photographs, graphics or illustrations might be the best ways to tell some
stories.

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How to compose a narrative on deadline

Jack Hart, senior editor for writing and staff development at The Oregonian, says 15-30
column inches (400 900 words) is a reasonable length for a narrative that can be
produced in a day. The idea is to follow a character through a complication and show
how they resolve it. This can be done in a five-part narrative arc:
1. Exposition in which the character and the complication are introduced.
2. Rising action its the bulk of the piece, and it shows the obstacles on the way to
solving the complication.
3. Point of insight the character has a revelation.
4. Resolution the complication is resolved.
5. Denouement tying up loose ends.
The Black Box system for organizing a story
Len Reed, environment and science team leader at The Oregonian, developed a system
to help reporters handle unruly information.
The Black Box helps reporters sort through and prioritize the information they have and
quickly and clearly make the case for their stories to editors. With the system, writing a
story is essentially boiled into four phases:

1. Reporting phase
Gather

Search

Ask

Interview

Sort

2. Black Box phase

What is this information?

What does it mean?

What does it signify?

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What is the headline?

What is the lead?

What is its context with what does it connect?

So what?

Who cares?

How can you quickly tell it to the clueless and make it count?

3. Editor phase
Succinctly tell your editor what the story says.

Tell your editor the headline that captures the story.

Be prepared to defend your thinking.

4. Writing phase
Youve got a lead; now order a sequence in telling: organize.

Write quickly, staying on track you can go back and tweak.

As you write, periodically ask yourself: Who cares?

As you write, periodically frighten yourself: The audience is leaving.

When you finish, go back and ruthlessly cut words and sentences.
Before last reading, say no one cares; let the story change your mind.