David Friend on How to Find Stories Worth Telling
*NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 31, 2022 / *Social media has flooded local TV newsrooms with an incredible amount of information, which can lead to exciting potential news stories. However, with such a daily overabundance of information, prioritization becomes paramount. So, while stories can make news, not everything is newsworthy. Veteran local TV news executive, David Friend, shares his thoughts on how to find news stories that are worth telling.
He says, "When I began my TV News career more than four decades ago, TV newsrooms relied too much on wire services and newspapers as our sources for stories. We were totally reactive, rarely proactive. We were focused on spot news coverage...crime, fires, accidents, and we were the only game in town. There was no cable TV and certainly no internet. No cell phones, smartphones or tablets to provide us leads."
Today, TV newsrooms operate in a completely different environment. David Friend explains that covering spot news has become more of a commodity than a specialty. Local TV still needs to cover breaking news and weather, but social media and smartphones have taken much of the immediacy away from regularly scheduled newscasts.
"Now, it is vital that local television news departments emphasize original reporting, focusing on stories that don't pop up on social media newsfeeds," says Friend. "The stories that are worth telling are stories that are unique, exclusive, and spark discussion and change."
Given his experience identifying these kinds of stories, David Friend proposes that local TV newsrooms move away from using newspapers and wire services as their main sources for stories in their communities. Instead, he suggests the empowerment of all newsroom personnel to pitch stories they believe would be interesting to the viewers.
"Everyone in the newsroom should have a stake in pitching unique and original community-based stories," says Friend. "By doing so, a newsroom will substantially multiply the number and quality of the stories that are covered. Staffers need to know that they will have to defend their story pitches and answer questions about them. Some questions will be probing. Not every story they pitch will make it into the newscast, but every story pitch needs to be listened to and considered with respect."
David Friend believes that a good story has an issue that needs to be explained, challenged or resolved. A story "worth telling" will shine a light on wrongdoing, malfeasance or neglect. Such a story has great potential to spur change.
Over the course of his career, David Friend understood that stories worth telling spoke truth to power and challenged the status quo. He found no shortage of need for stories that held elected officials to their commitments, and stories that could make a difference in the life of citizens battling forces mightier than themselves.
"You'll know you have a story worth telling when you have real people telling their real stories that perhaps other viewers can relate to," says Friend. "A story worth telling is a story that spans ethnicities, religions and economic levels. If after watching one of your stories, the viewer could say, ‘I didn't know that,' then that's a story worth telling. If viewers can say, ‘someone needs to do something about that,' it's a story worth telling."
David Friend believes TV news departments should shy away from so-called "survey" stories. This refers to college classes with hundreds of students that were sometimes called "survey classes." These lecture courses covered an array of subjects over a broad period of time.
"They were a mile wide and an inch deep," says Friend. "I told my staffers that those broad but shallow "survey stories" didn't have as much importance in today's news environment as they did before."
He emphasized that more meaningful stories go deeper into a subject and include more voices. Spot news stories, once the bread and butter of local TV news, could be handled in other ways without expending precious reporting resources to cover them.
"Sometimes a story worth telling will take time to develop." says David Friend. "It is important for local TV news managers to allow reporters to stay on the story and not be diverted to other assignments."
David Friend's last key to a good news story is the story telling itself.
"Writing can make all the difference between a good story and a great story," Friend says. "Journalism schools put great emphasis on presentation, but they should also emphasize excellent writing that creates compelling and interesting news that people can relate to and learn from."
Friend also notes that sometimes stories just don't pan out. It could be a fantastic prompt, with ample time and resources devoted to flushing it out. It could be original, unique, and special, but sometimes stories just don't pan out.
"But," says David Friend, "I believe if it's worth telling, it's worth trying."
Contact: Andrew Mitchell
Cambridge Global
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*SOURCE: *David Friend
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