Lots of people want to keep their name out of The Columbian, or any other newspaper, for that matter. Think criminals, drunk drivers, leaders of failing businesses as examples.
Plenty of others would love to see their names, or those of their businesses or community organizations, in The Columbian or on the newspaper’s website. Some of those people showed up last week at a workshop sponsored the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce to learn how to get their news in The Columbian.
I was the guest speaker at this particular event, but the topic is familiar to journalists. Two of my newsroom colleagues, presenters at similar events, graciously provided notes of their advice to those who want to understand the baffling ways of writers and editors. Even in this age of endless opportunity to disseminate stories and information on the Internet, it seems that many people still see value in telling their stories through the long-established channel of a newspaper.
I wasn’t sure where to start. Filtering through hundreds of emails for today’s news and tomorrow’s feature stories is a blend of instinct, intuition, and necessity. It’s best not to look for hard-and-fast guideposts about an idea’s newsworthiness. The guideposts are a mystery even to me. The best of story ideas can fall by the wayside due to a lack of staff, a lack of space, or — I’ll admit — a lack of vision by a reporter or editor.
But with all those caveats, here’s my personal Top 10 list for getting news items or selling story ideas through this editor.
1. Read The Columbian and columbian.com. Sign up for our daily business e-newsletter at Columbian.com/newsletters.
2. Think local. We cover Clark County, not Portland or Vancouver, B.C. Emphasize the local angle in your email.
3. For briefs, give us the basics in simple form. We won’t use long, awkward quotes from a news release.
4. For items about new or promoted employees, give us details — business addresses, full job titles, color photos of people.
5. For calendar items, make your information concise. Who, what, where, when, and why. Organize details in one place, not mixed into a long narrative.
6. For story pitches, think about what’s interesting to readers, not what’s best for your business (even if the publicity would be good for your business).
7. For events or feature ideas, think about timeliness — give us time to arrange for a reporter and photographer and to report a story.
8. We don’t cover groundbreakings, anniversaries, and grand openings as news, but they can give us a news hook for a story about a business.
9. Individual good deeds can make good stories, even if we don’t report on every act of corporate charitable giving or volunteer community service.
10. Don’t pitch stories simultaneously to multiple outlets. If you have news, send it to everyone. If you have a good story idea, give us a chance to say yes or no before offering it up elsewhere.
I’ll end with a big “thank you” to all of you who share your ideas and stories. We couldn’t live without you.
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