What you need to know about Twitter changes

Trading 140 characters for 10,000? Filtering my news feed? The end of Twitter? Headlines tell scare stories, but what’s really happening to everybody’s favorite bluebird?

Where’s your beat?

Your beat is a particular area that you cover. This might be a geographic area — the city of St. Paul or the Frogtown neighborhood, for example. Your beat might be topical: higher education or restaurant reviews.

If you are working for a news outlet, you might be assigned a beat. If you are writing as a freelancer, you can choose your own beat, based on your expertise, your interest, your passion. You develop a beat by deciding to become an expert, researching and reading about the topic; building a virtual rolodex of sources and contacts; pitching story ideas to the right places; writing, writing, writing.

Daily Planet story checklist

1) What’s the story? Summarize the story in a way that tells why it is important, interesting, or appealing. Think: How would you tell the story to a friend?

Who cares? Finding a hook for your story

What’s the story? That may seem like a simple question. Your editor assigned you to cover the city council meeting, so the city council meeting is the story, right? So you go to the city council meeting, and you report:

What’s the story? Generating story ideas

You want to be a reporter. That means writing news stories. Where do you find a story idea?

First, read, read, READ — develop a list of publications that you read or check on daily.

Story documentation form – TC Daily Planet

Copy this form, complete it, and email to the editor.  

Sometimes the editor may use this information for fact-checking, or checking on spelling, contact or address information. Stakeholders, sources and subjects will get an email from the editor that lets them know the article has been published. Contact information may also be entered into the general TCDP database.

20/20 for community journalists

Looking for a quick intro to some journalism basics? Each of these 20 mini-lessons will take no more than 20 minutes.