One of the most important—and consistently underrated—skills a journalist must have is the ability to find and pitch compelling story ideas. This is an advanced journalistic skill that takes time and instincts to develop, but journalists who have good story ideas quickly distinguish themselves from newsroom peers who do not. While editors might suggest or assign story ideas to a reporter when the reporter is beginning their journalistic career, over time that reporter will be expected to find and develop their own story ideas in order to be a successful journalist.
When it comes to finding story ideas, journalists benefit from the fact that they are human beings with their own lives and interests who exist in the same cultures and locations as their sources and their audiences. By sharing some of the same experiences and the same reality as the people who consume their journalism, journalists develop instincts over time regarding the communities they cover and serve. They come to understand what those people value, what interests them, and what their information needs are. And the more you understand about your audience, the better your story ideas will be. For new journalists or those whose understanding of their audiences may be incomplete, audience metrics can help provide a solid introduction to who your audience is and what topics audience members engage with.
Right about now, you may be asking yourself: Where do story ideas come from?
The answer is, for good and bad, that story ideas come from absolutely everywhere. Journalists develop story ideas through a huge variety of means from a huge variety of sources. However, most of these methods are a result of encouraging one’s curiosity and establishing relationships with key people and topics. And of course, journalists use their professional instincts and their shared understanding of journalistic news values to decide when a story idea is a good one that will serve the needs and wants of the communities they cover.
Here are a few tips for finding and developing good journalistic story ideas:
Ask questions. Ask more questions. And then when you’re done, ask a few more questions. Don’t be afraid to unleash your curiosity, even when you’re in social situations outside of your professional life. If you see an interesting flyer on a wall outside your grocery store, pick it up. If you notice a hole in a story your friend just told you, ask about it. If you don’t understand how a process works, find out. Some of the best story ideas arise organically from reporters noticing holes, gaps, or problems in the world around them and then following up on those gaps. Often, these gaps might arise in a beat that journalist already covers, such as courts and crime. But sometimes, these gaps in understanding arise from normal daily life. Take advantage of them, and don’t be afraid to ask questions and pursue answers. Your future audiences will be glad you did.
Always listen to the people around you—and I mean this in every way: in real life, on social media, through your own news consumption, and so on. By keeping your ears open, engaging with the people and world around you and learning new things, you will become exposed to new ideas and information that could help you find story ideas in addition to becoming a more well-rounded person. A potential story idea could come from a stranger’s post in a Facebook group you belong to, from an overheard conversation at the grocery store, or from an anecdote a friend shares at a party. Over time, you will hone your instincts and become more quick and comfortable recognizing story ideas in even the most unexpected places.
Another good way to develop story ideas over time is to dedicate yourself, in part, to a specific topic or community. If you like music, do you have a favorite genre? If you follow local politics, is there a specific movement or topic you find to be under-served? If you like sports, is there a specific team or fandom that you follow? Going deep on a particular person, topic, or beat can help you familiarize yourself with (and develop relationships with) the key stakeholders pertaining to that beat. Once you have identified a niche, continue to follow it and learn more about it. For example, you might follow a hashtag related to that topic, join a Facebook group about that topic, go to a lecture or reading about that topic, read books about that topic, go to a performance about that topic, and so on.
This cannot be overstated: Read the news—and especially whatever topics and beats of the news you enjoy and hope to cover. Consuming journalism will help you become more knowledgeable of current events, your beat, journalistic practices, and how journalists pursue story ideas and cover the successful ones. And sometimes, you can get good story ideas from reading the news, especially when it comes to national coverage of a topic you could localize for a smaller community. Reading the news may also open your eyes to gaps in coverage that you could help to fill by extending or building coverage of a topic or issue previously in the news.
Trust your instincts. Chances are that if you are interested by an idea, your audience, whom you come to know over time as a journalist, will be interested as well. Once you have identified a story idea, consider what news values this idea might fulfill and how this idea might inform and interest audiences. Those news values will help to form the basis for the next step in the life cycle of a story idea: pitching it to your editor.
While editors may assign story ideas to a reporter during the early stages of the reporter’s career, that reporter will be expected to find and develop their own story ideas over time in order to succeed as a journalist.
Ideas can come from many places. You are surrounded by them. Some helpful strategies are to encourage your curiosity, keep your ears open, develop a niche, and read the news.
Trust your instincts. If you are interested by an idea, there is a good chance that there is an audience out there for it.