“But what’s your hook?” – Finding angles and pitching stories

The idea of news, is as it suggests, its new. My story on the rental crisis was difficult to find a new angle or impact without simply re-hashing one of the many stories already splashed about. As a class we had to pitch our story ideas to Shawn. I can hear him saying, “but what’s your hook?”, “what’s you’re angle?” and you knew you were onto something when he replied, “yep, there’s a yarn in that”.

A huge lesson for me was that news stories aren’t simply a chronological account of what happened. A successful story finds a fresh and interesting angle and hangs the story off that. For example, I though my ‘Hope’ story should lead with details of the walk fundraiser. I learnt that the lead was the issue, and so the story began by framing the context of the walk. It makes perfect sense now. Similarly, ‘Out of the Blue’ didn’t begin with the local seminars on depression, but stemmed from the big issue of government funding and mental health. Shawn gave the example of a council meeting.
The news is in what’s been said. Don’t produce copy that leads with, “200 people crammed into the school hall….” because by the first paragraph people are asleep! I learnt to lead the story with the information that grabs people’s attention and to get in the detail people need in the supporting paragraphs.

Impact is key when formulating an angle and I learnt news stories are all about how people are affected, for example, if it hurts the hip pocket – it’s a story. Further, in a sports story, you might spend some time focusing on one or more individuals, or on how the team morale is doing, or how the supporters are feeling.

Ask yourself:

• What can I tell people about this subject that hasn’t already been written about?

• What’s my specific angle?

This will involve extensive reading in order to separate original ideas from non-original.