5 Rules of Content That Will Never Change

At least half of what I do all day long didn’t exist when I studied journalism in college. And I’m not that old.

At that time, you wrote an article and it was published. The end.

There was no updating it and certainly no tweeting it, no blogging about it, no linking it to other articles online.

We were just beginning to learn how to use Webcrawler and set up a Hotmail account. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was still in elementary school. Tweeting was something a bird did.

Now, a decade (plus some) later, not everything has changed as much as some would have you believe. Despite the (r)evolution in journalism, some things remain the same:

1. Quality matters:

Regardless of the speed at which information (and misinformation) can be disseminated, in the end, content is judged on quality. How much value did a piece bring to your readers? If you’re not bringing value to your reader, your reader will bring themselves elsewhere.

2. Interviewing skills matter:

You need to know how to ask good questions that elicit the truth and uncover compelling stories. You need to dig a little deeper and find the unexpected. You need to know how to put nervous feature subjects at ease or get answers from officials for a hard-hitting piece. Asking the right questions in the right way is as important as it ever was.

3. Story structure matters:

Stories need to pull people in with leads that entertain or educate or engage the reader in some way. Providing the who, what, when, where, why and how is still important. Nut graphs are still important. Headlines, deks and subheads are still important.

4. Narrative is engaging.

A well-constructed, innovative narrative always pulls in readers. It’s the reason The Perfect Storm (about swordfishing), Seabiscuit (about horse racing) and Into Thin Air (about climbing Mt. Everest) were mega-selling books outside of any niche.

A strong narrative is why I couldn’t stop reading a business story about urban decline in Niagara Falls. And at the risk of contradicting #3 above, I applaud those who are shaking up the story structure, while continuing to engage readers with notable storytelling. The best example of this lately is The Washington Post’s heartbreaking story of a woman, her husband and their new baby, as told through the mother’s Facebook status updates.

5. Art grabs people.

A breathtaking, funny or unexpected photo or illustration can still stop people in their tracks. While the photography equipment and editing software have leapt forward, strong publications still need an artist’s eye.

What do you think has changed the most since you started in media? What has stayed the same?

Improving Content “Share-ability” – Whiteboard Friday (seomoz.org)
Making social media ingrained in all news stories (betatales.com)

[image: roseandsigil]