Localizing a story

The best source for ideas for news, feature stories, opinion pieces, and photo stories is your journalistic mind. As you live life, you always be on the lookout for stories. Always ask yourself:

Would this be interesting for our readers?
Is it important that our readers know about this?
Can we make a positive impact on the Akins community by publishing this?
Who can I talk to who would have more information or a local perspective on this?

But, sometimes those ideas just don't come. The answer to this dilemma (as with most dilemmas in journalism) is to conduct more research.

The links to the right are great starting places for finding information and ideas for stories. They are there to help you with brainstorming and research, NOT for copy and paste journalism.

We should never simply repackage the news. We should seek it out, research the facts, interview thoroughly, and publish pieces that are relevant to our audience.

When you are researching a local, national, or even international story you should always be thinking:

Would this be interesting for our readers?
Is it important that our readers know about this?
Can we make a positive impact on the Akins community by publishing this?
Who can I talk to who would have more information or a local perspective on this?

Sound familiar?