Hot Topics: 2014

Today Steve shared his story pyramid, in which the basis for all story ideas is the audience. When I teach composition, I am always telling my students to remember their audience and write accordingly. I am glad to now have a warranted reason to do the same thing with my journalism students.

When I started thinking about the audience of a high school publication, however, two things gave me pause:

1 – In the age of digital media, who really is the audience?  When the copies of a newspaper are handed out to the student body, the audience seems pretty clear. But when a staff is producing online news that literally anyone with internet access can read, the audience is (perhaps) widened. Of course, the audience should be at the root of the story; however, I imagine that defining the audience can be a bit trickier when a publication can be so widely read.

2 – If my writers think too much about what their audience wants, am I going to end up being the advisor of the next BuzzFeed? I can imagine my students deciding to shift the in-depth look at the process of hiring a new principal to “The Top 7 Things That Will Blow Your Mind About Our Hiring Process: You Won’t Believe What Happens In Number 3!” An article like this would appeal to our high school audience, yet I’d rather see a story where the journalism and writing are done right. 

Which brings me back to the essential point: the story isn’t worth covering if it doesn’t relate to the audience, but the journalism needs to build from there; all the other steps of the pyramid––reporting, writing, and editing––need to be accounted for.

Kari Koshiol
Benilde-St. Margaret’s
Minneapolis, Minn