Don't Assume

A couple weeks ago, I covered a story about the re-opening of Memorial Hall during Syracuse Crunch games. Memorial Hall is a commemorative building for War Veterans in the War Memorial at the Oncenter.

I came to class prior to my interview and my professor reminded me to take a news angle to the story, not to make it a sports story. I got my interview, put together my story and I thought I did a very good job making it a news story. But after I talked to my professor a couple days later and analyzed my wrap, I realized the story would be very unclear and confusing to the audience.

So, how did a story go from being pretty good at first glance and pretty terrible after a closer look? Well, this is where I learned my biggest lessons as an aspiring journalist. First, always re-read and re-write. It doesn't matter how tight deadline is, always do it. Second, I knew the story pretty well because I read previous articles. But, I assumed that my audience had the same prior knowledge that I had. Therefore in my story, instead of telling the full story, I cut out half of it. There were a lot of gaps of missing information that would leave readers confused because the story assumed that the audience already had prior knowledge to the situation. I mean, how do you understand a 300 page book, if pages 1-100 are missing?

Never assume that the audience knows as much as you do. There are two groups to fulfill when writing a story; the audience that prior knowledge to the situation and the audience that has no prior knowledge about the story. Always find a new, fresh angle to a story, but tell the entire story every time.