Every journalist occasionally faces a situation where there seems to be nothing to write about. No newsworthy events are happening. This is not a case where the journalist, because of his laziness, simply does not know about the news. On the contrary, he keeps his finger on the pulse of events, he follows the announcements, he regularly calls the newsmakers, but at the moment, nothing really happens in the field that this journalist is covering. But the absence of events does not mean that there is nothing to write about that day. It is still possible to find a topic for an article, and this chapter tells how to do it.
First, we must move away from the traditional understanding of news journalism as a search for the answer to the “What?” question. In addition to “What?” journalism, there is “How?” journalism and “Why?” journalism. And while “What?” journalism is fixated on new events, “How?” journalism looks for details of already known events, and “Why?” journalism. – Their reasons. Information about new details or new reasons for events is also news, only here we are not announcing an event that no one else knows about, but offering new insights into that event. “How?” journalism and “Why?” journalism are more complex than “What?” journalism, but stories written in these ways can be much more interesting than simply informing about events.
Second, finding a topic for an article can be done through questions that the journalist asks himself or herself and then searches for answers. These answers then make up the article. Several “questioning” methods have been described by the German media consultant Jens-Uwe Meyer. 14] The simplest of these is the “five-minute method,” in which a journalist chooses a phenomenon he wants to write about and then asks himself the following questions:
- What associations does this phenomenon evoke in me?
- What have I personally experienced, seen, heard about it?
- What don’t I know about this phenomenon?
- What clichés exist about this phenomenon in the mass consciousness?
- What would my neighbors and acquaintances say about this phenomenon?
If you have time, you can use the TAB method. The abbreviation TAB stands for “Theme, Associations, Questions”. A theme is a key concept. It is written in the center of a sheet of paper and circled. Then, in little circles around the concept, they write associations, anything that comes to mind. When the associations are chosen, the journalist begins to think of questions for them. For example, a new cell phone technology is chosen as the topic. The association is a grave financial investment that will never turn a profit. The questions: How long will the development of this technology pay for itself? How will this technology be perceived by customers?
Another method is based on the use of “change of species”, “time travel”, “depth” and “speculative” questions.
The “change of view” questions:
- What does the topic look like from a different perspective?
- How might the theme be framed differently?
- How have other people behaved with a similar problem?
- What should participants not do in any way?
“time travel” questions:
- When did the problem manifest itself?
- What did it manifest in the past?
- How had the problem been tried before?
- What impact might this problem have on the future?
“Deeper” questions:
- Why is this so?
- What problems did it affect?
- What motives did the actors have?
- What possibilities exist for resolving the situation?