Newsletter: Give me perspective and a coffee, please

Hello there,

This morning Stefan (the usual scribe of these newsletters) and I were having a virtual coffee and a catch up between meetings. 

Turns out we’d both been reading Rutger Bregman’s new book ‘Moral Ambition’ and we ended up talking about the value of perspective: how zooming out on a subject gives you a better understanding of its context and ramifications. 

As we chatted and recaffeinated, it transpired that, inadvertently, we’ve both been drawn to books that offer a broader view of things of late: Hans Rosling’s ‘Factfulness’, Mary Portas’ ‘Rebuild’, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’, and also Simon Sinek’s ‘Little Bit of Optimism’ podcast.

With all that’s going on in the world right now, these ‘top down’ perspectives provide a much-needed hit of optimism and positivity - a non-newsy ‘Give me perspective’ approach, if you like.

Many of the ideas espoused in those books are entirely relevant to newsrooms: the need to balance negative news with hopeful stories, current affairs with a reminder that we sit at a tiny point on humanity’s timelines, that collaboration and engagement with our communities is absolutely vital - not only for our businesses, but for ourselves too.

The ‘Give me perspective’ user need might be focused on expert testimonial or context-building, but there’s a fairly compelling case to be made that ‘perspective’ is something more holistic too: a reminder that we all need balance and reassurance - whether it’s a counter to the latest climate change findings, or an antidote to your football team’s poor season performance. 

One of our favourite activities in consultations with clients is to brainstorm article ideas to follow up on key ‘Update me’ stories. We do this by using the wheel of user needs as a prompt - and whether or not all the ideas are used or not doesn’t matter. In inviting ideas from eight different perspectives, you’re ensuring you don’t always follow up a story with another ‘update’.

Brainstorming follow-up stories: Valentines Day edition

Our blog this week is short and sweet and has the same framework as presented above: a quick-start guide to generating follow up story ideas using the wheel of user needs. This one’s particularly interesting, because the source article is already out there, and it’ll be interesting to see if and how Le Figaro chose to follow it up.

Positive news

In the world of journalism, a question haunts the minds of many aspiring writers: How can one create a narrative that breaks away from the crowd, leaving readers with a positive impression? In this old blog, Rutger Verhoeven shares his insights.

• The BBC has investigated whether major Large Language Models provide accurate information about the news. The results are far from encouraging: 51% of all AI-generated answers to news-related questions were found to have significant issues of some kind.
• Video reigns supreme on social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And now, video is becoming an increasingly important business for LinkedIn, writes TechCrunch: “The Microsoft-owned social network for the working world has yet to go full TikTok.”
• The Washington Post is focusing on increasing interaction with its readers. With 19 million comments per year, AI plays a crucial role in answering questions and responding to comments.
• The Post’s project aligns with broader trends in the news industry, as revealed by a new study from the Reuters Institute. According to the research, 75% of news organisations want to experiment with converting text into audio, 70% aim to offer AI-generated summaries, and 65% hope to translate content automatically.

And with that, that’s us signing off for another week. See you next time!

Em, editor @ smartocto