If you thought all you needed to do as a journalist in the new era was learn to post photos on Instagram, tweet constantly, and share stories on Facebook, think again. We’re also redefining the rules of news writing and narrative journalism, and we’re just at the beginning of the story.
Read the full piece at Columbia Journalism Review
Joyce Barnathan of the International Center for Journalists opines in this CRJ piece that what made the recent podcast “Serial” so successful is that it wasn’t really about a 15-year-old murder case. “…The reporter’s quest was at least as compelling as what she found out,” Barnathan writes. “That suggests a new age of journalism in which the storytelling itself adds to the legitimacy of the news.”
In actuality, the quest is one of seven basic plots at the core of successful storytelling for ages. It’s hardcoded into the human psyche. It’s not going to change based on whether you’re using iOS or Android or Facebook or print.
So what Barnathan and hopefully eventually the bulk of mainstream news media are rediscovering are the long-established and proven core storytelling values that have been abandoned for several generations in favor of someone else’s idea of what a good story should be.