How To Write Like a Journalist

Happy Friday folks,

Feeling energized and pumped today - which is good considering the backlog of work I have after staying away from work while recovering.

Despite the fever bouts, I found some time to head over to Abeokuta. The clean air and quiet streets always do wonders for my mental clarity.

LAGOS IS A JUNGLE!

But today ain’t about the concrete jungle called Lagos.

How do you harness the writing skills of those wonderful humans called Journalists?

Everyone wants to tell stories…

And it’s not surprising considering it’s become a buzzword in the past couple of years. But the reality is “Most Content Marketers Are Not Storytellers”.

Few of us possess either the skill or ability to tell stories using long-form or short-form content.

So what’s the trick?

The well-worn writer’s technique called the “reporter’s questions,” or “the 5 W’s & the H”.

Here goes:

The 5 W’s and the H are the six questions reporters use to create the lead paragraph in a news story (as long as they are relevant and make sense). However, even if you aren’t a reporter, you can still use these questions to help you brainstorm for ideas and map out an outline for your content.

Who

Who is involved?

Who is affected?

Who will benefit?

Who will be harmed?

What

What is your topic narrowed down in a simple phrase/sentence?

What does your topic involve? (i.e. What are the different parts to it?)

What is it similar to / different from?

What might be affected/changed by your topic?

When

When does this take place? When did this take place? When will it take place? When should this take place?

Does when this takes place affect the topic?

Where

Where does this take place? (Where did it …. Where will it … Where should it ….?)

Does it matter where it takes place? Is it affected by location?

Why

Why is this topic important? Why does it matter?

Why do certain things happen? (What are some causes and effects within the topic?)

How

How does this topic work? How does it function? How does it do what it does?

How did it come to be?

How are those involved affected?

Makes sense? Try this and let me know your thoughts!

My biggest lesson this week

Often, the busier you are, the less you actually get done It's much better to have one goal you can focus 100% on than to have 5 things that all require your attention Want to get more done? Do less.

What am I thinking about?

• Brand building is about building a collective understanding of your product/service.

• Invest the best hours of your day on the biggest opportunity, not the biggest problem.

And lastly, the intensely brilliant Tosin interviewed me for her digital marketing blog. It was fun, and I hope you glean some valuable insights there. Go here to read it!

I would also love it if you could share this newsletter with anyone you feel would find this useful.

It’s true that the best people come through referrals, so I had to ask 🙂.

You can forward them this email via the share button.

Stay sharp,

Dozie