What makes a good news story?

News stories are the lifeblood of Pulse. They are what draws our readers in, what sets the tone of the magazine and they provide the material for our in-depth features and columnists. Because of this, we need to ensure that our news stories are engaging, relevant and – most of all – accurate. Probably the most important rule is it needs to resonate with our readership. For us, that means everything we report has to be towards an audience of GPs. For example, take our news story ‘GPs told to identify ghost patients every year in “disgraceful” list cleansing drive’. It was picked up by a number of nationals, with many putting it on their front page. They led with the patient angle – ie, ‘you must see your GP or they will chuck you off their list’. For us, however, the most important aspect was that GPs’ workload will be under more pressure as they are responsible for identifying these patients. The second important rule for a good news story is in the name itself – it must be new. Or, to put it more accurately, there must be a new hook. For example, GPs know that demand is growing because many individuals have more than one condition – ‘multimorbidities’. But we cannot write a news story saying ‘Patients have increasing multimorbidities’, because nothing has actually happened that makes it news. If there was a new study or a survey showing the extent of this in a more accurate way than before, then that would be a different matter. A good news story also has to draw the reader in. To put it another way, it needs to lend itself to an interesting headline. This is slightly different to simply resonating with the readership. It means that the reporter has to be able to explain to the reader why they should be interested. For example, take NHS finances. The Government could announce a £1bn increase in NHS spending for the next year. It is a reporter’s job to tell GPs what this means. Is this a larger increase than the NHS is used to? Will this mean that general practice will receive a larger or smaller funding increase than in other years? We must be able to tell GPs Finally, in this by-no-means exhaustive list, it must be accurate. This can be a source of contention, as it is not entirely the same as being the ‘truth’. For example, the health secretary has said on many occasions that the public want seven-day GP services. His words may not be true – and this is something we would emphasise in the report itself, offering the other side of the argument. But our headline that ‘Hunt says patients want seven-day GP services’ is accurate, with ‘says’ being the operative word. These rules are pretty universal. But to truly build a reputation like Pulse’s, the real skill comes in turning a good news story into a great one: exclusivity, being the only publication to uncover a story; obscurity, meaning it was difficult to uncover; and being ahead of the curve, spotting a trend before anyone else, even those involved. But that might be a discussion for another time…