6. Mind map as many media coverage ideas as possible
Now suppose you have about 10 to 15 topics. It’s time to start thinking. I do this in several ways. You can choose another way, but this worked for me.
Set a timer for each topic and push yourself to come up with as many ideas as possible.
Here’s the key: Don’t give yourself time to convince yourself to let go of an ideano matter how crazy it sounds at this stage.
By timing yourself, you are shutting down the part of your brain that is logically trying to clear out stupid or absurd thoughts.
Now we all want them!
I choose to open a new blank Google Doc and type in ideas simply because I type faster than I can write.
7. Choose from 5 – 8 powerful media coverage ideas
You want to end up with about 80 or so loose ideas.
Sometimes these are just questions.
About 90% of these ideas are not very good, which is good.
We only need five to eight good ones that can be further verified.
Remember, we need to go through the pain of the other 75 bad ideas to get the five strong ones.
8. Validate your media coverage ideas with more data
Now suppose we have five powerful ideas. Time to verify them.
We need to do a quick feasibility check.
For example, if the idea relies on data, we need to start searching for the data we need, or have a data expert find out if the data exists and structure it into a format suitable for the story.
At this stage I tend to do desk research and reflection:
- Is the data available or is there similar data available?
- Do these thoughts trigger emotional responses?
