There’s a great old story about a traveler who sees a man and a donkey by the side of the road. The man is whacking the donkey over the head with a two-by-four. WHAM! SLAM!! BAM!!! Visibly disturbed, the traveler asks, “Friend, why are you hitting that poor animal?” The reply, “Because I want him to walk.” “So, why don’t you just ask him to walk?” asks the traveler. “Because first,” says the whacker, “you have to get his attention!”

Guess what? That’s the newswriting business.

Every day, we go out there, looking for ways to take a bunch of facts and make them so compelling, folks can’t help but watch. It’s not enough to just tell the story. We have to whack people over the head and get their attention. Call it Two-By-Four Journalism. We use words instead of wood, but the principle’s the same. No point in talking when the listener is distracted, bored, or indifferent. Our job is to craft stories with language and style powerful enough to make folks stop, focus, absorb, retain, and (we hope) say “Hey! how about that!” That’s the kind of writing that keeps folks watching, and makes us successful.

It’s also the kind of writing that’s quite rare. It doesn’t have to be.

No matter where your writing skills happen to be right now, you can dramatically improve them, just by remembering two simple rules. Both deal with attitude, possibly the most important element in the writing process. Burn these rules into your brain BEFORE YOU WRITE A SINGLE WORD, and watch what happens.

Rule One: News is a conversation.

If you think you’re “broadcasting the news to the viewers”, you’ve got it wrong. You’re telling stories to one person. Disc jockeys have known this for decades. They don’t speak to an “audience”. They talk to one human being at a time. Same with TV news. Sure, thousands, maybe millions are watching, but they’re not herded together in some stadium watching in unison. They’re home, on the sofa, barely paying attention, watching BY THEMSELVES, ONE BY ONE . What’s more, that one person isn’t just anybody. Think about it. That person knows you. He hears from you every day. Your face and voice are familiar to him. He trusts you to provide valuable information.

Does that description remind you of anyone? Of course it does. That’s your FRIEND out there. Talk to him that way. Make sure every word you write passes the “best friend” test: If it doesn’t sound like a buddy talking to a buddy, something’s wrong.

Rule Two: A story has to matter to you, before you can make it matter to someone else.

Simply put, you’ve got to get juiced about the stuff you’re cranking out, no matter how routine the facts may seem on their face. You’ve got to get so excited, so moved, so motivated by that half-point interest rate hike, the warehouse fire downtown, or the budget bill in Congress, that you absolutely can’t wait to get at your word processor, and type out the story with so much energy that smoke comes out of your fingers (OK, skip the smoke, but you get the idea). Enthusiasm is infectious. It will spill over into your copy and viewers will feel it. They’ll sense a special power in your stories, and they’ll pay attention.

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