Prosthetic Device

Howard Owens offers a list of ten things journalists can do to reinvent journalism.

Here is my favorite:

Put more people in your stories and fewer titles. I’m going to make up this rule of thumb, but … for every title in your story, you should reference two people without titles. So, if you cover the city council and quote the mayor and a city council member, you need in your story four non-titled, real people, as well. Put the emphasis on how real people are affected, not just what talking heads say about an issue or event. See how many city council stories you can write in a month that never even mention an elected or appointed official.

This is my favorite because I attend my small city’s city council meeting twice monthly. My favorite segment is when ordinary people stand at the podium to address the council. At the latest meeting, one fellow got up to ask the city council for relief from an old city code on artificial turf. He and his wife spent $8,000 to install high quality artificial turf because of allergies. A city code enforcement officer told them that they had to rip out at least half and install natural turf.

After he spoke, I got his name and telephone number. I intend to photograph that artificial turf and post his story.

At some future council meeting, I expect that city staff will recommend that the code be updated.