Change Your Character – Writing Like a Reporter

Amid too much jargon, the state of business communication isn’t stellar. We could all benefit from delegating a writing assignment to a great reporter to see how they’d approach it to ensure it’s as clear, concise, and memorable as possible. Here are some of the things a good reporter is going to concentrate on during a writing assignment:

• Interview people directly involved in the story
• Use multiple sources of information
• Write in order to gain attention right away
• Put the most important things at the start of the story, followed by supporting material, then background information
• Address fundamental questions – who, what, where, when, why, and how
• Use specific, concrete examples
• Have an editor who reviews it and makes changes

In addition to identifying at least three new ways to incorporate each of a reporter’s approaches to improve your writing, here’s a bonus book recommendation - do yourself a favor and track down a copy of “How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing” by Robert Gunning and Richard A. Kallan. It’s a precursor to “Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter's Guide” and is a short, straight-forward guide to dramatically simplifying your business writing.

Note – for the previous post on how to use the Change Your Character technique, click here.