News is the facts as they’ve happened. To make something newsworthy you need to take the facts and use storytelling techniques to make them interesting to an audience. Great stories don’t just recite the details. They expand, they amplify, and they show different perspectives. In other words, great stories add value to the source material.

If you’re wondering where to start with that, here’s a list of tips to get you going:

Research

Don’t just write off the top of your head. All great stories have some degree of research behind them. The best stories of all are complete, well-rounded and comprehensive. They exhibit more care and background effort, and are packed full of relevant, accurate detail.

Play fair

Great stories contain a range of viewpoints, not just the immediately obvious one. They also include differing levels of expertise, from your average Joe on the street, to someone who’s an actual expert in their field. Make it accessible to a wider audience, by widening your story’s scope.

Focus

This may seem contradictory after the last two points, but bear with me. There’s a difference between adding value with relevant information and going off on a tangent. The former = great. Latter = not so much. Stick to your topic, always. No one like a meanderer.

Quote

Quotes from a variety of sources lend credibility to your story and also provide reader with a nice break from your prose, no matter how beautifully crafted it is. They’re also the best way to showcase the personalities of the people you’re featuring (and just quietly, they can also be a great way to sneak something into the story that you don’t want to say yourself).

Relate

How will your readers be affected by this issue? Why is it important that they know about it? If you struggle to answer these questions, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to craft a newsworthy piece. But in a case where you can’t answer them and still think it’s worth putting out there, try to find some kind of human interest angle that readers can relate to.