Tips for Finding and Producing Trend Stories

Trend stories used to be a subsection of journalism reserved for light features, like new fashions or a television show thats attracting an unexpected audience. But not all trends are pop culture-oriented and depending on where youre reporting, trends in your town may vary wildly from a city in another state or country. Theres definitely a different approach to writing a story about teenagers sexting than there would be for a story about a hot new video game. But both of those could be considered trend stories. So how do you find a trend story, and how do you tweak your approach to suit the subject matter? Here are a few tips for finding and reporting on trends. Know Your Reporting Beat The more you cover a beat, whether its a geographic beat (such as covering a local community) or a topical one (like education or transportation), the more easily youll be able to spot trends. A few that might pop up on the education beat: Are there a lot of teachers retiring early? Are more students driving to school than in years past? Sometimes you’ll be able to spot these trends just by being observant and having well-developed sources, such as parents in the school district or teachers. Check Public Records Sometimes a trend won’t be easy to spot, and you may need more than anecdotal information to establish what the story is. There are many sources of public information, such as police reports, and reports from government agencies that may help illustrate a trend that hasn’t been fully established yet.   For instance, on the police beat, you may notice a lot of drug arrests or vehicle thefts in a given neighborhood. Could this indicate a larger crime wave or a problem with drugs flowing into the area? If you’re going to use data from public records in your reporting (and you absolutely should), you’ll have to know how to file a public records request. Also referred to as an FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request, this is a formal request of a public agency to make available public information. Sometimes agencies will push back against such requests, but if it’s public information, they have to provide a legal reason for not providing the information, usually within a given time frame. Keep Your Eyes Open for Trends Trend stories don’t just come from a reporting beat or public records. You may notice a trend just in your everyday activities, whether it’s at the diner where you get your coffee, the barbershop or hair salon, or even the library. College campuses are a great place to observe trends, especially in clothing and music. It’s good to keep an eye on social media, although any trends you notice there probably will be noticed by hundreds of other people as well. The object is to track down whatever it is thats generating a buzz at the moment before it becomes old news. Know Your Readership or Audience As with any journalism, it’s important to know your audience. If you’re writing for a newspaper in a suburb and your readership is mostly older people and families with children, what are they not going to be aware of and what do they need to know about? It’s up to you to figure out which trends are going to be of interest to your readers and which ones they may already be aware of. Make Sure Your Trend Is Really a Trend Journalists are sometimes derided for writing stories about trends that arent really trends. So make sure whatever youre writing about is real and not the figment of someones imagination or something only a handful of people are doing. Don’t just jump on a story; do the reporting to verify that what you’re writing about really has some validity.

X Opoly - 1260 Words

Case Analysis â€Å"X-Opoly, Inc.† 1 Summary The text deals with the topic of developing and producing a board game, called X-Opoly. The game is similar to the famous game ‘’Monopoly’’. It was the idea of two students. Their business has grown rapidly. This year they are expecting that they will sell 50,000 units. Over next 5 years the sales will grow 25 percent annually. The order of the game has to be differentiated in ordering a new game and ordering a game, which was already produced. For every new game one employee of the art department and the client have to set the design. The required time can vary because it depends on the customer’s specification. The next step is printing. In the printing department the design of the†¦show more content†¦Capacity per year = time available x stations = days x hours per daytotal task time x stations = 200days x 7.5h0.18h x stations = 8,333 units for 1 station = 50,000 units for 6 stations = 158,333 units for 19 stations Capacity per day = Capacity p.a. / 200days = 791,67units for 19 persons Number of theoretical workstations: NT = ∑task time / cycle time = 650108 = 6.02 select 7 workstations The line’s maximum capacity amounts to 791.67 units per day assuming that it is operated for 7.5 hours. Assuming that X-Opoly operates 200 days per year, the capacity is 58,333 units per year. Compared with the expected demand the capacity is three times higher than the demand (50,000 units). Therefore there is an overcapacity of more than 100,000. One consequence could be a falling price and the production of waste. A fall in the price would lead to a decline of the return on investment as well as the cash flow. That is why it is necessary to use fewer stations in order to save resources. In the calculation it can be said that they only 7 stations are needed. With this number of workstations one could achieve the highest efficiency at this moment. But the company will grow rapidly. Therefore they had to add new stations every year. However, the company expects that its sales will grow 25 percent annually for the next five years. As illustrated in Table 1 the demand after 5 years will be approx.Show MoreRelatedX Opoly1250 Words   |  5 PagesCase Analysis â€Å"X-Opoly, Inc.† 1 Summary The text deals with the topic of developing and producing a board game, called X-Opoly. The game is similar to the famous game ‘’Monopoly’’. It was the idea of two students. Their business has grown rapidly. This year they are expecting that they will sell 50,000 units. Over next 5 years the sales will grow 25 percent annually. The order of the game has to be differentiated in ordering a new game and ordering a game, which was already produced. For every

Mudik in Indonesia Free Essays

The tradition of mudik or home for the holidays is found in many countries. Why is this tradition so strong in certain societies? Does it still have a place in today’s world? Mudik is an Indonesian term used to describe when someone who lives away from home is coming home for the holidays. This tradition is often seen during great holidays, such as Christmas and Eid-ul-Fitr. We will write a custom essay sample on Mudik in Indonesia or any similar topic only for you Order Now In Indonesia, for example, as many as 30 million people go mudik on Eid-ul-Fitr in 2011. Most people do mudik activity because they want to reunite with their families after being away for working or studying for a long time. Some societies think that mudik is a sacred tradition, because they usually only do that once a year on the great holidays. At that time, they feel that they need to see their family members and strengthen the relationship with them by spending time together. Moreover, those holidays are very essential in both culture and religion matters, and therefore, people are willing to go for a long distance trip home to celebrate them. Many people living far away from home in big cities do not only do mudik as a tradition, but also as a reason to run away from urban life and to feel again the atmosphere of the home where their childhood memories be. For instance, the stress I had brought from the urban city suddenly disappeared when I ate my mother’s cooking that I always missed. Nowadays, the number of people go mudik is increasing over time. One of the reasons is the increasing level of income, so more people can afford to buy travel tickets or even drive their own private vehicles as transport means. An aim they have which is to be back again with their families. They will go through any constrains only to feel again their home sweet home atmosphere. How to cite Mudik in Indonesia, Essay examples