Journalism 101

I just got back from a business trip to San Francisco, this one was for the interview with Chip Heath, the author of NY Times bestseller 'Made to Stick'. He is also a professor of organizational behavior in Stanford University’s GSB(Graduate School of Business).



What an interesting man! Honestly, among those famous authors that i have met, quite many of them were like, "If Only the author was as interesting as his book...." But Prof. Heath's communication style was beyond my expectation. While weaving many interesting stories into the conversation, he managed to keep things to the point and stripped down to the core.

His book, 'Made to Stick' is a useful primer for how to “pitch” an idea so that it sticks in the minds of its hearers. He has spent the past decade seeking answers to why some ideas survice and others die. So, the book serves almost like as a guide book for a marketer, journalist, politician, teacher, businessman.....

I will try to post the whole interview after it comes out.

Meanwhile, I would like to share some excerpts from the book that is related to journalism

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Journalism 101

As students sat in front of their manual typewriters, Ephron's teacher announced the first assignment. They would write the lead of a newspaper story. The teacher reeled off the facts: "Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills high school, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in new teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Maynard hutchins, California Governor 'Pat' Brown."

The budding journalists sat at their typewriters and pecked away at the first lead of their careers. According to Ephron, she and most of the other students produced leads that reordered facts and condensed them into a single sentence : "Governor Pat Brown, Margaret Mead, and Robert Maynard Hutchins will adress the Beverly hills high shcool faculty Thursday in ... Blah, Blah, Blah.."

The teacher collected the leads and paused for a moment. Finally he said, "The lead to the story is 'There will be no school next Tuesday."

Ephron recalls "It wasn't about who, when, where....it is all about the figuring out the point" >