Telling Stories

Occasionally I run into a person who asks if it’s difficult to come up with an idea for a news feature article in a weekly magazine. The answer is, usually not. There is enough going on in the world and in the Assemblies of God that ensure new topics are available to explore or fresh ways to report an already-explored topic.

In the first 11 years of my journalism career, I worked at daily newspapers, where creativity is a necessity. I spent eight of those years as a reporter and news editor of a paper in a city of 10,000 people. I covered murder trials, a manhunt, a child sex-abuse trial, an arson death, fatal car wrecks, the fatal shooting of a mayor during a city council meeting in a nearby city and a prison uprising. Of course, in a small city, those aren’t daily occurrences.

With a couple of others on the small staff I shared the responsibility of finding a local article for the front page every day. City, county and school board meetings and events provided fodder for numerous news articles, but much of the time I had to devise a feature story on my own. Even in a city of 10,000 (and county of 16,000) there are enough interesting folks and circumstances: servers complaining of low tips of local diners; a belly dancer looking for business; the workweek of morticians; the life of circus performers appearing at the local fairgrounds; how easy it is to buy a handgun; the story of local World War II prisoners of war; a local engineer whose hobby is jousting at Renaissance re-enactments.

These days, covering a U.S. denomination of 3 million people, there are many interesting untold stories to uncover. The primary challenge is that there is a two-month delay from the time the story is written until readers see it. Thus, articles really can’t be hard news and instead must examine trends. Lengthy stories I’ve written this year include alcohol abuse and females; the elderly and sex; astrology hazards; emerging adults; child sex abuse; reincarnation; and sports mania. What an interesting world in which we live!