Emily Hood is a 2023 RJI Student Innovation Fellow partnered with Star Tribune in Minneapolis. The RJI Student Fellows will be sharing their innovative work through Innovation in Focus.
The concept of “news you can use” is not new to media organizations. However, with the rising importance of search engine optimization, these stories play a key role in not only driving traffic to news websites, but helping news organizations serve their communities.
At the Star Tribune, we define service journalism stories as “stories that help readers better understand the news, learn new things or find information they are seeking.” Typically, these stories simplify a complex topic, like marijuana legalization or COVID-19 vaccines, and often lend themselves to lots of search traffic, as they cover topics readers are interested in.
Many reporters and editors were excited to write these types of stories, but needed a clear standard on what they were, when they should be used, and how they should look online.
As part of my fellowship, we created a best practices guide to pitching and producing service journalism stories online. Here are some highlights from that guide on creating service journalism that reaches and resonates with your communities.
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