Avoid A Tone-Deaf Story. Here’s One To Try.

Recently, a Capstone client shipped a story back with a note to change the piece’s introduction. Written in pre-coronavirus times, the opening paragraphs felt glib.

You might be experiencing something similar as you work through your editorial lineups.

This concern isn’t likely to go away in your upcoming issue or the one after that.

You’re going to have to navigate a tonal tightrope: positive without being Pollyanna-ish, forward-thinking without setting aside the real hardship that your readers and your school will likely be working through.

So how do you do that? With many of our clients, Capstone is offering up concrete story ideas that they can run now or a few months from now. No matter when they’re published, they won’t feel like a mismatch for the moment.

While every school’s needs look a little bit different, I want to share one idea that will likely work for many of you.

The format you see below is the the exact one we use when we pitch stories to clients as part of our Capstone Pitch Subscription service.

If it makes sense for your institution, tuck it away and use it for the upcoming issue or the one that follows. Even if a dozen institutions use it, the people you choose and the stories they tell will make the feature unique to your school.

If you like that story idea and would love to have a few more, I encourage you to consider our Capstone Pitch Subscription.

We offer pitches exactly like this — but customized specifically for your institution. You’ll get three robust pitches like the one above for every single issue you plan, and you only hire Capstone for the ones that you actually want to use.

Capstone has experienced writers who will report and write the stories, and we have an in-house researcher who does everything from research to source approvals to photo collection. We’ve tried to make it the most done-for-you service you can imagine.

Even if the service isn’t right for you, I hope you’ll keep reading–we have more COVID-19 coverage ideas coming your way.

Erin