The 5Ws and H of Storytelling: When to Release a Story?

TW: This blog post mentions cases involving sexual assault and police-involved deaths.

We've all seen it before - a story captures the attention and interest of the public, even though it may well be a story we've seen or heard before - sometimes countless times. 

Witness for example, comedian Hannibal Buress' routine which went viral one weekend in mid-October 2014, in which he spoke about the allegations of sexual assault that had long surrounded Bill Cosby.

These allegations that had been in the public domain for years and whispered about for decades before that. In fact, the routine itself was an old one which Buress had been doing for at least 6 months prior.

We are all familiar with the long overdue reckoning which came next. 

But one question has lingered. Why then? It's a question Cosby's accusers have asked. It's even a question which Buress himself has puzzled over.

"This is the first time it's happened and it's very weird... It was unexpected," Buress said in an interview afterwards.

There are a whole host of factors which make a story capture the public's attention and we've gone into many of them over several posts on this blog - who you tell your story to, what even makes a story newsworthy, where to tell it.

But there is one factor - the X factor as it were, that can make all the difference but can be the hardest to pin down - when. Sometimes timing is everything.

In this instance, timing had something to do with what made Buress' routine go viral and caused the myriad allegations against Cosby to be surfaced once again. 

The portion of his routine which went viral was recorded by a patron on a smartphone camera. 

Unremarkable, except that 2014 was just about the time when the ubiquity of smartphones with video capability had tipped, creating a ripple effect on accountability and justice that we are still seeing to this day.

In that very year, Ramsey Orta captured the smartphone video of Eric Garner in a chokehold, crying out his last words and we saw disturbing video footage of the aftermath of the killing of Mike Brown. The next year, in 2015, cellphone video showed Walter Scott's killing at the hands of a police officer and in 2016, we saw cellphone video footage of the killing of Alton Sterling and the shocking live video footage of Philando Castile's death.

(N.B. - Please note these URLS do not link to video footage of any of the referenced killings but instead to reporting and Wikipedia entries.)

Just 5 years before Buress' routine, in 2009, Apple had rolled out the iPhone 3Gs, its first smartphone (though not the first) with video recording capability.

As it also so happened, he was performing in Philadelphia, Cosby's hometown and also the center of where the previous, most high-profile charges against Cosby had been litigated, so there was special interest.

It was the right place, at the exactly right moment in history.

And it shows how critical the when can be in making a story get the attention it deserves.

Now while timing can't make every story go viral, for those doing good who want to get their organization's work known to the public, there are some tips and tricks of timing that will certainly help your story get traction.

The Importance of Immediacy

The ability to respond quickly on issues, even unprompted, cannot be overstated. If your organization works in animal rights for instance and a story breaks about a horrific animal abuse scandal, you should be ready to respond to press queries and to issue a statement on the issue. For this, it's helpful to have a standing list of position papers that outline where exactly your group stands on a particular issue - what is the legislation or actions or policy that you have been calling for on this issue, what are the actions your group has been taking to combat this problem and how can the public help? You should also have talking points ready on your positions so that you can respond quickly. 

Yes, I know what you're thinking - those people who are always in the news and seem to be go-tos for their opinions on particular issues - this is part of how they've done it. 

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Some times of the year are ideal for getting your story into some forms of media because of the retail cycle. So for print media, where the size of the publication has traditionally been based on the volume of advertising, certain times of year are a bonanza - plenty of ad pages, resulting in plenty of news pages and sometimes not enough copy to fill it. For newspapers in many countries, it's Christmas time. For fashion magazines, their big advertising editions are September and March to a lesser extent. 

The Right Day of the Week

Watching the news cycle closely to see what is a good day for your kind of news, is also important. A general rule of thumb for holding press conferences, for example, is to hold them in the middle of the week and in the middle of the day, when media houses are most likely to be fully staffed and have the maximum number of reporters available. There are however, other quirks, particularly in smaller markets and have a lot to do with the publishing or broadcasting cycle of the biggest news vehicle in that market. Ideally, you want to position your news event or release at a time that is most convenient to getting into their prime news product. So if the Sunday morning news show is the biggest deal, perhaps you want to hold your announcement until Saturday afternoon. 

Don't Go Against the Big Deal Thing

In some markets, there is also sometimes a regularly scheduled Big Deal Thing that you don't want to compete with. In these times, it could be a weekly COVID briefing from the authorities - I mean, who would have wanted to compete with the recent COVID press briefing by Trinidad and Tobago's Minister of Health? While many internationally thought the press conference had been called in response to some interesting tweets from a celeb, the fact of the matter is, this was a regularly scheduled press briefing at which updates are given and issues clarified. It's usually a significant newsmaker and last months it ended up being a global newsmaker. I'm sure never in his life did the Minister think he would be addressing such issues at a press conference and subsequently appearing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, but imagine scheduling your event to have gone up against that!