If you’re pitching a story idea to journalists, give them a little something\u00a0extra that will prompt them to say “tell me more.”<\/p>\n
I’m referring specifically to what’s called a sidebar. It’s a short,\u00a0often boxed auxiliary news story that’s printed alongside the longer article and typically presents additional information such as statistics or bullet points.<\/p>\n
Let’s say you’re pitching a story about the heat wave that I discussed\u00a0earlier, and you’re issuing tips for parents on how to keep their kids safe on playgrounds, where the temperature\u00a0on metal sliding boards can burn kids’ legs. You could offer a sidebar that shows the exact temperature of a metal sliding board on an 85-degree day, a 90-degree day, a 95-degree day, and so on.<\/p>\n
Sidebars can also include things like industry definitions, timelines,\u00a0examples, step-by-step instructions, a quiz, etc.<\/p>\n
On the CD I recorded called “Briefs, Fillers & Quizzes: How to Write Them and Why Editors Love Them,”<\/a> I explain that journalists\u00a0especially love quizzes because they engage readers, and they’re fun. You can use briefs\u00a0not only as sidebars, but as stand-alone pieces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you’re pitching a story idea to journalists, give them a little something\u00a0extra that will prompt them to say “tell me more.” I’m referring specifically to what’s called a sidebar. It’s a short,\u00a0often boxed auxiliary news story that’s printed alongside the longer article and typically presents additional information such as statistics or bullet points. Let’s\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":2,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,205],"class_list":{"0":"post-678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-media-relations","8":"tag-pitching","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41184,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/41184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}