credit: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Wikipedia

Last week I attended the Community Media Workshop’s 2010 conference: Story and Strategy in the Digital Age.  In a panel discussion that included Dave Hoekstra of the Chicago Sun-Times, he talked about a story he was working on about a new restaurant, and how key a human element, or good anecdote is, for an entree into a news story.  I don’t want to describe the story here, its a good one, because I don’t think its been published yet!  Check Dave’s column yourself, it has to do with a father’s day brunch menu.

This got me thinking about past story pitches of mine that were successful.  As an arts publicist or presenter, it’s so tempting to fall into the trap of thinking the story is: “Chicago premiere” or “Award-winning.” That’s the easy angle, but certainly not a human one.

A recent pitch that was successful for me was uncovering an anecdote about a cast member in Remy Bumppo’s production of Heroes last October.  Yes, this production was “a Chicago premiere” and “an Award-winning comedy” about retired WWI soldiers in France.  But what I found out shortly after opening night, through talking with one of the actors, was that cast member Mike Nussbaum had shared an anecdote about his WWII military service in the green room.  Turns out he’d been the one that sent the telegram from General Eisenhower that ended the war–and had a copy of the telegram with his initials to boot! Talk about a human anecdote as an entree into a play about veteran soldiers.  And Veteran’s Day was just around the corner in November.  So needless to say, we had our story, and got feature segments on the local ABC TV station, and public radio, and lots of column items including Bill Zwecker’s in the Sun-Times.  So the lesson I learned was, enlist everyone from the ground up to keep their eyes and ears open for the ever elusive story.  I’m also thinking about how I can update my standard PR questionnaire to uncover this kinds of hooks in advance.  Over and out!