Readers need interesting content, storytelling elements

 

Ali Sajjad

‘A great storyteller once said that great stories occur to those who can tell them. A great story, not told well, will be an ordinary or bad story’

If you are reading this piece, it establishes the fact that newspaper is a must part of your every day and you have grown up reading a newspaper almost every day in your life.

Despite your newspaper reading habit, it is not necessary for you to know that September 25 is the National Newspaper Readership Day. 

Despite being a lifelong newspaper reader and the part of a media house, I was also unaware of the day and only came to know about it when the Pakistan Post issued a commemorative stamp to mark the day.

A press release issued by the Pakistan Post says it issued the stamp on the request of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), which has been celebrating Sept 25 as the ‘National Newspaper Readership Day’ since 2019.

Well, I have never been a stamp collector, but I will buy a few stamps from a nearby post office. My gratitude to the Pakistan Post for reminding us of the National Newspaper Readership Day, and to the APNS for coming up with the idea for the day. 

The day may provoke us to think that the newspaper is an important part of our mornings, office tables, and leisure times.

Over the years, the mode of newspaper reading might have changed. Many feel convenient to read the newspaper of their choice on a gadget while a good part of the generation of our times is still addicted to the feel of a newspaper, which comes with shuffling the pages.

There are days when one feels fatigued or lacks interest in reading the paper. That happens and that is not an unusual feel. Though one reason behind the lack of disinterest in newspaper reading may be a burdened stomach, and pre-occupied mind, there might be some faults with the news pages. I hardly finish the paper when there is no news on news pages.

No news in the news pages? Though there is the plenty of information coming out of news agencies, TV channels, reporters’ sources, corporate bodies, politicians, government agencies, and so on, sometime it happens that there is no news of one’s personal interest in the news crowd.

How to generate interest in the news stories? We often discuss in the newsroom on keeping the news stories interesting without forging facts and distorting information.

The handy tools to keep the stories interesting are in ‘story telling’. A great storyteller once said that great stories occur to those who can tell them. A great story, not told well, will be an ordinary or bad story.

We remember our childhood when our moms and grandmothers told us stories, which kept us in a trance for days and weeks. This is the time to make newspaper content more interesting and stories full of storytelling elements. That will bring back the readers to newspaper pages.

With time, the readers will feel that the quality time they spent reading a newspaper added value to their personality. The content should not update them on contemporary issues, events and discoveries, but also triggers critical thinking in them.

I would be grateful to the readers of the Minute Mirror if they provide us with their feedback and reflections on what is being published and what should be published.

We would love to hear your advice on editorial content and would like to publish your opinion in newspaper’s editorials.

We would also like you to write about the issues you see around and share story ideas. Own the Minute Mirror as it is a newspaper for the public; let you, please, make a newspaper by the public.

Ali Sajjad is the editor-in-chief of Minute Mirror. He can be reached

at chiefeditor@minutemirror.com.pk

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