How can you generate fresh story ideas for your reporting?

Wherever the box is: look outside it. Look beyond it, look beneath it, look above it, but to be fresh, you can't stay in the box. Look. Look. Then look some more. Dig for the extraordinary. Dig for the untold angle. But keep digging until you find it. It is there. It always is. So look more, dig more, and find more. The perspective, the person, the best story outside the box.

Be relevant and available. I can’t tell you how many times in the newsroom we would bite on a pitch or reach out to an expert about a current story but they weren’t available until the next day. News moves fast. What’s important today is often irrelevant tomorrow.

I'm like Curious George...I really am. I always felt being a reporter gave me permission to call people, and places, and ask questions that I otherwise never would have. Honestly, there were stories I worked for years to get. And they were worth it! I would get an idea, and just kept digging, keep believing and hoping that I would eventually get what I was looking for. My instinctive curiosity fueled my passion for finding cool stuff. For the majority of us, journalism is a career fueled by passion not paycheck. I used to say you can't pay the bills with an awesome story. But the fascinating folks whose stories I was able to share, places we were able to show, enriched the quality of my life, and hopefully of viewers as well.

Engaging with people in the community is one of the most effective ways to generate new content ideas. This can involve attending events, speaking with experts, or simply having conversations with individuals who have different perspectives on a particular issue. Talking to people helps identify important trends and issues that are relevant to the audience and develop stories that resonate with them. In addition, it is always helpful to be open to feedback from readers and listeners. They often provide valuable suggestions for new story ideas or share their own experiences that can be turned into compelling stories.

It's true. A couple of the best investigative stories I ever had originated with being contacted by a source and then going from there. The two I'm thinking of were stories that at first, some folks thought unlikely to be true. But I was given permission to pursue them. They took time. They took patience. They took work. I would get some info one day, find some more another day, and just little by little, piece by piece the picture became clear. Sources are real. They're not just in big markets, but in medium, and small markets as well. It takes time for people to trust you. And, you never know when you may get a call. And in return, if they request anonymity you absolutely honor that. I'm thankful for the folks that trusted me.

Pitch stories that are unique. You may not throw a strike every time, but try. Early in my career, I pitched what I thought was a timely relevant story. Allergy season was kicking in, let's do something on that. If I recall, the news director said something to the effect of, 'let's blow the lid off allergy season.' Not impressed. Hahaha. He is the best news director I ever had. He was right. And it was a great lesson I've clearly never forgotten. Find something fascinating, insightful, unique, impactful, original--but allergy season? We can do better than that. I learned more from him than any other news director. And finding unique stories became one of the guiding principles of my 25 year career in journalism.

Sometimes you just get flat out lucky. One day, when the newsroom phone rang I happened to answer. Turned out to be one of the best feature stories of my career. Long story short, someone told me there was an elderly lady out in the country that wanted to vote but her car had broken down. So she hopped on her riding lawnmower and drove the gravel road to the polling place-an old one room schoolhouse, that no kidding, had an outhouse around back. The photographer asked her to show us what she did, and it was absolutely precious. She drove up and down that dusty gravel road and told us how important voting was to her. It was a hit and got a lot of attention. It was a team effort: the photographer and I-and it's a story I'll never forget.