No picture, no story - Fine Point Communications

As a word guy, I really enjoy the process of writing and the feeling of hitting “publish” on a finished article.

The step before the button, though, is often a struggle.

Finding a photograph that fits the story can be a real chore. Not surprisingly, I want to leave this for the very end — after the story is not only written but also edited, headlined and massaged for SEO.

Maybe this is the same for you, too.

If so, here’s a tip a fellow writer once gave me: In turning a story idea into an article, he said, his first step is to think visually, envisioning the image that will accompany the eventual piece.

Camera sits on desk where a person is typing on a computer keyboard

What if the story has no such image, I asked. Simple, he replied: No picture, no story.

He wouldn’t report or write a word until that image was in his mind, even if figuring out the picture took him a while.

His model makes sense to me: As communicators, the magazines, websites, and blog posts we produce all rely primarily on visuals. Photos are what people will see first on your social media or on your School News collection. Without compelling imagery, the powerful story that took hours to craft may go tragically unnoticed.

Thinking visually is only the start. Unless we can schedule a photo shoot, we will still need to dig through archives or stock-photo sites to find a match for our vision.

Sometimes the hunt pays off; other times, I have to settle for something generally on-point. And don’t even get me started on the challenge of finding diverse representation in stock photography.

Nevertheless, if you, too, tend to prioritize narrative over imagery in your storytelling, try thinking “No picture; no story” this spring and summer as you brainstorm story ideas.

What’s new at Fine Point Communications

Big news this month, and I’m happy to share it first with Refill subscribers: Fine Point Communications is a sponsor for the Global Forum on Girls’ Education this June!
- This is the first sponsorship in Fine Point’s young history, and the Global Forum and its convenor, the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, are both near and dear to my heart.
- I attended the last Global Forum, in Washington, D.C. in 2018, and the speakers for this year’s edition has me excited to return.
I’ve published a new blog post, looking at last month’s CASE Editors Forum in San Francisco. This conference would benefit many school communicators, especially those who work with magazines. I highly recommend checking it out for next year.

Don’t-miss clicks

The nephews of former U.S. president Barack Obama were effectively expelled by the University School of Milwaukee last summer. Now the parents are suing the school, saying that its decision was arbitrary, capricious and followed years “of unfair treatment and insensitivity … toward its students of color and underrepresented students.” USM suggested on its website that the parents exhibited “persistently disrespectful, bullying, or harassing behavior directed at our devoted and hardworking teachers and administrators” and made faculty feel unsafe. ABC News, NBC News and NPR have picked up the story, in part because Craig Robinson, the boys’ father, is the older brother of Michelle Obama.
In Washington last week, four people were injured when a gunman fired more than 100 shots from a building overlooking the Edmund Burke School. The injured included a 12-year-old girl and a school employee. The Washington Post ran a lengthy takeout on the shooting, including details about how Burke communicated this horrifying event to parents during the search for the gunman. I’ve had mass-casualty communications training, so the process was familiar, but reading about it unfolding for real felt quite painful.