A story idea from Poynter’s Al Tompkins from his column Al’s Morning Meeting. Make it relevant for your school community with examples from your lives — the teachers, administrators, school events and lifestyle icons that make up the world of your readers, listeners and online users.
Is technology the “new” religion?
Is RSS the “new” WWW?
Is timber the “new” steel?
Is television the “new” reality?
This graphic draws from multiple sources,
showing how the words “is the new” can be connected from one word to
another. This data is from 2005. It would be interesting to see how
your readers, viewers, listeners and online users would react to
different variations of the “is the new” expression.
For example, I wonder what the public would say about the following:
- (Blank) is the new journalism
- (Blank) is the new Mother Teresa
- (Blank) is the new Billy Graham
- (Blank) is the new liberal
- (Blank) is the new crack
- (Blank) is the new South Beach Diet
- (Blank) is the new MBA
- (Blank) is the new MySpace
- (Blank) is the new minivan
- (Blank) is the new Carl Rove
- (Blank) is the new Starbucks
- (Blank) is the new Harvard
You could get really local on this. Compare old and new anything in
your community. Use this technique to talk about local trends. Who is
the new hotshot rising star politician? What is the most talked about
new building in your town? What is the “must attend” event of the year
in your town? Has it changed over time?
Go back and check out the graphic, if you haven’t already. Does it give you ideas on how to illustrate this story?
