Gorilla Warfare - not "Guerilla"

The link at the bottom is to a piece I wrote for Newsy.com - an international news organization that takes perspectives from news outlets around the world to discuss one story...thus, attempting to tell the whole story, rather than just a biased viewpoint of it.

While working for a start-up news company such as Newsy.com, I've learned an incredible amount about what it takes to get people to actually notice the work we're doing. We could be writing phenomenal pieces with compelling angles and perspectives, yet if the site itself and our work are not marketed properly, it's all in vain. Now, I'm working on the reporting/writing side of things at Newsy so am not exactly focusing on marketing, but it's really all intertwined.

Basically, the stories we write have to have the MOST compelling bits of information (content uniqueness, visual appeal, contrasting viewpoints, etc.) within the first 5-10 seconds of our piece, or else we've lost the fickle online viewer. This obviously makes sense, but is quite challenging as we're pulling from a variety of sources with unique and interesting points of view. So, choosing the top 4-5 sources (all with different perspectives) AND balancing that with accurately/effectively telling the story itself is a pretty challenging task. Also, for online journalism and marketing that journalism, it's essential the headline be creative, yet not too abstract. In some cases, creativity is encouraged...in others, it's important to stick to the "meat and potatoes."

Working in an environment where we're constantly innovating, creating, re-vamping, eliminating, correcting, experimenting and learning is an amazing opportunity for a journalism student right now... specifically as the Internet seems to be throwing the communications world a massive curveball.

Anywho, here's the link to a story I wrote on Gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a shocking story of their survival during rebel violence and warfare. Any comments/feedback from this piece and/or others on the site are always appreciated! : )

http://www.newsy.com/videos/gorillas_and_warfare/