The role of serendipity in the story ideation process of print media journalists

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to build upon the studies of journalism from an LIS perspective by exploring and differentiating the purposive behavior of newspaper reporters from their serendipitous encounters with information that lead to new story ideas. This paper also provides a path toward pedagogical improvements in training the modern journalism workforce in being more open to creative story ideas. Design/methodology/approach This study utilized semi-structured telephone interviews. Participants were recruited via e-mail after collecting contact information through the Cision database. The study sample was drawn from newspaper reporters who work at or freelance for the top 25 metropolitan newspapers in the USA, in terms of circulation size, based on data from the Alliance for Audited Media. A total of 15 participants were interviewed. Findings This paper provides insight into the story ideation process of journalists in that the study participants generally do not think about how they are coming up with story ideas as much as they are striving to place themselves in situations where, based on their experience and interests, they know they are more likely to encounter a good idea. Each encounter proved meaningful in some powerful fashion, which speaks to the historical importance of serendipity in achieving breakthroughs and discoveries in a wide variety of fields. Research limitations/implications The sampling frame for this study was relatively small, representing 8 percent of the total number of working newspaper journalists from the top 25 newspapers in the USA, in terms of circulation size. Therefore, the findings are not generalizable to the entire population of journalists in this country. Practical implications The findings point to the importance of a prepared mind in facilitating serendipitous episodes. In the case of journalism, that means developing a heightened news sense and cultivating routines where they place themselves in trigger-rich environments. Pedagogically, journalism education must include courses in creative storytelling to help train the modern newspaper workforce in an ever-expanding and competitive media landscape. These courses, ideally paired with techniques and models from the field of information science and learning technologies, could help train young journalists in methods that enhance their ability to identify, seek and pursue serendipitous stories. Originality/value This paper fulfills a need in journalism studies in finding variability in news routines by utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines journalism studies and library and information science models to probe how journalists encounter ideas incidentally. Previous research in this area has focused on how news consumers serendipitously encounter information. This paper takes a fresh approach to explore how creative ideas are encountered serendipitously in the construction of news.

Effect of Serendipity in an Encounter on Purchase Intention of Unexpected Products

“…Our research reveals that consumers induce less purchase intention of unexpected products when they experience serendipity than when they experience personal choice. The extant literature on serendipity showed that serendipity in an encounter can bri many benefits from different fields and perspectives, such as the exploration of business opportunities on the platform for technology companies ( Moretto and Vasilchenko, 2011 ), the source of creative story ideas for media reporters ( Bird-Meyer et al, 2019 ), the possibility of information seeking behaviors for lawyers ( Solomon and Bronstein, 2016 ). However, these studies mainly focus on the positive effect of serendipity.…”

Information seeking behaviors of environmental journalists

“…Nicholas and Martin’s description of stimulus is similar to the concept of serendipity in information behaviors. Bird-Meyer et al (2019) found serendipity plays a role in journalists’ story ideation process. Journalists have an educational background, experience, and knowledge that gives them a “highly developed news sense,” or an ability to identify when a story is newsworthy (Bird-Meyer et al, 2019:1009).…”

“…Bird-Meyer et al (2019) found serendipity plays a role in journalists’ story ideation process. Journalists have an educational background, experience, and knowledge that gives them a “highly developed news sense,” or an ability to identify when a story is newsworthy (Bird-Meyer et al, 2019:1009). In addition, beat reporters or specialized reporters (journalists who focus on covering a particular subject, industry, or institution) have specialized knowledge that contributes to their news sense for stories in their subject area.…”

“…In addition, beat reporters or specialized reporters (journalists who focus on covering a particular subject, industry, or institution) have specialized knowledge that contributes to their news sense for stories in their subject area. Journalists have also developed routines like “getting out of the office, meeting new people, cultivating sources, attending events, and listening and being alert for something unique, off-beat, and interesting” that increases their chances of serendipitously encountering information (Bird-Meyer et al, 2019:1009). Their heightened news sense guides journalists to follow up and research a story further.…”

Aha! Librarians’ predisposition for information encountering and serendipity in the workplace

“…Serendipity can help organizations be more creative and innovative (Cunha, 2010). Past studies on IE have looked at serendipity conceptually (Erdelez, 2005;Agarwal, 2015), in various information environmentsphysical (Björneborn, 2008) and digital (McCay-Peet & Toms, 2017), learning (Giordano, 2010), different user groups such as historians (Buchanan & Erdelez, 2019), journalists (Bird-Meyer, Erdelez, & Bossaller, 2019), shoppers (Ocepek, 2017), and various other contexts of information behavior (Agarwal, 2018), but were not focused on how people experience IE in an organizational context. Ocepek (2018) argues that everyday includes work.…”