8. Preparing scientific TV programs and documentaries (by Carolyn Robinson)
8.1 Pick your topic carefully

a. how to find your strongest idea

Every journalist should keep a file of story ideas they like. When you are looking for something to cover - whether it will be a short or a long report - start first by sorting through your idea file. But how to pick the strongest idea?

• Look for stories that touch on something that is currently in the news.
• Look for stories with good human interest, ones that feature strong and interesting people.
• Look for stories that involve a tension or a conflict between two sides of the story, or ones that show people facing a lot of obstacles.
• Look for stories that affect a lot of people or involve a lot of money.
• And especially for television, look for stories that promise good visuals.

b. sources of ideas

• research journals: practically every scientific field of interest publishes a magazine dedicated to its work
• university experts: familiarize yourself with the research activities at your local universities and academic centers
• friends and family: what kinds of daily problems do they have that involve one area of science or another?
• other media: look for the scientific angle behind stories on business, politics, education, health, religion, crime, etcetera
• PR agencies: get on mailing lists from PR agencies that specialize in global and local science issues
• government officials: what scientific issues is your local or national government faced with at the moment?
• direct observation: look for the scientific angle behind events in your daily life

c. do preliminary research

After contacting all your sources, pick 2 or 3 stories that really appeal to you, based on the above criteria. The next step is to check your leads more carefully. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Is the research finalized or at a satisfactory point in which results can be discussed?
• Are all the main players in the story ready, willing and able to talk with you on camera?
• What do critics of the research say about it? Are they willing to be interviewed on camera about this?
• Exactly what kind of pictures are you likely to be able to gather? Are they interesting?

Once you have gone through all the points on this checklist, you are ready to move to the next phase of production of your scientific TV program.


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