How to Write a Proposal

There are many possible ways to tell a story, but a reporter must choose an angle in order to tell an effective and focused story.

Graphic adapted by Brandon T. Bisceglia from public domain image.

Even as the first issue of Horizons was being readied for graphic design, students in the Publications class were beginning to write proposals March 4 for the second issue.

Proposal writing was a new task for Pub I students – they are assigned stories for the first issue. For the second, we worked with them individually in class to craft proposals that would meet the standards of the newspaper.

Writing a proposal is not as simple as it might sound. Every proposal generally must include the following:

1. A rough lead.

2. A few sentences summarizing the story you want to cover.

3. A list of potential sources.

4. At least one sentence explaining why the story will be relevant to the Horizons audience.

5. A mention of what section (opinion, news, sports, etc.) the story might fit into (if applicable).

6. A mention of whether the person proposing the story wants to cover it himself/herself or is leaving it open as unassigned for others to pick up.

Even when a student hits all of these points, the editors might still reject a proposal.

If the timing of an event does not match the timing of the writing period for a given issue, it will either be rejected or shifted to another issue (or, potentially, the online platform, Perspective).

If the proposal is too similar to a topic the newspaper has recently covered, it will be rejected.

The most common reason a proposal is rejected, however, is simply that it’s too vague. To counteract this problem, I wrote a short primer for students on narrowing their story ideas, in which I talked about the concept of the story angle – the particular aspect of a story on which you choose to focus. I described how searching for angles could help them in their reporting:

Depending on what focus you choose, the eventual story you write can be unique and eye-catching. Horizons has run lots of stories about the parking problems at HCC over the years. But has anyone investigated why the current parking structure was chosen in the first place? You could find a completely new story in there.

One of the keys to writing a successful proposal is to be specific about what kind of story you plan to pursue. Picking an angle and incorporating it into your pitch will add specificity to your proposal. You will also have an easier time deciding what people and questions to pursue in your hunt for the story.

I was impressed with some of the ideas the Pub I students came up with. One student joked that he could write a story about the challenges of being a pregnant professor. I mentioned to him that Karyn Smith was not the only person working at HCC who had experience in that realm, and offered a few names. He was surprised – he didn’t realize there could be a potential story in his joke.

The truth is there’s a potential story in everything, if you know how to look for it.