How To Source Local Stories Fast Using Google News & Alerts

Connections, bloggers, canned content and the like are one thing, but at one point or another, you’ll need to do some story sourcing to fulfill your editorial calendar. Here’s a smart and effective way to find great leads.

As a publisher with a specific editorial strategy, you want to serve your audience to the best of your own abilities. If you or your staff have your hands full with breaking news or large features and you’re highly effective with those particular types of stories, you should focus most of your efforts there.

However, if you still want to provide variety and cover all of the bases for your readers, there are some great shortcuts you can take using Google. There are two ways to find news you may have missed but still want to send to your audience, and they both involve Google.

The first is setting up Google alerts. It’s as easy as going to www.google.com/alerts and typing in the name (or names) of the towns/cities in your coverage area. You’ll receive a daily email with the top headlines on the web for that 24-hour period (you can decrease this to once a week if you wish, but we don’t recommend more than once a day).

Secondly, if Google Alerts did not prove useful in a given week, you can always use Google’s news search. Again, simply type the name of your city/town into Google Search. After you administer the search, click on “News” at the top of the page. You’ll then be directed to a list of news stories about your town.

Results aren’t ordered by date, so you’ll want to be aware of that, and you can find some gems by digging deep into the search. We recommend clicking through 10 pages of search results per publication in one search session scheduled each week.

Once you find a story that suits your audience, you then tell the story in your own words, citing the news outlet/source, and linking out to the original story. Here are a few examples that we’ve done through our Publisher Concierge service:

• Metroplex Cities Rank as Some of the 'Best Cities to Start a Career'
• Former Legacy Pitcher Makes Major League Debut With Mets Tonight
• Summit Alumnus Sets World Record
• Mansfield Resident Complains of Drone Activity

These are some of the top performers as we generally see our audiences enjoy reading about hometown heroes/celebrities (especially in athletics), strange activity/police stories, and rankings lists containing the area/neighborhood.

If you have a bit more time, you can also write your own profile/story by performing traditional interviewing and pursuing sources for more in-depth conversations. Question & Answer (Q&A for short) stories are very easy to administer either by phone or via email. You can also write your own.

This is all as easy as reaching out to people/businesses/nonprofits and asking to do an email interview. Check out these examples from our Publisher Concierge service:

• New Business in Town to Host Chamber Networking Event
• Season Recap: Girls Water Polo Wins First State Championship
• Q&A With Mayor-elect Laura Hil

You can also write actual articles (non-Q&A form) like these:

• Assistant Football Coach Reflects Upon Recent Honors, Career
• #NoMeanGirls Movement Raises More Than $10,000, but Isn't Stopping There
• Timberview and the Wolf Pack Join Forces to Pay It Forward

This is just scratching the surface of the types of things you can do with your web editorial operations but be sure to setup your Google Alerts and set aside some time to share relevant news with your audience.