What's on your 'Shit List'?
Just go with me here
A few years ago when I was at The New York Times, I was a guest on a panel for young reporters about finding, generating, and developing story ideas. (Spoiler: There’s no “right” way to do it!) The panel was stacked with veteran reporters from the newsroom, and we talked about all kinds of strategies, from getting out of the office (or home) and walking the Earth, as I love to say, to asking sources what stories you should be covering, to just reading everything humanly possible in the areas you cover.
One of the panelists was a person I consider the best working magazine writer in the country. We got to a section of the panel during which we talked about organizing all of one’s story ideas and developing a workflow to manage them, and she chimed in with the most insightful — and revealing and vulnerable — comment of the day:
“I keep a Shit List.”
That one little remark is seared into my memory, and it’s something I’ll never forget. I mean, picture it! Here is a generational talent talking about pulling together a list of shitty story ideas. It was eye-opening for a hundred reasons, not the least of which was, “Wow, superstars, they’re just like us!”
Soooo … what is a ‘Shit List’?
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