News hook: inauguration

Both a great and a terrible news hook. Here's why.

The Presidential Inauguration is a great news hook. It’s also a terrible one. Here’s why:

Because a lot of writers are going to use it as a news hook, so, for editors, the space is going to get extremely crowded very fast.

Differentiate your writing from the pack by taking more of a bird’s eye view about inaugurations or about ritual or pomp and circumstance, or go the other way and differentiate your piece of writing by focusing in one a specific aspect of the inauguration.

For example, when Pope Francis became the Pope, there were a ton of pieces using that as a news hook. But, there was also a smart second-beat piece about the cobbler who makes the red shoes the Popes wear. See the difference? The news hook was still technically about getting a new Pope (answering the important “why now?” question that pieces should answer) but also setting it apart from the crowd of other pieces by taking one aspect and focusing there.