Storytelling still at the center of journalism, Storyful founder says

A little follow-up to yesterday’s examination of a beer commercial for storytelling tips.

Mark Little, the founder of Storyful, a global news agency that collects and verifies content from social media, says, “This is the golden age of storytelling.” He would say that, what with story being part of the name of his business. But he made some good points in a discussion at the University of Florida chronicled by UF Journalism Department interim chair Ted Spiker at PBS’s Mediashift.

Spiker writes that he lectures a lot about stories, to help students understand story in ways other than in the negative ways that word is sometimes used around journalism: “Just out to get a story. Trying to drum up a story. Anything for the story.”

I try to reinforce that stories—whether the message is good or bad (or more likely somewhere in between)—are inherently good because they have the power to connect us all in a way that other forms of communication do not. I worry about stories, though, because of all of today’s noise, because of the emphasis on immediacy, because of our click-click-click-funny-kitty habits.

Spiker writes that he “did a mental fist pump” when he heard Little talk about a golden age for storytelling:

It is for many reasons—because traditional media outlets don’t hold exclusive rights to stories anymore, because of the potential to tell richer and deeper stories with sources closer to the center of action than any media member could be as news breaks, because so many brands are redefining how they will use storytelling to share their messages.

There’s a video of Little’s talk on Florida’s Innovators site.