Looking past the demographic makeup of our audiences like age, race and political leaning- there’s a more important question we should all be asking ourselves when writing for news:

“What does the user need from me?”

It sounds so simple, but it’s the key to producing content people actually want to read or watch.

The BBC took this question and made a model that categorizes content based on eight “user needs.” They are:

1. Update me
2. Keep me engaged
3. Educate me
4. Give me perspective
5. Divert me
6. Inspire me
7. Connect me
8. Help me

They broke these into four even more basic needs: knowledge, understanding, doing and feeling. You can see how they categorized these in the chart below.

Reuters found the three most important of these needs to be: “update me” (72%), “educate me” (67%) and “give me perspective.” (63%) You can also see this makeup in the chart above.

How do we use it?

So everything you write or produce needs to fit into one of these 8 categories. How do you make that happen?

News Frames

A frame is a central idea, a narrative or storyline that organizes the information in a news story. You can think of each of these categories as a frame.

Here’s some examples of headlines about last year’s government shutdown- in each of the 8 categories or frames:

1. Update me- “U.S. Government Officially Shuts Down.”
2. Keep me engaged- “Politicians React to Government Shutdown.”
3. Educate me- “Why the U.S. Government is Currently Shut Down.”
4. Give me perspective- “The Government Last Shut Down 6 Years ago. Here’s why.”
5. Divert me- “Stephen Colbert Pokes Fun at Trump Over Government Shutdown.”
6. Inspire me- “Local Non-Profit Steps up Food Distribution Amidst Government Shutdown.”
7. Connect me- “Volunteers Needed at Local Food Banks as SNAP Benefits Lapse During Government Shutdown.”
8. Help me- “Where to get Food Assistance During Government Shutdown.”

Look at the topic and timing to pick which of these frames you’d use. If your story topic is breaking news, you’d want to do an “update me” style story. Save “keep me engaged” or “connect me” for a day two story.

It’s important once you pick one of these frames, stick to it. Bouncing around from “update me” to “divert me” to “help me” will lose the reader. You can give context, but don’t change frames.

Next time you’re writing, keep these categories in mind. It’ll help you to organize and your audience to understand.