Plan newsroom coverage of a breaking news event
A first-hours coverage plan with assignments, story formats, verification steps, and a publishing cadence across channels.
The prompt
Help me plan our coverage of a breaking news event.
What is happening: [WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR, and what is unconfirmed]
Our outlet and audience: [local / national / trade; who reads us and why]
People available: [reporters, editors, photo/video, social, data - with locations and skills]
Channels: [website, live blog, app alerts, newsletter, social, broadcast]
What competitors have already published: [IF KNOWN]
Build the plan in these parts:
1. Our angle: what we can add that our audience can't get elsewhere.
2. Story list for the first 6 hours and next 24 hours: the first short news story, live blog, explainer, reaction, visual or data piece, and the follow-up questions to pursue.
3. Assignments table: person | task | location | deadline | editor.
4. Verification protocol: how we confirm casualties, names, images, and video from social media; who signs off before anything is published; how we label what is unconfirmed.
5. Publishing cadence: when to send alerts, update the live blog, and post on social, and the bar for sending a push alert.
6. Care and safety: reporter safety on the ground, handling graphic images, contacting victims' families, and identifying people only once confirmed.
7. Hand-over notes for the next shift.
Never treat unconfirmed reports as fact. Mark every unverified detail in the plan as [UNCONFIRMED] and attribute anything we can't verify ourselves.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Projects & Operations prompts
What to fill in
- WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR, and what is unconfirmed
- local / national / trade; who reads us and why
- website, live blog, app alerts, newsletter, social, broadcast
- IF KNOWN
- UNCONFIRMED
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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