Stories and Storytelling are about conflict, contrast, journeys, quests, change. And always, always, well told stories are about values.

• Television is an emotional – not factual – medium. The purpose of good Storytelling is to wrap the factual explanation into resonating emotion to make it more recognizable and therefore more easily remembered.
• The best Storytelling brings a first-hand, emotional experience to the viewer who is thus able to understand and participate vicariously in the event.

We only understand something new by its relationship to something we already know and recognize.

• The viewer tunes out when the world of the story isn’t recognizable and understandable and won’t work to make sense of it. The viewer must tune in immediately since the story only comes around once.
• For the story to mean anything, the events should feature a protagonist, a person, and should chronicle a meaningful search or change in that person’s life.
• The viewer needs to know something human and personal about the protagonist before there can be any real interest in the situation. Without that information, the viewer cannot be emotionally involved, cannot identify vicariously.
• Stories take place in a small world defined by the story’s context. The world has to be defined before its happenings can resonate in the viewer’s memory and emotions. The world must be small for the viewer to recognize it.

Values are the lifeblood of Storytelling. Resolution of values is experienced through conflict and testing.

• Values should be revealed rather than stated. Mostly, we don’t believe what people say – we need them to prove it.
• Facts are neutral – they have no particular meaning. Facts have to gain value to find meaning.

Stories are about conflict – both internal and external.

• Little meaningful happens in a story except through conflict and contrast [Contrast: opposition or dissimilitude of things or qualities; unlikeness, especially as shown by juxtaposition or comparison.] Conflict and contrast are universal human experiences and force people to seek their goals by taking action. Show the action.
• Conflict and contrast are the best ways to reveal character.
• If a story has no conflict, no contrast, or is too predictable it disappoints and the viewer wanders away.
• Stories need action, a turning point in the conflict that changes the situation. A swing from positive to negative. Or the reverse. The situation must change as the story unfolds. If it doesn’t, it’s merely a collection of facts.
• A good story holds viewers with the powerful glue of the question "What will happen next? How will it turn out? Who will win this fight?"
• Conflicting ideas and values resolve, one way or another, at the climax. The ending is everything. Once you give away the climax there is no conflict, everything is expectable, there is no tension and little reason for the viewer to stay.
• Respect the counter-idea in the conflict. In fact, dramatists advise "always give the bad guy good lines."

TV journalism – at its best – is the making of mini-movies about real people and real life.

Content is all that matters. Everything else is housekeeping.

The viewer has spent a million years living and learning the principles of Storytelling and expects them to be met.

By definition, the viewer is always right.