Calendars Help You Find Stories

Finding stories is one of the hardest things about reporting — at least for me.  So I like to gather online calendars that I can check for story leads of upcoming events.

Here’s a list I use for Syracuse, N.Y:

Here's a screen shot of Zapaday for March 20.

This list might spur your thinking about what similar calendars exist in your area.  Compile them on a document with hyperlinks, or bookmark them  so you can easily peruse them when your story well is dry.

Thanks to Lifehacker  I just found Zapaday, which calls itself ” the world’s most comprehensive public calendar and news agenda, wiki-style.” You can follow its twitter feed @Zapaday. You can customize by topic.  For example you can find:

  • national holidays
  • product launches
  • religious events
  • days since X happened
  • movie releases
  • sports events

and much more. You can filter by geography but I didn’t find it helpful for my fairly small city. Be sure to check out the ‘Week Ahead’  to get a jump on a story next week.

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