HOW TO MAKE A NEWS DIGEST IF YOU ARE NOT A JOURNALIST

News is a constant flow—sometimes positive, but most of the time it feels like a dark empty space, not just negative. There is even a term for this—doomscrolling—when the news feed drains your energy like a dementor.

But let’s get back to the topic. You need to make a digest. Why? Because your boss told you to? I get it, but why do you really need to make a digest?

What We Will Talk About

• Why do you need a news digest?
• Sources
• Example sources for a news digest for a farm equipment company in the USA
• How to filter your sources
• Conclusions

My name is Julia Sotnikova, and today—despite everything or maybe because of it—we will make a news digest for the agriculture industry. I have a journalism degree and over 5 years of experience, plus about ten years working in marketing.

So, why do you need a digest?

Let’s pause for a second and let you think about it. To answer, you should first ask—why do people read the news at all?

The short answer: to deal with anxiety and to feel in control. This is true at a basic psychological level. When you make a digest, it helps to remember two things.

First—you must calm the reader’s anxiety. That means your digest should cover all the important news, so people don’t miss anything big. Second—give people a sense of control. Write a short summary for each news item, and, if you add your own expert opinion, that’s a top skill—you can even charge more for that.

To sum up:

• Calm anxiety
• Give control

Don’t start working on a digest unless you keep this in mind. Once again—a digest must be complete and have short summaries.

Sources

Let’s talk about sources. I have an amazing article about information sources. Here’s the link to it. You should read it at least twice—and it’s even better if you read it a few more times. If you do this, you won’t have any problems with your sources.

Let’s repeat the criteria:

• Verified and scientific—meaning authoritative
• Official sources

Example Sources for a News Digest for a U.S. Farm Equipment Manufacturer

The main criteria—your sources must be absolutely reliable, relevant to your location, and focused on your topic. Our client works across the United States, but the key state is North Carolina. Their customers are farmers who grow wheat, soybeans, corn, and rice—they make equipment that cleans grain for these crops. The client also has a few other areas—innovations in plastic sorting, cleaning seeds from pine trees, and partnerships with universities.

Clients often have a lot of different business directions, and this can be confusing. That’s why you need a clear goal and a clear target audience. Don’t try to cover everything. If you lose focus—even for a second—you can lose your job in a few weeks. I’m not kidding. Specialization is very important. Again—do not lose your focus, or you will lose your job.

Quick Summary

Choose one or two specializations—ours is grain cleaning. Set clear criteria for finding your sources. Check each source like a detective. You need 10 to 15 sources—no more.

Now let’s look at the actual sources and why I chose them.

Tools

I use the free version of feedly.com. Yes, I’m old enough to remember Google Reader—and I was really sad when Google shut it down. Later, Google closed more apps, but it didn’t hurt as much.

With Feedly, you can add feeds in a few ways. The first and easiest way is to enter a keyword in the topics search. You will see all the websites on that topic. The good thing—it’s fast. The bad thing—Feedly does not check if the sources are reliable, so you can get a lot of junk in your news feed. I don’t recommend this way for beginners at all. If you are an experienced journalist, you probably aren’t watching this video, but if you are, you can use this method to find real gems among a lot of trash.

The second way is to do a brainstorm and think—which news sources are really good for your topic and your location? Of course, in the USA, there are sources like The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. If you need news for American farmers, you can also look at Fox Business Agriculture. Most farmers, especially in rural states, probably won’t read The New York Times, but that’s okay.

Not everything in Feedly is free—some feeds are available and some are not. But that’s not Feedly’s fault. Many website owners don’t want to support RSS feeds, because Google might lower their ranking because of RSS. It’s a paradox, but that’s how things work now.

The screenshot shows an example—sometimes, with the free version, you can’t follow a specific section of a website.

Be careful with your sources. For American farmers, Fox is considered the most trusted source. On the other hand, The Guardian is a British publication—American farmers are not interested in it.

How to Filter Sources

Not good sources:

• modernfarmer.com/category/farm—this site is about trees, animals, and other topics. Our focus is grain, and we need work, so skip this one.
• sciencedaily.com/news/plants_animals/agriculture_and_food—too messy, with bad design and too many pop-ups. Take care of yourself and skip it.
• sustainableagriculture.net—it looks relevant, but Americans avoid domains that are not .com. You should also look for more trusted sources.
• thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture—skip it, it’s from India.
• grains.org—it seems reliable, but the news is not useful. It’s mostly about people visiting places. Not helpful.
• members.acresusa.com—this is a print magazine, but their online news is very rare, so it doesn’t work for us.
• farms.com → Ag Industry—this is a Canadian website.

I won’t analyze more sources—time is money—but you can scroll through topics if you want.

I picked no more than 15 publications, but it’s better to have only 10. This way, you don’t get lost in too much information. Don’t take on too much. When I make a marketing digest, I actually use over 300 sources—but that took me years, even decades, to collect.

Put your sources in order of importance and start working. Helpful tip—rename the sources to keep things organized.

Here are some good sources:

• NYT → Agriculture—nytimes.com/topic/subject/agriculture-and-farming—a reliable source.
• agriculture.com—a second reliable source.
• Fox Business—foxbusiness.com/category/agriculture—I only use the agriculture section, not the whole business site.
• fb.org → American Farm—fb.org/farm-bureau-news
• USDA—nass.usda.gov—an official source for everything about grain, rice, beans, and corn. But there are not many news updates, because agriculture.com publishes all their reports in an easy-to-read format.
• agri-pulse.com 
• farmprogress.com
• Agweek—agweek.com—even though it covers North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Iowa, I would still use it.
• AgWired—agwired.com—a good source, and they even have their own digests.

That’s nine sources. Now the most important part—you need persistence, determination, common sense, and strong fact-checking skills.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusions

If you can separate facts from opinions, news from promises, and important updates from less important ones—you will become a valuable team member and a successful person.

But that’s for the next article. Do you have any questions? Next, we’ll talk about how to choose the news for your digest.