Why it Works: A Story About Air Pollution and Skin Care

My editor’s take on one well-crafted story

Every now and then I analyze a nonfiction article that impressed me, zeroing in on why it works by focusing on several of the Fundamental Elements of a Good Story. This is one I edited on Medium (the “friend link” bypasses the paywall). 

Headline: Air Pollution’s Surprising Contribution to Acne, Wrinkles and Age Spots

Subtitle: How to offset the hidden damage of poor-quality air to skin health

Lede: Triggered by Canadian wildfires, air quality in my hometown a few months back was constantly in the red zone. We were warned to avoid the outdoors and not partake in any strenuous outside activity. The dangers of air pollution for our lungs and heart are often mentioned, but fine particulate matter can also play havoc with your body’s largest organ: the skin.

Author: Annie Foley

As a reader and an editor, here’s what I like about this story:

The Story Idea: Making an unfamiliar connection between two highly familiar things is a recipe for intrigue. Backing it all up with facts and research citations solidify and support the premise.

Headline: When warranted, adjectives like surprising, strange or mysterious are great headline words. They should never be used gratuitously, but they should definitely be considered when they depict the story honestly. Put those words in your headline recipe book and pull one out when a story calls for it. Also note the use of the word contribution, carefully chosen so as not to overemphasize the role of one factor, and thereby introduce hype.

Subtitle: The promise of actionable advice is a nifty complement to hed.

Lede: Subtly reminds readers that air pollution is everywhere and has many causes, and delivers a fact that we don’t often think about: our skin being the body’s largest organ. This lede does not get to the point, and that’s OK, because the headline already let us know exactly what this story is about. Ledes can be indirect when there’s no question where they will lead.

Nutgraph: The nutgraph comes quickly—it’s the 2nd graph—and offers a dash of science along with a deeper explanation of just how serious the problem is.

Outline: This story is list-based, and the outline reflects that. But I like that the article is not presented as a listicle. The headline, as written, is IMO more effective than a “5 Ways…” approach, which tends to suggest lack of gravitas. This piece is plenty serious, even if it’s just about mostly cosmetic appearances. Yes, I think deeply about whether a given list should be touted as a list or not. 

Bottom line: This story is packed with stuff I did not know about stuff that matters, plus some practical prevention tips. We can pretend we don’t care about wrinkles, but I think most of us do, and it never occurred to me that air pollution could contribute. The story is full of science-backed surprises like that, and that is its allure—it’s what makes me want to share it with people who might not realize the outsized effects of air pollution.

Cheers,
Rob