In a word, the difference between fact and news

In my strategic communications partnership, Left/Right Strategies, we promote documentaries. My business partner and I took on a daring independent film called The Living Matrix about a year ago. The Living Matrix puts a cerebral health and healing slant on a style the industry describes as, for lack of precedent, "What the Bleep Do We Know." A collection of interviews with scientists and researchers along with real stories of energy healings, it explores the science of bioenergetic health care in hopes of contributing to the discussion about what constitutes our health and wellbeing.

Huh?

We had to ask: "Explore?" "Contribute?" That's it? This is one of the biggest thrills we get in the communications biz. We get to tell important, gutsy entrepreneurs, "No, that's not what you do." And because entrepreneurs love a devil's advocate, they cut us some slack. That's when we get to say, "That's what you ARE. That's not what you do." And because they hired us to tell the difference, we impart two pieces of advice:

1. What you have to offer is a fact.
2. The problem you solve is news.

So, in the case of our documentary, we told the filmmakers that it is a fact, and a good one, that the film explores the science. But it is news because it challenges conventional medicine to revise its understanding of human biology. . . that scientific evidence shows energy and information are as critical as genetics in determining health and wellbeing." We love documentaries because they walk the talk with one foot in journalism and the other in advocacy. Our advocacy headline for The Living Matrix, eight months later, continues to shake it up on health and healing blogs and websites around the globe. Facebook fanship went from 2 to 2000 in six months. And 20,000 DVDs were sold in about that same time.

Interestingly, the second documentary we represented, another exploration into the science of consciousness and matter, came to us from a communications consultant who didn't have the bandwidth to continue the job. The news in her original press release pretty much stated a good solid fact: "New Documentary Reveals the Science Behind Psychic Phenomena." Good deal. But with a single word - again "challenge" came to mind - the news went from "here we are," to "we tap into the frustrations of people around the globe who want concrete evidence to explain paranormal and psychic experiences."

The real news, "New Documentary Challenges Science to Demystify Paranormal and Psychic Experience," hit this month, and the film has enjoyed a happy spike in DVD sales on the website. What a difference a word makes.