How to write tomorrow’s thinkpiece

Last week, I wrote three short posts as part of a series I have titled, “Today’s Outrage”. Today’s Outrage is sourced from what’s trending on Facebook. It’s typically a news item that involves a celebrity or someone who is known. I wrote about Britt McHenry, Michael Buble and Tim Mcgraw. It goes like this. Someone does something. It gets on social media. People are outraged. Someone apologizes. It’s all quick and dirty.

Well, I thought of another series this morning, “Tomorrow’s Thinkpiece”. The first candidate is The New Republic’s publishing Michael Eric Dyson’s takedown of Cornel West. It’s a long read, and it is problematic at best. However, this article is super ripe for a thinkpiece. The elements of a thinkpiece include a deep dive into a story, a strong opinion, and some kind of “big picture” posturing. I would suspect that the thinkpieces about Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson could run the gamut.

1. The role of the Black public intellectual
2. Should the public be able to critique the academic work of a professor?
3. Is there enough transparency in academia?
4. Should “kitchen table” table between two intellectuals be aired in a conservative magazine?
5. Have black twitter hashtags replaced the public intellectual?

Ok, the last one is a stretch, but you get what I am saying. It seems like content is either in the “today’s outrage” bucket or the “tomorrow’s thinkpiece” bucket. We as readers, writers and curators of contents should do better.

This post was originally published on Medium.

Nichelle Stephens is a blogger, cupcake enthusiast, editor, event producer, and social media strategist. Nichelle is the co-founding editor of Cupcakes Take The Cake, the most popular blog about cupcakes. She is also the cupcake expert and editor on About.com. Nichelle is also the founder of Keeping Nickels, a personal finance and business accounting blog for freelancers and entrepreneurs. Nichelle is also the founder of lifestyle and pop culture blog, CoolBlkPpl. Nichelle lives in suburban Atlanta after toiling for years in Brooklyn, New York.