Content forms

Backgrounder

background memo

Definition

Backgrounder is a longer context memo for reporters: history, product map, timeline, glossary of the category. It is owned. It is not automatically “on background” in the journalism sense. If the PDF is on the newsroom, it is on the record.

Write it so a new beat reporter can file without a 40-minute teaching call.

How it works

Host HTML, not only PDF. Date it. Separate facts from spin. Link primary documents. Offer an interview for anything that is opinion.

Worked example

A two-page timeline of a merger, with filing links and a who-is-who, sits in the newsroom. A reporter uses three dates and never quotes the adjectives. That backgrounder worked.

How it differs

A fact sheet is numbers. A boilerplate is a paragraph. A backgrounder is the briefing memo. On background is an attribution rule, not a document type — despite the name collision.

Common errors

Labeling a sales white paper a backgrounder. Hiding the only useful dates in a 30-page PDF. Using “for background only” on a public URL.

Sources