Conventional wisdom in the content marketing world says that if you want the best writers, hire journalists.
At first glance, this makes total sense.
Journalists know how to write. They can put sentences together and incorporate facts and figures to present the content in an easily understood manner. Much the way the news is written.
In fact, that’s what journalists do best: report the news.
Which is why they make terrible content marketers.
Bear with me a second here.
See, reporting the news is not the same as telling the story of what happened.
And content marketing is all about storytelling.
While it is important that content marketing be accurate, timely, and pertinent to the audience, there’s more to it than simply relaying the facts of what you’re trying to sell.
It’s more than facts and figures.
For content marketing to be effective, it needs to tug the heartstrings. Better yet, grab them and twist them around several times. Take hold and never let go.
And that’s a skill better left to real storytellers, not journalists.
To find great content marketing writers, tap into the creative writing pool, such as local authors. Or local storytellers, such as speechmaking groups.
Hire people who can take the facts and craft a story connecting those facts to a deep emotion that will trigger a gut reaction.
Watch a documentary. A really good one. Maybe one on Netflix. While the topic you choose might be of interest to you, what will really grab your attention is how the director and writer weave the human element into the telling of the story in a way that even if you didn’t really care deeply at the start, you do when it’s over.
As you think about who you need in your content creating department, remember you’re marketing to humans, who react strongly to great stories told with genuine and deep emotion.
Don’t hire a journalist. Hire a storyteller.
Being Content with Content Marketing 
I had not thought about this, but you are completely right. I’ve had a little bit of training in journalism, and we’re taught to get the who, what, when, where, and how into the first paragraph, maybe first sentence. We are taught to keep the emotion out of the story except for quotes from the people involved, and those would be a bit later in the article. We may call it a news story, but the story is all mixed up (Very few stories start with the most exciting part first and get less exciting the more the reader reads.). Thanks for pointing this out!