News Writing

(Picture of a newsletter). The father of the modern newspaper industry Lord Northcliffe once said “News is anything out of the ordinary”. If a 25 year old woman has twins that’s not news, if a hundred year old woman does that’s certainly news. While that definition of news may have been true back then, it would be fair to say that celebrity news is also big business these days. Couples getting married or going to the shops are pretty mundane events but if, like the Beckhams, the people concerned feed public interest then they sell copies. While the boundaries of what is acceptable to report on may have changed the basic structure of news stories has not.

Structure

News stories have a simpler and more regular structure than features. They follow the inverted pyramid structure. This means that you put your most important information, the essential facts of the story, right at the top followed by items of decreasing interest, down to the items of least importance at the end. The reason for this is that if the story needs to be cut down to accommodate a new item for that page the sub-editor only has to worry about chopping paragraphs from the end up, rather than rearranging a whole story. Also the very nature of news dictates that the reader wants to know up front what the story is all about.

Your introductory (first) paragraph must be direct and brief, usually one active sentence of no more than 32 words. Its purpose is to hook the reader once they have been baited by the headline.

There are two main schools of thought. Some journalists I’ve worked with think you should try to answer as many of the who, what, when, where, how and why questions (ie who did what, when and where they did it, and how and why they did it) as you can in the first paragraph. Others feel this is too restrictive (and sometimes impossible) and that as long as the essence of the story is carried (the who did what), the rest can be exposed in the second paragraph. The best guideline is to ask yourself if the first paragraph is succinct and striking. The most important question is ‘What happened?’.

Once you have answered the primary questions in the first paragraph or first and second paragraphs, you will want to reinforce the facts presented. This can be done using the quotation of an eyewitness, expert or someone directly involved in the event. Only use a quotation if it is exciting or genuinely interesting. You can follow this with paragraphs of further details and less important comments, finishing off with background items.

Discipline

Do not user brand names (eg Hoover when you mean vacuum cleaner) especially if the story is a negative or sensitive one (eg misuse of a product), it may result in a law suit.

If your are unable to provide evidence of facts do not use an implication. Even if you know that someone was fired or made redundant for dubious activities do not use phrases like ‘left under a cloud’ unless you can back them up or get someone credible to go on the record. If you don’t you may receive a call from the Press Complaints Commission or have to face libel proceedings.

Run through this checklist of questions:

Have you answered the questions in the mind of the reader?

Have you written the story in appropriate way for your readership?

Have you checked the spelling of names of interviewees?

Have you have stuck to the house style?

Have you checked dates and location names?

Have you checked for jargon phrases and changed them into plain English?

Can what you have written be said more succinctly?

Have you explained acronyms which the reader is unlikely to know?

Have you spell checked and read for sense?

Balance

Journalists should present the news objectively and impartially and should get balanced accounts from the people involved, eyewitnesses and experts where available. That’s the official line. In the real world some ‘professional’ journalists will ‘milk the bones’ of the information from one set of interviews to produce a number of stories each with a different spin. The more credible ones can do this impartially while others will use one story to ‘set up’ another story or another interview. One ‘gutter press’ method is to run a story and enrage a celebrity in order to get them to use their right of reply (hence generating more free copy). Remember though that legitimate, novel and balanced stories are the ones that ensure press privileges and freedoms and win awards.

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[News Writing]

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