News Writing and Reporting (3061/5071) Revision Mid-Term (2nd March 2011)
Number of Classes (18) Date of Examination (Monday, 7th March)
Assignments: Analysis of news content, writing style and placement of news in different newspapers.
- Difference between news and news feature
- Campus reporting (two reports)
- Coverage of a guest lecture
- Comparison of ledes, attribution styles, number and length of quotes in different newspapers
- Types of ledes and their analysis
- Ledes covering 5ws and H. Analysis.
We have learnt that: In a newspaper, a desk is a place where stories filed by the reporter are edited and prepared for publication by sub-editors and desk in charges. This includes city desk, national desk, sports desk, life and style desk etc
- Op-ed means opposite the editorial page. This page carries letters, columns and editorials
- An editorial is a piece of writing (and in some cases a cartoon) that reflects opinion of the publishers. It doesn’t have a byline and publishes at a fixed place regularly
- A column reflects opinion or perspective of the person who has been assigned by the organization to write for them on regular basis. The space for a column is specified.
- Letters reflect opinion or perspective of the readers.
- Mast head- Nameplate- word count- Dateline- Lead story- lede paragraph- Filing a story-byline- anchor- deadline-Peg
- A Feature article is a newspaper or magazine article that is written to entertain and inform the reader. It does contain some elements of the short story and is written with a lead to get the reader's attention and then uses conversational tone to present the reader with information to evoke an emotional response. Needs a proper ending.
- A news story tries to answer 5Ws and H (who, what, when, where, why and how) in first two or there paragraphs and it may end abruptly when the writer runs out of material.
- News feature gives news in the form of a feature. In depth analysis and lots of quotes.
- Types of news: 1)Hard news: serious. Timely (war, crime, politics, development, updates on these subjects, developments in science and technology).2) Soft news: a bit non-serious and not necessarily timely: sports, fashion, showbiz.
- News Value: There are seven criterions to decide if the piece of information is news. They include timeliness, weirdness, impact, prominence, proximity, currency and conflict
- Other than these criterions see if the story is interesting? Is it about people? A sand storm in sahara desert is not news. It becomes news only when it is affecting people. Lives property. Always revolve story around people in such news.
- Ask yourself: How does this piece of information affect my readers', listeners' or viewers’ lives?
- Good story: A story which is new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people is going to be a very good story.
- Whenever you have a story which tells of how something has happened which affects both people and property, always put the people first. RIGHT: More than 100 people were left homeless after cyclone struck Badin yesterday. WRONG: Seventeen houses were flattened when cyclone struck Badin yesterday.
- Nose for news: ability to sniff news
- The inverted pyramid is an anti-narrative structure of writing about events where you begin with the most important information and you present information in decreasing order of importance. Lede in inverted pyramid usually answers all the important 5ws and h and is ideally not more than 35 words.
- Each new paragraph in a news story should present the reader with some new information. But it should be tied to the previous paragraph by the use of transitions.A paragraph shall ideally be not longer than 3 sentences.
- While writing the story in inverted pyramid style assume that the story might be cut off at any point due to space limitations. This would help you arrange the facts according to their importance.
- Attribution: All major information should be attributed unless it is commonly known or unless the information itself strongly implies the source.
- Don’t dump a string of direct quotations on the reader.
- Direct quotations should be no more than two sentences long.
- Direct quotations and their attribution should be punctuated properly. Check AP style guide online for further details.
- Avoid wordiness and repetition in your story. Before filing double-check the spellings of names, titles and designations, facts used in your story.
- A lede is the most important part of a news story for after reading it the reader decides if he wants to read the entire story or not. Therefore it should be as compelling as possible. However this should not be done through exaggeration and fabrication. There are certain ways to make ledes interesting. For example: Use of quote (Quotation lede), summarizing the most important point in the story (Straight lead/ Summary Lead) Opening with an interesting question that relates to the main idea of the story (question lede), Giving descriptions of how a event happened. Of places. Of things. To draw a picture with words to put your reader into the scene (descriptive lede), use of the first person singular in the lead (personal lede), Involving reader in the leade ('You' lead) comparing situations in two sentences with usually one mentioning a humble beginning while the other a heroic triumph (contrast lead), use of humor(Gag or funny lead), Paralleling the construction of a nursery rhyme or part of a well-known literary creation can add to variety (Literary allusion lead) and Blind identification lead. Use of statistics (factual lede) and use of stories, narrations or anecdotes (anecdotal lede)
