Structure of a news story

1
Structure of a news story

• Reporting News Writing
• JMDC0002B
• Feb 4, 2001

2
Structure

• Inverted pyramid
• Hour-glass

3
The Lead

• The easiest thing for the reader to do is to quit
  reading

4
Square One

• Clear and specific
• Write visually
• SHOW is better than TELL
• Get to the point quickly (Dont bury the news)

5
One News Element

• Set the scene
• hint of things to come

6
Things to Avoid

• Long prepositional phrases
• Overstuffed with names, dates, places, etc
• to beand not to be
• Jargons and cliches
• redundancies

7
Revising the Lead

• Is it accurate?
• Read it aloud
• Too little? Too much?
• Add flair, if it comes naturally