Journalist Today News Manual-vol-1

Volume 1: Basic Techniques Introduction

In the first volume of ‘The Journalist Today News Manual’ we concentrate on the basic skills of journalism. We start with a chapter describing in simple terms what news is, then take you step-by-step through the process of structuring and writing a news story. In the middle chapters we give guidance on writing styles for journalism and the correct ways of presenting what you have written. We also discuss some useful books and other resources for journalists. Finally we introduce basic reporting skills such as interviewing and reporting speeches, skills which every good journalist needs. The first six chapters are the most important for journalists new to the profession. Spend some time on them. Read them thoroughly - several times if necessary - until you are confident that you can recognise a possible news story and then write it in a simple straightforward style. The best way to learn any skill is through practice, so take every opportunity you can to write news stories. Write and write and write again until your skills are as sharp as a razor. Chapters 7 to 15 cover the basic techniques of researching and presenting news while Chapters 16 to 24 cover basic reporting skills, which you must practise too. They lay the foundations for most reporting tasks you are likely to encounter as a journalist. The structure of this volume of 'The News Manual' has changed slightly from the book version. To save you having to scroll down too much text on-screen, some chapters in the book have been split into several web pages for this online edition. If you are new to 'The News Manual', you might like to read these 'linked' chapters together, e.g. Chapters 10 to 13 on Language & style. To make it easier to read these whole topics from start to finish, links have been provided at the bottom of each page to take you to the next instalment in that series. There are two ways of finding things in The Manuals.

What is news?

Chapter 1: What is news?

Here we consider what makes one thing worth reporting, while another thing is not. We offer a test for news which can work in all societies. We consider what makes some news stories stronger than others. Finally, we look at how news comes to journalists, and the areas of life where we most often find it. ________________________________________________________________ Life appears to be a shapeless jumble of events, falling over each other, elbowing and jostling each other. Journalists each day structure this chaos, so that the public receives it sorted out and neatly packaged into stories, the same day on radio, television or online and the next day in newspapers. It will have been evaluated. The biggest news will be given first in the bulletin or on Page One of the paper, in detail; lesser news will be given in less detail later in the bulletin or on an inside page; and the rubbish will have been thrown away. How do journalists decide what is news and what is not? How do they distinguish between a big news story and a small one? The answer is that they do it in exactly the same way as everybody else. Everybody makes those same judgments whenever they decide to talk about one event rather than another. For example, which do you think is more interesting: a) A girl going to primary school, to high school, or to university? b) A man aged 25 marrying a girl aged 20, or a man aged 55 marrying a girl aged 15? c) A car killing a chicken, a pig or a child? Every one of these events might be news for the community in which it happens, but some are more newsworthy than others. You very likely answered that the most interesting things were a girl going to university, a man aged 55 marrying a girl aged 15, and a car killing a child. If your answer was different, though, it does not necessarily mean that you were wrong. The same event can have different levels of interest in different societies, and will be talked about in different ways. If a farm wall has collapsed, killing a cow and a pig, which is more important? Clearly, the answer will vary from one society to another, depending upon the relative importance of cows and pigs. For this reason, the content of the news can be different in different societies. The way in which the news is judged, though, is the same everywhere. Criteria of news The criteria by which news is judged are: Is it new? Is it unusual? Is it interesting or significant? Is it about people? Is it new? If it is not new, it cannot be news. The assassination of Mrs Gandhi is unusual, interesting, significant and about people, but it cannot possibly be reported in tomorrow's papers, because it is not new. If some facts about that assassination became known for the first time, however, that would be news. The assassination would not be new, but the information would be. Events which happened days or even weeks earlier can still be news, as long as they have not been reported before. If you are telling a story for the first time, it is new to your readers or listeners and therefore it can be news. News of the death of Mao Tse-tung, for instance, was not released to the world by the Chinese government for several days; when they did release it, however, it was still very definitely news. Is it unusual? Things are happening all the time, but not all of them are news, even when they are new. A man wakes up, eats breakfast and goes to work on a bus; it has only just happened, but nobody wants to read about it because it is not unusual. Ordinary and everyday things do not make news. Of course, if that same man was 90 years old and was still catching the bus to work every day, it would be unusual! The classic definition of news is this: "Dog bites man" is not news; "Man bites dog" is news. This definition, though, is not universal. If dogs are eaten in your society (at feasts, for instance) then it will not be news when a man bites a dog - so long as it has been cooked. What is usual in one society may be unusual in another. Again, we will expect the content of the news to vary from society to society. In every society, though, whatever is unusual is likely to be news. Is it interesting? Events which are new and unusual may still not be of general interest. Scientists may report that an insect has just been found living on a plant which it did not previously inhabit. The discovery is new, and the event is unusual, but it is unlikely to interest anybody other than a specialist or enthusiast. In a specialist publication this could be big news, but in a general news broadcast or paper it would merit at most a few words. Is it significant? However, if that same insect was one which had a huge appetite, and which had previously lived on and eaten bush grass and if the new plant on which it had been found was rice, then the story becomes news, because it is significant. People may not be interested in bugs, but they are interested in food. If this insect is now threatening their crops, it becomes a matter of concern to them. It is news because it is significant. Similarly, if a peasant farmer says that the Roman Catholic Church should ordain women priests, that is not news. If an archbishop says it, it is news, because what he says on the subject is significant. It is the views of people such as the archbishop which help to form the policy of the Church. Once again, what is interesting or significant in one society may not be interesting or significant in another. The content of the news may be different, therefore, in different societies, but the way it is identified will be the same. Is it about people? Most news is automatically about people, because it is the things people do to change the world which makes news. However, news can also be made by non-human sources, such as a cyclone, a bush fire, a drought, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake. It is when reporting these stories that it is important to make sure that the story is centred on people. The cyclone would not matter if it blew itself out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, away from any inhabited islands; the fire could burn for as long as it likes in bush where nobody lives; the Sahara Desert has a near-permanent drought, but in most of it nobody is there to rely on rains; a volcanic eruption or an earthquake which damages nobody's property and injures nobody is really not news. All these natural disasters only become news when they affect people's lives. Every story can be told in terms of people. Always start by asking yourself the question: "How does this affect my readers', listeners' or viewers’ lives?" 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 Victor struck Suva yesterday. WRONG: Seventeen houses were flattened when Cyclone Victor struck Suva yesterday. How strong a story? A story which is new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people is going to be a very good story indeed. One way of deciding the strength of a story is to check how many of those five criteria it meets. There are other factors, though, which make stories strong or weak: Closeness The same event happening in two different places can have two quite different news values. A coup d’état in your own country is as big a story as you can ever have (although you will probably not be at liberty to report it as you would wish!). A coup in the country next door is still a big story, because it may affect the stability of your own country. However, a coup in a small country in another continent is unlikely to merit more than a few paragraphs. The appeal of local news is that your readers or listeners might know the people or place involved. Remember, though, that the word "local" means different things to different people. If you broadcast to a wide area or sell your newspaper in many different towns, you must realise that a small story which interests readers in one place, because it is local, may not be of any interest to readers elsewhere. Personal impact The average reader, listener or viewer may be a parent, a person wanting a good education for the children, dreaming of buying a car, looking forward to going home on leave, anticipating the next big community feast or festival. You will need to have a very clear understanding of what your own readers or listeners are like. So stories about bride-price or dowries, children, land disputes, new schools, cheaper or dearer fares, or whatever else is important and may affect your average reader, will have personal impact. People can identify with stories about other people like themselves. So those stories with which many people can identify are stronger than those which only apply to a few. How do we get news? A lot of news will come to you as a journalist without any real effort on your part. Government handouts, Ministers' speeches and announcements of new developments come into the newsroom after being processed by press officers or public relations officers. Passing on such information, as long as it is genuinely interesting and informative, is an important function of the media, to provide society with the hard facts of what is happening in the country. It is part of your job as a journalist to sort out what is interesting and informative from the millions of boring words which may be sent to you. There is also news which journalists find for themselves and reveal to the public. This need not be a subject which somebody wants to be kept secret. Many people have a story to tell but do not know how to write a media release. It is part of your job as a journalist to find these people and report their stories. There are also some stories which people want to keep secret but which the public ought to know about. When you hear about such a situation, it is your duty to investigate fairly but fearlessly. Where does news come from? Now we know what makes news. The following are the main areas of life in which we expect frequently to find news stories. For each category below, think of at least one event or situation which could make a news story in your own society. Conflicts: This category includes wars, strikes, revolutions, secessionist groups, tribal and clan fights, elections and the power battles of politics. Disaster and tragedy: This may include air crashes, train crashes, ships sinking, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, or human tragedies like children falling down deep wells from which they cannot be rescued. Progress and development: Development is always news in a developing country. The report should be always of how the changes affect people's lives, for better or for worse. New ideas or progress in one area may stimulate ideas in another. Development stories may include education, the development of new technology, improvement of farming techniques, road building and irrigation schemes. Citizens of more developed countries may also appreciate stories about developments in things which affect their lives or well-being, such as medical breakthroughs, new technologies or initiatives to make transport easier, quicker or cheaper. Crime: Any crime can be news, whether it is a road traffic offence, break and enter, corruption, forgery, rape or murder - but more serious crimes or unusual crimes generally make bigger news stories. Money: These stories include fortunes made and lost, school fees, taxes, the Budget, food prices, wage rises, economic crises and compensation claims. It is not only large sums of money which make news; the little girl who gives her only ten cents to a huge fund-raising event is more interesting than the businessman who gives $100. The underdog: This is one of the great themes of literature and drama (David and Goliath, the Hare and the Tortoise, Cinderella). One traditional role of the journalist is to defend the rights of the little person - the soldier against the unjust officer, the innocent man against false charges, the poor against exploitation. Religion: There are two types of religious news story. First, there are events involving people's religious lives, such as the building of a new church or a pilgrimage. Second, there are statements by religious leaders on moral and spiritual affairs, such as contraception or salvation. It is important for the journalist to be aware of the relative numerical strengths of Christianity, Islam and other religions - including traditional local beliefs - in his or her country. The importance of a statement by a religious leader in your society depends both upon the news value of what he has to say and upon the size of his following. Famous people: Prominent men and women make news. What people in the public eye do, the lives they lead and what they look like, are all of interest. It is especially newsworthy when they fall from power, lose their money or are involved in scandal. Health: Many people are concerned with their health, so they are interested in stories about traditional remedies, medical research, diseases, hospitals and clinics, drugs, diet and exercise. Sex: All societies are interested in sex, even if they do not talk about it openly. Many news stories about sex involve behaviour which goes outside society's generally accepted standards. Weather: The weather may affect the daily routine of people and is of interest when it behaves unusually, with exceptionally high or low temperatures, or exceptionally high or low rainfall. Food and drink: The rich person plans feasts, the poor person wants enough to eat and drink. Shortages and gluts, crop diseases and harvest sizes, prices of food in the market or the launch of a new brand of beer - these all make news. Entertainment: Stories about music, dance, theatre, cinema and carving keep us informed of developments in the arts, who is doing what, who is performing where, and what it is worth going to see or hear. Sport: Many people participate in sport and many others are spectators. They all want to know sports results, news of sportsmen and sportswomen and their achievements. Human interest: There are often unusual and interesting aspects of other people's lives which are not particularly significant to society as a whole. Stories about these are called human interest stories. Examples might be a child going abroad for surgery; a pilot recovering from injuries received in an air crash and determined to fly again; or a man with a collection of a million picture postcards. News and entertainment Most people agree that the purpose of the news media - newspapers, magazines, radio and television - is to inform, to educate and to entertain. However, the purpose of the news itself is to inform and to educate your readers, listeners or viewers. The entertainment can come from other areas - music and drama programs on radio; cartoons and crossword puzzles in newspapers. It is not the job of news to entertain. This does not mean that news should be dull. If a news event has an element of humour, you should always try to write the story in a way to amuse your readers or listeners. Nevertheless, the news should only be reported if it is real news. Do not report non-news as if it was news only because the story is entertaining. As you gain more experience, you may be able to write things which are purely entertaining - such as a humorous look at current events. This is not news, however, and should not be presented as if it was. Make it clear to your readers or listeners what is news and what is not. TO SUMMARISE: To decide what you should report, you must sort out news from non-news. To do this, ask yourself the following questions about anything you think may be news: Is it new? Is it unusual? Is it interesting? Is it significant? Is it about people? To decide how to report it, ask yourself the following question: How does this affect my readers', listeners' or viewers’ lives? If it is not new or unusual, if it is not interesting or significant, and if it will not affect your readers' or listeners' lives, then it is not news. Do not publish it or broadcast it as news.

What is a journalist?

Chapter 2: What is a journalist?

Here we will discuss: who journalists are and what they do; why people become journalists; and what qualities you need to be a good journalist. ____________________________________________________________ Journalists work in many areas of life, finding and presenting information. However, for the purposes of this manual we define journalists principally as men and women who present that information as news to the audiences of newspapers, magazines, radio or television stations or the Internet. What do journalists do? Within these different media, there are specialist tasks for journalists. In large organisations, the journalists may specialise in only one task. In small organisations, each journalist may have to do many different tasks. Here are some of the jobs journalists do: Reporters gather information and present it in a written or spoken form in news stories, feature articles or documentaries. Reporters may work on the staff of news organisations, but may also work freelance, writing stories for whoever pays them. General reporters cover all sorts of news stories, but some journalists specialise in certain areas such as reporting sport, politics or agriculture. Sub-editors take the stories written by reporters and put them into a form which suits the special needs of their particular newspaper, magazine, bulletin or web page. Sub-editors do not usually gather information themselves. Their job is to concentrate on how the story can best be presented to their audience. They are often called subs. The person in charge of them is called the chief sub-editor, usually shortened to chief sub. Photojournalists use photographs to tell the news. .i.photojournalists;They either cover events with a reporter, taking photographs to illustrate the written story, or attend news events on their own, presenting both the pictures and a story or caption. The editor is usually the person who makes the final decision about what is included in the newspaper, magazine or news bulletins. He or she is responsible for all the content and all the journalists. Editors may have deputies and assistants to help them. The news editor is the person in charge of the news journalists. In small organisations, the news editor may make all the decisions about what stories to cover and who will do the work. In larger organisations, the news editor may have a deputy, often called the chief of staff, whose special job is to assign reporters to the stories selected. Feature writers work for newspapers and magazines, writing longer stories which usually give background to the news. In small organisations the reporters themselves will write feature articles. The person in charge of features is usually called thefeatures editor. Larger radio or television stations may have specialist staff producing current affairs programs - the broadcasting equivalent of the feature article. The person in charge of producing a particular current affairs program is usually called theproducer and the person in charge of all the programs in that series is called theexecutive producer or EP. Specialist writers may be employed to produce personal commentary columns or reviews of things such as books, films, art or performances. They are usually selected for their knowledge about certain subjects or their ability to write well. Again, small organisations may use general reporters for some or all of these tasks. There are many other jobs which can be done by journalists. It is a career with many opportunities. Why be a journalist? People enter journalism for a variety of reasons but, money apart, there are four main motives: The desire to write Journalists are the major group of people in most developing countries who make their living from writing. Many young people who see themselves as future novelists choose journalism as a way of earning a living while developing their writing skills. Although writing for newspapers and writing for books require different qualities, the aspiration to be a great writer is not one to be discouraged in a would-be journalist. The desire to be known Most people want their work to be recognised by others. This helps to give it value. Some people also want to be recognised themselves, so that they have status in the eyes of society. It is not a bad motive to wish to be famous, but this must never become your main reason for being a journalist. You will not be a good journalist if you care more for impressing your audience than for serving their needs. The desire to influence for good Knowing the power of the printed or spoken word or image, especially in rural areas, some people enter journalism for the power it will give them to influence people. In many countries, a large number of politicians have backgrounds as journalists. It is open to question whether they are journalists who moved into politics or natural politicians who used journalism as a stepping stone. There is a strong belief that journalists control the mass media but the best journalists recognise their role as servants of the people. They are the channels through which information flows and they are the interpreters of events. This recognition, paired with the desire to influence,   can    produce    good    campaigning journalists who see themselves as watchdogs for the ordinary man or woman. They are ready to champion the cause of the underdog and expose corruption and abuses of office. This is a vital role in any democratic process and should be equally valuable and welcome in countries where a non-democratic government guides or controls the press. There is a difference between the desire to influence events for your own sake, and the desire to do it for other people. You should never use journalism for selfish ends, but you can use it to improve the life of other people - remembering that they may not always agree with you on what those improvements should be. There is a strong tradition in western societies of the media being the so-called “Fourth Estate”. Traditionally the other three estates were the church, the aristocracy and the rest of society but nowadays the idea of the four estates is often defined as government, courts, clergy and the media, with the media – the “Fourth Estate” – acting as a balance and an advocate for ordinary citizens against possible abuses from the power and authority of the other three estates. This idea of journalists defending the rights of ordinary people is a common reason for young people entering the profession. The desire for knowledge Curiosity is a natural part of most people's characters and a vital ingredient for any journalist. Lots of young men and women enter the profession with the desire to know more about the world about them without needing to specialise in limited fields of study. Many critics accuse journalists of being shallow when in fact journalism, by its very nature, attracts people who are inquisitive about everything. Most journalists tend to know a little bit about a lot of things, rather than a lot about one subject. Knowledge has many uses. It can simply help to make you a fuller and more interesting person. It can also give you power over people, especially people who do not possess that particular knowledge. Always bear in mind that power can be used in a positive way, to improve people's lives, or in a selfish way to advance yourself. What does it take? Most young men and women accepted into the profession possess at least one of the above desires from the start. But desires alone will not make a successful journalist. You need to cultivate certain special qualities and skills. An interest in life You must be interested in the world around you. You must want to find things out and share your discoveries with your readers or listeners - so you should have a broad range of interests. It will help if you already have a wide range of knowledge to build upon and are always prepared to learn something new. Love of language You cannot be a truly great journalist without having a deep love of language, written or spoken. You must understand the meaning and flow of words and take delight in using them. The difference between an ordinary news story and a great one is often not just the facts you include, but the way in which you tell those facts. Journalists often have an important role in developing the language of a country, especially in countries which do not have a long history of written language. This places a special responsibility on you, because you may be setting the standards of language use in your country for future generations. If you love language, you will take care of it and protect it from harm. You will not abuse grammar, you will always check spellings you are not sure of, and you will take every opportunity to develop your vocabulary. The news story - the basic building block of journalism - requires a simple, uncomplicated writing style. This need for simplicity can frustrate new journalists, even though it is often more challenging to write simply than to be wordy. Once you have mastered the basic news story format, you can venture beyond its limits and start to develop a style of your own. Do not be discouraged by a slow start. If you grow with your language you will love it all the more. An alert and ordered mind People trust journalists with facts, either the ones they give or the ones they receive. You must not be careless with them. All journalists must aim for accuracy. Without it you will lose trust, readers and ultimately your job. The best way of ensuring accuracy is to develop a system of ordering facts in your mind. You should always have a notebook handy to record facts and comments, but your mind is the main tool. Keep it orderly. You should also keep it alert. Never stop thinking - and use your imagination. This is not to say you should make things up: that is never permissible. But you should use your imagination to build up a mental picture of what people tell you. You must visualise the story. If you take care in structuring that picture and do not let go until it is clear, you will have ordered your facts in such a way that they can be easily retrieved when the time comes to write your story. With plenty of experience and practice, you will develop a special awareness of what makes news. Sometimes called news sense, it is the ability to recognise information which will interest your audience or which provides clues to other stories. It is also the ability to sort through a mass of facts and opinions, recognising which are most important or interesting to your audience. For example, a young reporter was sent to cover the wedding of a government minister. When he returned to the office, his chief of staff asked him for the story. "Sorry, chief," he replied. "There isn't a story - the bride never arrived." As his chief of staff quickly pointed out, when a bride does not turn up for a wedding, that is the news story. The young reporter had not thought about the relative importance of all the facts in this incident; he had no news sense. A suspicious mind People will give you information for all sorts of reasons, some justified, others not. You must be able to recognise occasions when people are not telling the truth. Sometimes people do it unknowingly, but you will still mislead your readers or listeners if you report them, whatever their motives. You must develop the ability to recognise when you are being given false information. If you suspect you are being given inaccurate information or being told deliberate lies, do not let the matter rest there. Ask your informant more questions so that you can either satisfy yourself that the information is accurate or reveal the information for the lie that it is. Determination Some people call it aggressiveness, but we prefer the word determination. It is the ability to go out, find a story and hang on to it until you are satisfied you have it in full. Be like a dog with a bone - do not let go until you have got all the meat off, even if people try to pull it out of your mouth. This means you often have to ask hard questions and risk upsetting people who do not want to co-operate. It may be painful but in the end you will gain their respect. So always be polite, however rude people may be. The rule is simple: be polite but persistent. While you are hunting for your story, you may drive it away by being too aggressive. Sometimes you may have to approach a story with caution and cunning, until you are sure you have hold of it. Then you can start to chew on it. Friendliness You need to be able to get on well with all sorts of people. You cannot pick and choose who to interview in the same way as you choose who to have as a friend. You must be friendly to all, even those people you dislike. You can, of course, be friendly to someone without being their friend. If you are friendly to everyone, you will also be fair with everyone. Reliability This is a quality admired in any profession, but is especially valued in journalism where both your employer and your audience rely on you to do your job. If you are sent on an interview but fail to turn up you offend a number of people: the person who is waiting to be interviewed; your editor who is waiting to put the interview in his paper or program; your readers, listeners or viewers, who are robbed of news. Even if you are late for an appointment, you will upset the schedules of both your interviewee and your newsroom and risk being refused next time you want a story. In a busy news organisation, punctuality is a necessity. Without it there would be chaos. To summarise There are many reason for becoming a journalist and many type of journalists to become. It is a career with many challenges and rewards. Journalists must: Have an interest in the world around them. Love language. Have an alert and ordered mind. Be able to approach and question people. Be polite but persistent. Be friendly and reliable.

The shape of the news story

Chapter 3: The shape of the news story

Here we will introduce the concept of the inverted pyramid, which is the basic shape of the news story. We see why this is a good way to present news. ____________________________________________________________ News stories go straight to the point. In this respect, they are quite unlike other forms of written English, such as novels and short stories, committee reports, letters and theses. All these are written primarily for people with the time to consider and absorb what has been written. They also follow the usual pattern of spoken language, in which it is generally impolite to jump straight to the main point which you wish to make without first establishing contact. For example, a female student writing home may say: "Dear Mum and Dad, I don't want you to worry about me, but I have some news for you which you are not going to like. I met a boy here at the start of the semester and he likes me a lot. Well, we have been seeing a lot of each other and ..." What she is not likely to write home is: "Dear Mum and Dad, I am pregnant." But news stories do that; that is why they are different. In the following example, you will see that the narrative form starts at the oldest part of the story, then tells what happened in the order in which it happened. The news form starts at the most newsworthy part of the story, then fills in details with the most newsworthy first and the least newsworthy last: NARRATIVE    When electricians wired the home of Mrs Mary Ume in Hohola, Port Moresby, some years ago they neglected to install sufficient insulation at a point in the laundry where a number of wires crossed. A short-circuit occurred early this morning. Contact between the wires is thought to have created a spark, which ignited the walls of the house. The flames quickly spread through the entire house. Mrs Ume, her daughter Peni (aged ten) and her son Jonah (aged five months) were asleep in a rear bedroom. They had no way of escape and all perished. NEWS A Port Moresby woman and her two children died in a house fire in Hohola today. Mrs Mary Ume, her ten-year-old daughter Peni and baby son Jonah were trapped in a rear bedroom as flames swept through the house.  The fire started in the laundry, where it is believed faulty electrical wiring caused a short-circuit. The family were asleep at the time. The flames quickly spread and soon the entire house was blazing.        etc etc    The reader knows the outcome of the drama in the first sentence of the news story. The background information about how it happened, and why it happened, are filled in later in the story. Top priority News stories are written in a way which sets out clearly what is the top priority news, what is the next most newsworthy, and so on. This makes it easier for readers and listeners to understand. In many societies, people read newspapers and web pages in a hurry. They probably do not read every word, but skim quickly through, reading headlines and intros to see which stories interest them. Some which seem at first glance to be interesting may seem less interesting after a few paragraphs, and so the reader moves on. In other societies, people may find reading a newspaper hard work. This may be because it is written in a language which is not their first language; or it may be because they are not good at reading. They, too, will look at headlines and intros to decide which stories are interesting enough to be worth the effort of reading them. In either case, the readers will generally read less than half of most stories; there are very few stories indeed of which they will read every word. Similarly, people do not listen intently to every word of a radio or television news bulletin. Unless the first sentence of each item interests them, they allow their minds to wander until they hear something that interests them. The way a news story is written therefore has to do two things: It has to sell the story to the casual reader or listener. It has to give the main point of the story very quickly, so that even if the reader moves on after one or two paragraphs, or if the listener stops listening after the first sentence or two, they will still have a fair idea of what the story was about. The inverted pyramid This way of writing a news story, with the main news at the start and the rest of the detail following in decreasing order of importance, is known as the inverted pyramid. A pyramid has a broad base and tapers towards its top; the news story is just the opposite, with a broad top and tapering towards the base. It is therefore called an inverted (or upside-down) pyramid. This "shape" of the news story, with a "broad" top and a "narrow" base, is in the weight of the news itself. Look back at the earlier example, of the Hohola house fire. See how the first paragraph of the news story is the biggest news, and how the story begins to taper down towards the minor detail. The first paragraph, which is called theintro, contains the most newsworthy part of the story - the newest, most unusual, most interesting and most significant - told clearly and simply. This is followed by a full explanation and all the details. The most newsworthy parts of the story will be written nearest to the top of the story. The later part of the story - the tapering point of the inverted pyramid - contains detail which is helpful, but not essential. Here is an example of a short news story in the inverted pyramid; structure: A Palauli woman whose body was found in the sea is believed to have drowned. Police say the 35-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, was an epileptic. Her body was found floating in the sea near Palauli, Savai`i, on Monday. A post mortem examination will be conducted today. This format has a practical advantage, too. If it is necessary to cut a number of lines, to fit the story into the available space on a page or into the available time in a news bulletin, it is best if the least important facts are at the end. They can then be cut without harming the story. It will be clear from this that the most important part of any news story is the intro and that intro writing is one of the most important skills of a journalist. We shall look in detail in the next chapter at how to write the intro. Advanced news writing The simple inverted pyramid, as described here, is not suitable for all news stories. Later, in Chapter 25, we will look at some more advanced and sophisticated shapes for news stories. However, you should first master the basic inverted pyramid before moving on. TO SUMMARISE: News stories put the main point first, with other information following in order of importance, finishing with the least important. This helps readers and listeners by identifying the main news and saving them time and effort.

Writing the intro in simple steps

Chapter 4: Writing the intro in simple steps

Here we consider the qualities which a good intro should have. We look at how a reporter decides what information to put in the intro; and offer advice on how to make your intro more effective. ________________________________________________________ The intro is the most important part of any news story. It should be direct, simple and attention-grabbing. It should contain the most important elements of the story - but not the whole story. The details can be told later. It should arouse the interest of the reader or listener, and be short. Normally it should be one sentence of not more than 20 words for print media, and fewer for radio and television. The perfect intro The intro should be based on the most newsworthy aspect of the story. The intro should be kept short, uncluttered and relevant to the main story. It should be simple grammatically. The intro should make the reader want to read the rest of the story. The intro should be appropriate in style to the story. Newsworthy To write an intro, you must first decide what makes the story news. There may be several things which are newsworthy in the story. If so, you have to decide which is the most newsworthy. This will be in the intro. In this way, your readers or listeners will be provided with the most important information straight away. Even if they stop reading or listening after the first one or two sentences, they will still have an accurate idea of what the story is about. One simple way to do this is to imagine yourself arriving back at your office and being asked by the chief of staff: "What happened?" Your quick answer to that question, in very few words, should be the basis of your intro. With some years of experience, you will find that you can recognise the most newsworthy aspect of a story almost without thinking. While you are still learning, though, it is useful to have a step-by-step technique to use. We shall explain this technique in detail later in this chapter. Short and simple Your intro should normally be no longer than 20 words. There is no minimum length. An intro of 10 or 12 words can be very effective. Usually, an intro will be one sentence. However, two short sentences are better than one long, crowded and confused sentence. The words you use should be short and simple, and the grammar should be clear and simple. You should not try to give too much detail in the intro. The six main questions which journalists try to answer - Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? - will all need to be answered in your news story, but they should not all be answered in your intro. Try to remember these questions as The Five Ws and H - WWWWWH. For each of those six key questions, you will need to ask whether this detail makes the story news. For example, who was drowned? A woman called Mary. Suppose it had been somebody else - would the story have been stronger, weaker or the same? Only if this detail makes the story stronger should it be in the intro. The golden rule for intro-writing is KISS - Keep It Short and Simple. Attract the reader The intro is the most important part of the news story, because it determines whether the rest of the story will be read. If the intro is dull the reader will not want to read on. If it is too complicated the reader will give up. Your time and effort in gathering information and writing the story will all be wasted unless you write a good intro. Appropriate style Not all possible intros are appropriate. It would be wrong to write a humorous intro for a story about a tragedy. Serious news stories call for serious intros. For example, if a man was eaten by the pet crocodile he had reared from an egg, it might seem amusing to use the saying about "biting the hand that feeds you", but it would cause great hurt to the man's family and friends for no good reason (apart from trying to show how clever you are). Simple steps in writing the intro Later, we will look in detail at how you gather information for a news story. For the moment, we will concentrate on how you write your news story based on that information. You will have in front of you a notebook or a tape with a record of one or more interviews which you have conducted. You may also have information from other sources, such as handouts. Wherever your information comes from, your approach must be the same. Key points Before you write anything, you have to decide what is the most newsworthy aspect of the story. To do this, let us remind ourselves of the main criteria for news: Is it new? Is it unusual? Is it interesting or significant? Is it about people? Any fact or opinion which meets some or all of these criteria is what we call a key point. All the key points belong in the news story, but only the most newsworthy belong in the intro. It is your job to decide which. Go through your notes, go through the handouts and, on a piece of paper, list all the key points. Now go through the list of key points, ranking them in order of newsworthiness, according to the criteria we have just mentioned. The key point which best meets the criteria will be number one on your list. Let us do this with the following example. Information At 2 a.m. yesterday morning, meteorologists at the Nadi Weather Centre detected a cyclone developing rapidly near Nauru and moving quickly south-west across the Pacific towards the Solomon Islands. They named the cyclone "Victor". At 3 a.m., they contacted the Solomon Islands government warning of the approach of Cyclone Victor. Government officials immediately put emergency plans into operation. They warned all shipping in the area of the cyclone's approach. They broadcast warnings on the radio, and alerted the police, who in turn sent officers to warn the people. By 10 a.m., winds in Honiara were blowing at more than 140 kilometres per hour. At about midday, the centre of the cyclone passed directly over Honiara before tracking into the Coral Sea, where it blew itself out. In Honiara, more than 20 houses were destroyed and a number of other buildings sustained considerable structural damage. More than 100 people are now homeless. Six people were killed. Another 18 people have been treated in hospital for minor injuries. Mopping-up operations have started in Honiara. The emergency services are still awaiting news from outlying districts but believe that Honiara has been the worst affected. Police say that of the six people who died, three men drowned when their car was blown off the road into a river, and two women and a man were killed by flying debris. Analysis First we go through the story picking out the key points. For the purposes of this exercise, we shall limit ourselves to six or seven of the most important ones. Remember our four criteria and test each of the facts against them. For example, how new, unusual or significant is it that meteorologists in Nadi detected the cyclone? After all, this is one of their jobs. Also it happened at 2 a.m. yesterday, many hours ago. More significant and certainly more up-to-date is the fact that they warned the Solomon Islands government. Maybe that is not too unusual in the event of a cyclone, but certainly an unusual occurrence in the day-to-day communication between the two nations. We will make that a key point: a) Nadi meteorologists warn Solomon Islands government of approach of Cyclone Victor. Now let us look for our next key point. Key point (a) is about meteorologists and government officials. We have to read on a bit further to find facts about the Solomon Islanders themselves, the people most affected by the cyclone. They were first alerted to the cyclone by radio broadcasts and police officers. They would have found this unusual and highly significant. Let us make this our next key point: b) Solomon Islanders themselves warned of approaching cyclone. Next we have mostly weather details. These should be reported in our story, but they do not themselves tell us much about the effect the cyclone is going to have on people's lives. Those people live in Honiara and we learn that 20 of their homes have been destroyed. This is quite new, unusual, significant and about people - another key point: c) More than 20 houses destroyed and other buildings sustained considerable structural damage. Key point (c) tells us about "houses", now we learn the fate of the people in them. More than 100 people now have nowhere to live. That is unusual and very significant for both the people themselves and for the government. It is also as up-to-date as we can get: d) More than 100 people homeless. The next sentence gives us the real tragedy of the story - six people have been killed. This fact fills all the criteria for news. It is new, it is unusual for a number of people to die so suddenly in such circumstances and it is significant for their families, friends and the authorities. Most important, it is about people: e) Six people killed. We could leave it there, because mopping up after a cyclone is not unusual and it appears that Honiara was the worst hit. There are, however, 18 people who will bear some scars from the cyclone, so let's make them a key points: f) Eighteen people treated for minor injuries. Right at the end of the information we find out how the six people died. Our readers or listeners will be interested in this, so we will make it our final key point: g) Three drowned and three killed by flying debris. Notice that we have left out a number of details which our reader or listener might like to know. We can come back to them in the main body of the story. In the Chapters 6 and 7 we will show you how. For now, we have seven key points. We cannot possibly get them all in an intro so we must choose one, possibly two, which are the best combination of our news criteria. News angle In most events journalists report on, there will be several ways of looking at the facts. A weatherman may take a detached scientific view of Cyclone Victor, an insurance assessor will focus on damage to buildings, a Solomon Islander will be interested in knowing about the dead and injured. They all look at the same event from a different angle. Journalists are trained to look at events from a certain angle - we call it the news angle. The news angle is that aspect of a story which we choose to highlight and develop. We do not do this by guesswork, but by using the four criteria for news which helped us to select our key points. The news angle is really nothing more than the most newsworthy of all our key points. With this in mind, let us now select the news angle for our intro from the key points. Keep referring back to the Information given earlier in the chapter. Key points (a) and (b) are not very new, nor are they really about people (simply meteorologists and governments). Key point (c) is about buildings, and the point is made better in (d) when we translate destroyed houses into homeless people. Key points (e), (f) and (g) are all about people. People slightly injured (f) are not as important as people killed (e). Key points (e) and (g) are about the same fact, but (e) gives the details in fewer words and is therefore preferable for an intro. We are left with a shortlist of (d), (e) and (f). Because 100 people homeless is more significant than 18 people slightly injured, let us take out (f). We can always use it later in the story to fill in details. That leaves us with (e) as the most newsworthy fact, followed by (d): Six people killed. More than 100 people homeless. Here we have our news angle, the basis for our intro, but on their own these eight words will leave our reader or listener more confused than enlightened. This is because we have told them part of what has happened, but not who, where, when, how or why. You should never try to answer all these questions in the intro, but we have to tell our audience enough to put the bald facts - six people killed, more than 100 people homeless - in context. Let us do it: Six people killed. More than 100 people homeless... Where? ... Honiara, Solomon Islands. When? ... yesterday. How? ... Cyclone Victor passed through Honiara. Exactly who the victims were, why they died and what else happened need to be told in greater detail than we have space for in an intro. We will leave that until the Chapter 6. We do, however, have enough facts to write our intro, once we have rearranged them into grammatical English. Let us do that: Six people were killed and more than 100 people were left homeless in Honiara in the Solomon Islands yesterday when Cyclone Victor passed through Honiara. The word count for this sentence is 25, which is too long. We repeat words unnecessarily, such as "people were" and "Honiara", and we should be able to find a simpler and more direct word than "passed through". Let us write it again: Six people were killed and more than 100 left homeless when Cyclone Victor hit Honiara in the Solomon Islands yesterday. This is very nearly correct, but it contains a strange expression: "hit Honiara in the Solomon Islands". This sounds too much like "hit John in the face", so it may confuse our reader or listener. (How could Honiara be hit in the Solomon Islands?) We must simplify this. If we are writing this story for a Solomon Islands audience, then we can leave out "in the Solomon Islands". After all, Solomon Islanders know where Honiara is: Six people were killed and more than 100 left homeless when Cyclone Victor hit Honiara yesterday. If we are writing this story for readers or listeners in any other country, we can leave "Honiara" out of the intro. Of course, we shall include this important detail in the second or third paragraph. Our intro will look like this: Six people were killed and more than 100 left homeless when Cyclone Victor hit the Solomon Islands yesterday. Of course, not all stories are as simple to see and write as this. But by applying this step-by-step approach of identifying the key points and ranking them in order before you write, you should be able to write an intro for any story. TO SUMMARISE: The intro should be newsworthy 20 words or less attractive to the reader appropriate in style When writing your intro: List the key points Put the key points in order of importance. Choose the main key points as your news angle for the intro

Writing the intro, the golden rules

Chapter 5: Writing the intro, the golden rules

In Chapter 4: Writing the Intro in simple steps you learned what qualities made a good intro, the importance of newsworthiness and of answering the questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? (WWWWW & H) - but not all in the intro!. You also took the first steps in actually writing an intro from raw information to the finished short, crisp sentence based on the news angle. In this chapter, the second part of intro writing, we discuss some golden rules to help you write the best intro possible. KISS As we have mentioned in Chapter 4, all news stories must answer the questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?  Each of these questions may have several parts, depending upon the nature and complexity of the story. Do not try to answer them all in the intro. You will only confuse your reader or listener. Stick to one or two key points per sentence, especially in the intro. Remember the golden rule is KISS - Keep It Short and Simple. You will overload your sentence and make instant understanding difficult if you include unnecessary details which can be explained more fully later in the story. Your intro is like a canoe being paddled against a fast flowing current. Every word in the sentence should be like a rower with a paddle, helping to push the sentence forward. There is no room for lazy words sitting back without paddles in their hands. They just make work harder for the rest of the words. So look closely at every word and ask yourself: "Does it have a paddle in its hand?" If it doesn't, throw it overboard! Some of the fattest and laziest words to be found in the intro canoes are titles. Inexperienced journalists often think that they have to put full titles in the intro when, in fact, they belong later in the story. Try to shorten titles for your intros wherever possible.In the following example, you will see that a general description of the person in the intro, followed by the full name and title in the second paragraph, works much better: RIGHT:  A Port Moresby union leader yesterday condemned politicians who try to interfere in labour disputes. Mr Mug Wump, president of the Port Moresby Waterside Workers' Union, said... WRONG: Mr Mug Wump, president of the Port Moresby Waterside Workers' Union, yesterday condemned politicians who try to interfere in labour disputes. Active voice Use the active voice wherever possible. An active voice sentence uses the simple grammatical structure of subject-verb-object. The sentence "the man hit the table" is in the active voice, where the table is the object of the verb "hit". The sentence "the table was hit by the man" is in the passive voice. As you can see, the first sentence is not only shorter, but it is far simpler and easier to understand. This is especially important when your reader or listener speaks English as a second or third language. The following examples will demonstrate this rule: RIGHT: Copra growers have demanded a new subsidy scheme. RIGHT: Angry villagers attacked three Japanese tourists in Western Province yesterday. WRONG: A new copra subsidy scheme has been demanded by growers. WRONG: Three Japanese tourists were attacked by angry villagers in Western Province yesterday. The main exception to this rule is when the object of the sentence is much more newsworthy than the subject. For example: RIGHT: The Prime Minister was attacked by angry villagers in Western Province yesterday. WRONG: Angry villagers attacked the Prime Minister in Western Province yesterday. Note that we used the passive voice in the final intro version of our cyclone story. This was because the victims - the six dead and more than 100 homeless - were more important than the cyclone itself. Remember, news is about people. We could have written it in the active voice, putting the cyclone as the subject of the sentence: Cyclone Victor left six people dead and more than 100 homeless when it hit the Solomon Islands yesterday. However, this delays the big news until the middle of the intro, instead of putting it at the very beginning. Facts First Don't think that, because an important person says something important, his name should come first. Let the facts come first in the intro. Remember to ask yourself: "How does this affect my readers' or listeners' lives?" The answer to that question is the heart of the news story, not the name or title of the person who made the announcement. You will see in the following example how the full name and titles in the wrong version of the intro makes it overloaded with detail, and hard to understand: RIGHT: Two overseas companies will negotiate with the Government to develop the important Vanimo timber area.   The Forests Minister, Mr Jacob Diwai, said yesterday that various submissions by different companies had been considered by the National Executive Council.      It had been decided that two of them would be invited individually to negotiate terms for an agreement to develop the resource, he said. WRONG: The Minister for Forests, Mr Jacob Diwai, announced that a special meeting of the National Executive Council held yesterday to consider various submissions by different companies for the development of the Vanimo timber area, had decided that two overseas companies would be invited individually to negotiate terms for an agreement to develop the resource. Always begin your intro with your most newsworthy key point, even though you may include another key point in the intro, in what is called a subordinate clause. You will recognise subordinate clauses as they usually begin with words like "while...", "as...", "although..." and "despite...". RIGHT: Thieves broke into the Prime Minister's official residence last night, while he was attending a concert. WRONG: While the Prime Minister was attending a concert last night, thieves broke into his official residence. Up-to-date Keep the story fresh. Remember that one of our four criteria for news is "Is it new?" One way in which the reader judges the newness or otherwise of a sentence is in the verb tense. Wherever possible use the present or future tense in your intro. In the following example, we focus on the real news, which is in the future - the visit of Prince Charles - rather than on the announcement, which happened last night: RIGHT: Prince Charles will visit Tuvalu in August.  WRONG: It was announced in Funafuti last night that Prince Charles would visit Tuvalu in August This also allows us to use the simple future tense "will" instead of the rather complicated "would". In the next example, we use the present tense "is" rather than the past tense "was". Although the announcement was made last night, what was said is still true today - such things do not change overnight: RIGHT: The Solomon Islands is on the verge of bankruptcy, the Finance Minister said last night. WRONG: The Solomon Islands was on the verge of bankruptcy, the Finance Minister said last night. No quotes Do not begin a news story with quotes. The value of the quote is dependent entirely on the speaker. For that reason, it is important to know who is speaking before we know what is said. It really comes down to this: If someone is expressing an opinion (and most quotes are expressions of opinion), then the name of the opinion-expresser should come first, so that readers and listeners can make their own assessment of the opinion. If, on the other hand, the speaker is dealing in facts or revealing something so far unrevealed, let the facts speak first. In the following example, we can take it as a fact that income tax will rise. The Finance Minister says so, and he is the one who decides such things. (Of course, politicians do not always deliver everything they promise; but if they promise something unpleasant, you may be sure that they are not doing it to win votes, so we can believe that it is true. RIGHT: Income tax is to rise by seven percent in January. WRONG: "Income tax will rise by seven percent when I present my budget in January," said the Finance Minister, Ms Bernadette Kina, at a meeting in Lae yesterday. In the next example, we take the content of what has been said, and present that as fact. The full quote is rather long, but we should be able to use it later in the story. The fact that this will be the first school swimming pool on the island is not included in the quote - this is a case where journalists must set the news in context by applying their own background knowledge. RIGHT: Work on Espiritu Santo's first school swimming pool will start next year if government grants can be obtained. WRONG: "If the primary school gets suitable financial help from the Government, I confidently expect that next year will see the start of work on a new swimming pool here," the chairman of Luganville Primary School said yesterday. Check-list Once you have written your intro, you should read it again carefully, asking yourself the following questions: Is it the most newsworthy key point in the story? Is it short and simple? If it is more than 20 words, try to cut it down. Cut out repetition and other unnecessary words. Remember the lazy passengers in that canoe. Is it written in the active voice? If not, should you rewrite it in the active voice? Have you put the facts first in the sentence? Is it up-to-date? Are your verbs in the correct tense? Have you avoided quotes? If you have started with a quote, can you rewrite it in reported speech? It is very rare for a journalist to get exactly the right intro on the first attempt, even after years of experience. Some intros have to be rewritten several times before they achieve the correct length, balance and clarity. Never be satisfied with your first attempt, however good. Always ask: "Can it be better?" TO SUMMARISE: The intro should be newsworthy 20 words or less attractive to the reader appropriate in style When writing your intro: List the key points and put them in order of importance. KISS: Keep It Short and Simple. Use the active voice. Put the facts first. Don't use quotes in the intro.

Writing the news story in simple steps

Chapter 6: Writing the news story in simple steps

Here we finish the job of writing the news story, which we began in Chapter 4: Writing the intro in simple steps. We consider ranking key points, structuring them in a logical way, and the importance of checking the story before handing it in. _______________________________________________________ The first hurdle has been cleared when you have written your intro. You have made a good start - but only a start. You now have to tackle the rest of the story to ensure the second, third and following paragraphs live up to the promise of the intro. With a thorough understanding of the story, its content and its implications, and with the appropriate intro composed, the remainder of the story should fall into place quite naturally. It should become natural for you to take the readers and listeners by the hand and lead them through the story so that they absorb easily the information you have gathered. Remember the inverted pyramid Remember the inverted pyramid. Using this structure, the first sentence or first two sentences of the story make up the intro and should contain the most important points in the story. In the sentences below the intro, detail is given which supports the facts or opinions given in the intro; and the other most newsworthy details are given. Less important details and subsidiary ideas or information follow until the story finally tails away to the sort of details which help to give the full picture but which are not essential to the story. A story written as an inverted pyramid can be cut from the bottom up to fit limited space or time. Length and strength The actual length of the news story should not be confused with the strength of the story. Some very strong stories about major issues may be written in a few sentences, while relatively minor stories can sometimes take a lot of space. However, it is usual for stronger stories to be given in more detail. Whatever the length of the story, the bottom point of the inverted pyramid - the place where we stop writing - should be the same. That is the level at which further details fail to meet the criteria for newsworthiness. Simple steps in writing the news story As with writing the intro, if you follow a step-by-step approach to the rest of the story you will make your task simpler and easier. We have already chosen key points, a news angle and written an intro about Cyclone Victor. Let us now return to that information and write the full news story. The amount of detail which you include will be different for print and broadcasting. If you are writing for a newspaper, you will need to include as much relevant detail as possible. If you are writing for radio or television you will give much less detail. For example, a newspaper report should certainly include the names and other details of the dead and injured people, if those details are available. You will not want to include these details in a radio report unless they are especially noteworthy. One reason for this is that newspaper readers can jump over details which they do not want, and carry on reading at a later part of the story. Radio listeners and television viewers cannot do this, so you must make sure that you do not give details which most of your listeners will not want. If you do, you will bore them, and they may switch off. It is also true, of course, that you can fit much more news into a newspaper than into a radio or television bulletin. Radio reports have to be short so that there is room for other reports in the bulletin. Information Let us now return to the Cyclone Victor example, which we used in the Chapter 4. This is the information you have already been given: At 2 a.m. yesterday morning, meteorologists at the Nadi Weather Centre detected a cyclone developing rapidly near Nauru and moving quickly south-west across the Pacific towards the Solomon Islands. They named the cyclone "Victor". At 3 a.m., they contacted the Solomon Islands government, warning of the approach of Cyclone Victor. Government officials immediately put emergency plans into operation. They warned all shipping in the area of the cyclone's approach. They broadcast warnings on the radio and alerted the police, who in turn sent officers to warn the people. By 10 a.m., winds in Honiara were blowing at more than 140 kilometres per hour. At about midday, the centre of the cyclone passed directly over Honiara before tracking into the Coral Sea, where it blew itself out. In Honiara, more than 20 houses were destroyed and a number of other buildings sustained considerable structural damage. More than 100 people are now homeless. Six people were killed. Another 18 people have been treated in hospital for minor injuries. Mopping-up operations have started in Honiara. The emergency services are still awaiting news from outlying districts but believe that Honiara has been the worst affected. Police say that of the six people who died, three men drowned when their car was blown off the road into a river, and two women and a man were killed by flying debris. Key points These are the seven key points from which we selected our intro: Nadi meteorologists warn Solomon Islands government of approach of Cyclone Victor. Solomon Islanders themselves warned of approaching cyclone. More than 20 homes destroyed and other buildings sustained considerable structural damage. More than 100 people homeless. Six people killed. Eighteen people treated for minor injuries. Three drowned and three killed by flying debris. Remember that we decided that (e) and (d) were the most newsworthy key points because they best filled the four criteria for news: Is it new? Is it unusual? Is it interesting or significant? Is it about people? Remember too that we decided to use key point (e) in preference to (g) because they were about the same fact but (e) was shorter for our intro. The intro By filling in just enough of the Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? to allow the intro to stand alone if necessary, we finally wrote the intro: Six people were killed and more than 100 left homeless when Cyclone Victor hit the Solomon Islands yesterday. Options We have three choices at this point for writing the rest of the story. We could tell it chronologically - that means in the time order in which the events happened. Or we can tell it in descending order of importance of the key points, all the way down to the least newsworthy at the end. Or we can use a combination of these two approaches, i.e. we can begin by giving the key points in descending order then fill in the less important details in chronological order. Whichever option we choose, there must be a clear logic behind the way the story is told. This will make it easy for the reader to follow and understand it. There are many ways in which you could show visitors around your village or town, some of which would be logical and some illogical. You might show them the centre of the village first, then move to the outer buildings, and finish with the river and the food gardens. Or you might show everything to do with one family line first, then move to a second family line, and so on. Visitors could follow and understand either of these. However, if you wander at random through the village, pointing out things as you happen to see them, your visitors will probably become confused. So it is with writing the news story. You must choose a clear and simple sequence for telling the facts and giving relevant opinions. In this way your readers or listeners will not become confused. To return to our Cyclone Victor example, let us choose to give the main key points in descending order of importance and then to tell the story in chronological order to give the minor details. This will demonstrate both of the other approaches. Ranking the key points We have already chosen (e) and (d) for our intro. In what order should we put the other key points? Clearly the deaths need explaining if possible, as does the damage to people's homes. Because lives are more important than homes, let us take (g) as our next key point, followed by (f) which is about injuries: Three men drowned when their car was blown off the road into a river. Two women and a man were killed by flying debris, and a further 18 people were treated in hospital for minor injuries. Notice that we split key point (g) into two halves. This was partly to stop the paragraph from being too long and partly to emphasise the unusual nature of the deaths of the three men in the car. It is less unusual for people to be killed by flying debris in the middle of a cyclone, and we filled that paragraph out a bit by including details of the injured. Now let us tell our readers or listeners more about the homeless: More than 20 homes were destroyed and a number of other buildings were badly damaged. Notice here that we changed the word "houses" to "homes", since "homes" are houses with people living in them. We also changed the phrase "sustained considerable structural damage" to "were badly damaged". As in the intro, you must avoid overloading any sentence in your story with unnecessary words - remember the canoe. The original phrase was just jargon. The rewritten phrase is shorter and simpler to understand. Telling the rest of the story We have so far used five of our key points in the first four paragraphs of our news story. The remaining two key points are facts about the cyclone itself - how it was spotted and how people were warned. There are clearly lots of details which can be given here. It would be possible to write the rest of the story by choosing more key points from the information left, ranking them according to newsworthiness then writing them in order. This is, however, very complicated and may confuse your reader or listener. A much simpler alternative is to now go back to the beginning of the event and tell it in chronological order, as things happened. Before we do this, we have tell our audience that we are going to change from the key points method of news writing to the chronological method, otherwise they might think that our next paragraph is our next key point (although our readers or listeners would not use that term). The easiest way of doing that is to provide a kind of summary to the first segment of our story with the paragraph: The emergency services are still awaiting news from outlying districts but believe that Honiara has been the worst hit. This sentence also tells the reader or listener that we have given the most important news. Our next paragraph tells them that we are going back to the beginning of the story: Cyclone Victor was first detected at 2 a.m. yesterday by staff at the Nadi Weather Centre. They plotted it travelling south-west across the Pacific towards the Solomon Islands. An hour later, they contacted the Solomon Islands government to warn them of the cyclone's approach. Government officials put emergency plans into operation. They radioed ships in the area and broadcast warnings to Solomon Islanders over the radio. Police officers were sent out to warn people. By 10 a.m., winds in the capital, Honiara, were blowing at more than 140 kilometres per hour. Two hours later the centre of Cyclone Victor passed over Honiara before tracking into the Coral Sea, where it blew itself out. Mopping-up operations have now started in Honiara. Now we have told the story of the cyclone, at the same time bringing our audience up to date with latest developments. Checking the story Before we hand this story in to our chief of staff or news editor, there are two more things we have to do to make sure that it is accurate; we must check for mistakes and we must check for missing details. Inexperienced journalists are often so relieved that they have actually written a story that they forget to check it properly. You should make it a firm rule to read your story through several times before handing it in. If you should find another mistake on any reading, correct it and then, because your reading has been interrupted by the correction, you should read the whole story through again from the beginning. Keep doing this until you can read it through from beginning to end without finding any errors. Only then can you hand it in. Mistakes We have to check back through our story to make sure that we have all the facts correct, the right spellings, the correct order of events, the proper punctuation. In short, is this how you want to see the story in your newspaper or hear it read out on air? Missing details We have to ask ourselves whether there are still any outstanding Who? What? Where? When? Why? or How? questions still to be answered. In our cyclone example, we do not give any specific details of who the dead and injured were, or how they were killed and hurt. Why did it take the Nadi Weather Centre an hour to alert the Solomon Islands government? What is the damage outside Honiara? What is going to happen to all the homeless people? The amount of detail which we include in the story will depend on how much we feel our readers or listeners will want. As we explained earlier, newspapers will give more details than radio or television bulletins. In particular, we shall want the names of the six people who have been killed to publish in a newspaper report; but not in a broadcast report. There is still plenty of work to do, maybe in our next story. The final version The final version of our cyclone story, let us say for a newspaper, is now almost ready. We check for mistakes, and are satisfied that we have made none. We then check for missing details. We have not given the names of the dead and injured, so we might phone the police and the hospital. Both places tell us that names will not be released until the families have been informed. This must be included in our story. There are no details yet of damage outside Honiara, and it may be difficult to get that information if telephone lines are down and roads flooded. This, too, should be added to the story. Our finished version should now look like this: Six people were killed and more than 100 left homeless when Cyclone Victor hit the Solomon Islands yesterday. Three men drowned when their car was blown off the road into a river, in the national capital, Honiara. Two women and a man were killed by flying debris, and a further 18 people are being treated in hospital for minor injuries. The names of the dead and injured are not being released until relatives have been informed. More than 20 homes were destroyed and a number of other buildings were badly damaged. The emergency services are still awaiting news from outlying districts. However, they believe that Honiara has been the worst hit. Communications between Honiara and other areas have been disrupted by the cyclone. Cyclone Victor was first detected at 2 a.m. yesterday by staff at the Nadi Weather Centre. They plotted it travelling south-west across the Pacific towards the Solomon Islands. An hour later, they contacted the Solomon Islands government to warn them of the cyclone's approach. Government officials put emergency plans into operation. They radioed ships in the area and broadcast warnings to Solomon Islanders over the radio. Police officers were sent out to warn people. By 10 a.m., winds in the capital, Honiara, were blowing at more than 140 kilometres per hour. Two hours later the centre of Cyclone Victor passed over Honiara before tracking into the Coral Sea, where it blew itself out. Mopping-up operations have now started in Honiara. TO SUMMARISE: Remember to read your story through thoroughly before handing it in. If you find any errors, correct them - then read it through again. Ask yourself the following questions: Does your intro meet the six requirements we discussed at the end of the previous chapter? Have you chosen the key points? Have you ranked them in order when writing your story? Has your story answered the six questions Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? Have you presented the facts in an orderly manner and provided links between different segments? Have you read it through again?