Writing a News Story: an Inverted Pyramid
Writing for a newspaper is exciting. It enables reporters to meet all types of people, to create and to be where the news is happening.
Reporters are the eyes and ears of their audiences. When reporters cover a breaking news event, their first stories summarize what happened, to whom, where, when, why and how.
Some hard news stories usually begin with a summary lead, a terse opening paragraph that provides the gist of the story and invites readers inside. Summary leads are used on news stories because they give the major points of the story immediately. Most people do not have the time to read a newspaper from start to end. Because they spend so little time with the news and often do not read entire articles, they demand the most important points at the start of the story.
The Inverted Pyramid.A summary lead generally tops a traditional writing form called an inverted pyramid, in which the news is stacked in paragraphs in order of descending significance. The lead summarizes the principal items of a news event. The second paragraph and each succeeding paragraph contain secondary and supporting details in order of decreasing significance. All the paragraphs in the story contain newsworthy information, but each paragraph is less vital than the one before it. This writing form puts the climax of a story at the beginning, in the lead.
Most journalism historians say that this concept was developed during the American Civil War. Newspaper correspondents in the field sent their dispatches by telegraph. Because they were afraid that the system would malfunction or the enemy would cut the wires, the correspondents squeezed the most important information into the first few sentences.
Newspapers also adopted the inverted-pyramid form because it capsulizes the news quickly. Readers can grasp the news of the day by simply skimming lead paragraphs.
The News Release
Newsworthiness means that information promises to be of interest to readers and is worth publishing. These standards should always be used by the PR specialist to test all news releases, pictures and all press events organized. The questions to ask are: is this story worth printing, will this picture improve the page, why should journalists waste their time to attend this press party? The PR practitioner must be his or her own judge of news-worthiness.
A news release creates an image of the organization in the eyes of the editors. However, all over the world, nothing is done worse in PR than the writing of news releases. Editors everywhere are very disappointed by the quality of the releases they receive. This is a pity because it is not difficult to write releases that earn the praise of the editors.
A good news release should tell the story as the journalist would have written it. It should not begin with 'We are proud to announce' nor contain self-praise. A news release must not read like an advertisement.
Next things make press relations better:
• Releases should be written in the style used by journalists, which is quite different from essay-writing
The release must have a professional look and without mistakes.
Releases should be appropriate to the journals to which they are sent.
Releases should be sent to selected journals in sufficient time for the story to be printed. The editors will annoyed by receiving a good story too late to print.
______________________________________