News Writing Techniques: Inverted Pyramid Structure and Quotations, Lecture notes of Communication

Download News Writing Techniques: Inverted Pyramid Structure and Quotations and more Lecture notes Communication in PDF only on Docsity! AEC529 News Writing for Print1 Ricky Telg and Lisa Lundy2 1. This document is AEC529, one of a series of the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, UF/IFAS Extension. Original publication date January 2015. Revised June 2021. Visit the EDIS website at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu for the currently supported version of this publication. 2. Ricky Telg, professor, and Lisa Lundy, professor, Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, UF/IFAS Extension, Gainesville, FL 32611. The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other UF/IFAS Extension publications, contact your county’s UF/IFAS Extension office. U.S. Department of Agriculture, UF/IFAS Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A & M University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Nick T. Place, dean for UF/IFAS Extension. Introduction A good print news story will contain the following com- ponents: inverted pyramid structure, five Ws and H, leads, objective writing, news writing techniques, quotations and attributions, Associated Press Style, and proper grammar and punctuation. Proper grammar and punctuation will be covered in a separate EDIS publication. Inverted Pyramid Structure The inverted pyramid structure is the most commonly used structure for news writing. The inverted pyramid presents the most important information in a news story first, followed in descending order by less-important in- formation. This structure works well for two reasons. First, the most important information, which is presented at the beginning, helps to grab the reader’s attention and inter- est, so the reader is more likely to read the entire article. Second, a story written in the inverted pyramid structure means the least important information is at the very end of the structure. Therefore, if the story needs to be cut, it can be cut from the bottom without any loss of important information. If you put important information at the end, it may get deleted. Additionally, with most consumers reading their news online, this helps ensure that they will see your most critical information even if they do not click through to read a full article. The inverted pyramid structure is based on the “five Ws and H” and good leads. The lead, or first paragraph, is a simple statement that provides focus to the news story. A lead should be written as simply as possible and should contain as many of the five Ws and H as can be understood easily. The body of the inverted pyramid story adds detail to the information that has been introduced in the lead. The body should provide more information, supporting evidence, and context in the form of direct and indirect quotes, more details, and other descriptions. Stories in the inverted pyramid structure avoid falling into the trap of a chronological storytelling of what happened at an event (“this happened, then this happened, then this happened”). For example, what happens at the beginning of a meeting or event is rarely the most important or interest- ing thing that occurred. Votes or policy recommendations often happen at the end of meetings. Inverted Pyramid Structure of News Writing The inverted pyramid is the structure most commonly used for news writing. The inverted pyramid presents the most important information in a news story first, followed in descending order by less-important information. 2News Writing for Print Five Ws and H The five Ws and H are the key components of any news stories. They stand for who, what, when, where, why, and how. The five Ws and H also can be the questions that a news story should answer, such as: • Who said or did something? • What was said or done? What happened? • When was it said or done? When did it happen? • Where was it said or done? Where did it happen? • Why was it said or done? Why did it happen? • How was it said or done? How did it happen? How does this affect me? To gain the reader’s attention you should begin the lead with the most interesting or most important element of the five Ws and H. Others are added later in the story. The aspect used most often in the lead is the what, or perhaps the who, if it is someone important. What happened is usually what most people want to read about first. Leads The lead paragraph, lead or lede (pronounced LEED), is the first paragraph in the news story. The lead grabs the reader’s attention and contains as many of the five Ws and H as can be understood easily. The reporter must make a judgment about what to put in a lead, based on the newsworthiness criteria described previously. A good lead generally will contain at least three of the five Ws and H. However, one mistake writers sometimes make is trying to put too much in a lead. The lead should be brief, no more than 25 words. Following are descriptions of some types of leads that you might include in your stories. The summary lead is the most common news-style lead seen in newspapers. The summary lead provides the most important of the five Ws and H elements. It gets the basic information up front. If you include a who in your lead, you do not have to use the person’s name. You can identify someone by title or job position and then include the person’s name later in the story. The following example shows how you can identify people without using their names. Unless the who in your story is someone important or well known, rarely will you want to list the person’s name in the lead paragraph. Example: Five Anyville 4-H members and a volunteer were injured Sunday night when their van slid out of control on icy roads in eastern Kentucky. This summary lead contains who (five Anyville 4-H mem- bers and one volunteer), what (were injured when their van slid out of control), when (Sunday night), where (eastern Kentucky), and how (icy roads), and it is 25 words. The question lead asks a question to grab the reader’s attention. The question lead is seldom used because if a reader does not care about the answer to the question, then that person probably will stop reading. Example: Will the older adult vote affect local elections? Not if older adults are not registered to cast their ballots. A quotation lead is a direct quotation used in the first paragraph. Unless the quotation is something memorable or unusual, the quotation lead should be avoided, because it is considered that the story’s writer has given up on being creative and just inserted a quotation to jump-start a story. The following example shows how a quotation lead can work, because the quotation is out of the ordinary. Example: “My plane is taking off without me,” shouted a student pilot to his instructor as he dashed down the runway after the Cessna 140. Objective Reporter Another aspect of journalistic writing is the objective reporter. Now, because everyone can communicate with their target audiences, anyone can be a “reporter.” To be a good reporter, though, you should follow these guidelines. Reporters should be transparent in their writing. They should avoid using first-person pronouns (I, me, we, our, my, us) or second-person pronouns (you, your) outside of a source’s direct quote. Reporters also should set aside their own views and opin- ions. Allowing the writer’s opinions, prejudices, and biases