The Inverted Pyramid and Narrative Writing: Understanding News Structures and Techniques, Study notes of Journalism

Download The Inverted Pyramid and Narrative Writing: Understanding News Structures and Techniques and more Study notes Journalism in PDF only on Docsity! The Inverted Pyramid & Narrative Writing THE INVERTED PYRAMID • The inverted pyramid news structure places all important information in the first paragraph. This structure was developed to deliver the most important news quickly and succinctly. • Some journalism history books attribute the introduction of the inverted pyramid to the use of the telegraph during the Civil War. Forced to pay by the word, newspapers supposedly instructed their correspondents to put the most important information at the top. Researchers at USC/Southern Cal/University of Southern California (we’ll talk about this part next week) have found that the inverted pyramid was used even earlier. • The more people try to speed up the dissemination of information, the more valuable the inverted pyramid becomes. In the inverted pyramid, information is arranged from most important to least important. • The inverted pyramid lead/lede — the first paragraph or two of the story — is presented as simply and clearly as possible. It sets the tone. The lead sits atop other paragraphs arranged in descending order of importance. These paragraphs explain and provide evidence to support the lead. That means that the paragraphs at the end of the story are the least important … and the first to be cut for space in a newspaper’s print edition. • The inverted pyramid does have its shortcomings. Although it delivers the most important news first, it does not encourage people to read the entire story. Stories stop; they don’t end. However, the inverted pyramid still offers value, so a majority of the news stories in today’s newspapers and on Internet sites are written in the inverted-pyramid form. Finding the Lead • To determine a lead, you must first recognize what goes into a good lead. You must begin by determining the story’s relevance, usefulness and interest for readers. • One way to measure those standards is to ask “So what?” or “Who cares?” You can reduce the information from every event you witness and every story you hear to answers to who, what, when, where, why and how. Variations on the Inverted-Pyramid Lead • Regardless of which type of lead journalists use, they are trying to emphasize the relevance of the news to the reader. One good way to highlight the relevance is to speak directly to the reader. One good way to highlight the relevance is to speak directly to the reader by using “you.” This informal, second-person lead — the “you” lead — allows the writer to tell readers why they should care. • In the immediate-identification lead, one of the most important facts is “who,” or the prominence of the key actor. Reporters often use this approach when someone is important or someone whose name is widely recognized is making news. • Reporters generally use a delayed-identification lead when the subject of the story has little name recognition among readers. There are two occasions when reporters might choose to delay identification of the person until the second paragraph. One occurs when the person is not well-known but the person’s position, occupation, title or achievements are important or interesting. The other occurs when the lead is becoming too wordy. • Reporters dealing with several important elements may choose to sum up what happened in a summary lead rather that highlighting a specific action. This is one of the few times that a general statement is preferable to specific details. • Sometimes choosing one theme for the lead is too restrictive. In such cases, you can choose a multiple-element lead to work more information into the first paragraph. But you should write the lead within the confines of a clear, simple sentence or sentences. Some multiple-element leads consist of two paragraphs. This occurs when the reporter decides that several elements need prominent display. THE TECHNIQUES OF NARRATION • Exposition is the ordering of facts. Narration is the telling of a story. When we arrange facts from most to least important, we call the resulting structure the inverted pyramid. When we use vivid scenes, dialogue, foreshadowing and anecdotes in chronology to build to a climax, we call the structure narrative. • Storytellers don’t speak in monotone. They add inflection to maintain listeners’’ interest. To avoid telling stories in monotone, narrative writers capture scenes with detail and dialogue, foreshadow the good stuff to come, and tempt readers to continue reading by offering them treats in the form of anecdotes. Vivid Scenes • To write vivid scenes, you must use all of your senses to gather information, and your notebook should reflect that reporting. Along with the results of interviews, your notebook should bulge with details of sight and smell, sound and touch. Gather details indiscriminately. Later, you can discard those that are not germane. Dialogue • Dialogue allows the narrator to recede and the characters to take center stage. When you use quotations, you — the writer — are telling the reader what the source said. The reader is listening to you relate the quotation instead of listening to the source speak. When you use dialogue, you disappear and the reader listens directly to the characters speaking. • Dialogue is a key element in recreating scenes. A good reporter permits the characters to talk to one another. Be realistic, though. No one can accurately remember large chunks of conversation. If you weren’t there to capture the dialogue, be careful about depending on the participants to remember exactly what they said. One solution is to keep it short. Use only what your sources are sure about. If you were there, record the dialogue. Then you can offer more detail.