NEWS WRITING: TECHNICALITIES

Before You StartNews worthy aspects:

Is it new? Is it unusual? Is it interesting or significant? Does it contain elements of Human

Interest?

Lede

A lede, which is a journalism slang term for the first sentence or two of a story (i.e. lead), is an incredibly important part of the process.

You need to hook readers with your lede and, in some cases (as discussed above), relay the important parts of your story. You need to draw a reader in while telling him why the story matters.

Nutgraf

A nutgraf, another journalism slang term, is the summarization of what the story’s about. A nutgraf (also written with as “nut graf”) can be a sentence or a paragraph and, sometimes, may also be your lede.

The heart of a story, since they relay why the story matters

The Perfect Intro

The intro should be based on the most newsworthy aspect of the story

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

Must be appropriate in style to the story

REQUIREMENTS OF THE STRAIGHT LEAD

1. Short: No more than 30 words long, please

2. Opinion free: As with the rest of the news story, remove unattributed biases from your news writing

 3. In active voice: Passive voice is longer and less direct

ACTIVE VS PASSIVE VOICE

Active:   The dog bit James.Passive:  James was bitten by the dog.

In an active voice sentence, the subject does the action — and is placed at the beginning of the sentence.  In a passive voice sentence, the subject receives the action and comes after the verb.

Active:   The dog bit JamesPassive:  James was bitten by the dog

The first of these sentences is clearly preferable to the second because it is:

     Shorter — Count the number of words/characters in the first sentence compared to the second.

Simpler — Studies show that comprehension increases when sentences appear in subject-verb-object order as required with active voice

  Less prone to confusion  — Passive voice

makes it easy to drop the actor in a sentence

REQUIREMENTS OF THE STRAIGHT LEAD

4. Arranged from the most important facts to the least important facts:

The most common ordering of those facts is:

(i) Who (ii) What (iii) Where (iv) When.

All four of those facts are required; your lead will be even better if you can squeeze in How? or Why?  

REQUIREMENTS OF THE STRAIGHT LEAD

5. Free of proper nouns

… unless those proper nouns are famous.  For example, Nancy Smith is not famous, but Pop superstar Lady Gaga is; thus, Lady G could find herself in a lead, but Nancy Smith would merely be referred to as a “local woman” until she was identified later in the story.)

REQUIREMENTS OF THE STRAIGHT LEAD

6. Single sentence

Almost all leads are composed of single sentences.  No semi-colons to other methods of joining independent clauses.  Just keep it simple

Independent Clause I drive a bus. (This is a simple sentence.)

I am a doctor, and my wife is a lawyer. (This is a compound sentence made up of two independent clauses: I am a doctor and my wife is a lawyer.)

I want to be a nurse, but I need to receive my science degree. (compound sentence made up of two independent clauses: I want to be a nurse and I need to receive my science degree

Writing Exercise: Write a lead based on the following set of facts

Who?         Dhaka City Mayor, Sadeque Hossain What?        said he likely will seek to pass a ban on smoking at city

parks Where?     New Eskaton Road ; press conference When?       Friday

Why?     The ban made sense because it would cut the health risks of secondhand smoke and reduce littering by smokers. “We’re talking about banning smoking in all city parks, and it’s partially because you can breathe the air,” Mr. Sadeque said when he was asked about a ban. “It’s in the open air, but the air wafts in your direction. But it is also because people take their cigarette butts and the packages and just throw them away. … When you ask people (senior citizens) in our parks they say they just don’t want smokers there.”

How?     Proposes to pass a bill on anti-smoking in parks. Law enforcement agencies to act on this effective immediately fining citizens Tk 5000 if they don’t abide by it.

Evaluate your lead by answering the following questions:

Are the 5 W’s and H stacked most important to least?

Is the lead free of unattributed opinion?

30 words or less? Active voice? Free of unfamiliar proper nouns? Grammatically sound? Spelling mistakes? Proof-read?