1 / 14

Writing a News Story

Writing a News Story. Parts of a News Story. Headline – tells what the story is about Byline – shows who wrote the story Lead – tells the most important facts (5 W’s) Body – contains more information and details, written in inverted pyramid style Ending – gives something to think about.

anneke
Download Presentation

Writing a News Story

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Writing a News Story

  2. Parts of a News Story • Headline – tells what the story is about • Byline – shows who wrote the story • Lead – tells the most important facts (5 W’s) • Body – contains more information and details, written in inverted pyramid style • Ending – gives something to think about

  3. Headline Parts of a News Story Train accident forces evacuation Note that headlines contain a subject & verb Written by an editor after the story is written

  4. Headline Byline Parts of a News Story Train accident forces evacuation By Scott Freed The byline is the author’s name; sometimes a group will take credit such as Leader-Post staff or Star Phoenix Staff

  5. Headline Byline Lead Parts of a News Story Train accident forces evacuation By Scott Freed A freight train carrying dangerous chemicals collided with a semi-trailer in southwestern Manitoba on Thursday, sending a towering plume of toxic black smoke into the air and forcing the evacuation of more than 100 area residents.

  6. Your Story, Your Leads First, you must identify the main point of your story before you write it! A good journalist always asks “So what?” or “What’s this about?” or “What’s my point?” when considering gathered information The lead is what opens any piece of journalism. Other than the headline, the lead is the only chance to “catch” your reader’s attention!”

  7. Writing Your Lead Readers spend only 3 seconds deciding whether to read your story based on your lead! There are many types of leads; however, we will work with the most popular: a direct news lead. This consists of a single sentence opening paragraph that contains the most important elements of the story. It should tell what happened, who was involved, where and when it happened as concisely as possible. A good lead sentence is between 20 - 25 words in length.

  8. Leads The following 2 examples are direct news leads that accurately tell the reader the most important information about the story! Local police captured two juvenile thieves Wednesday after the robbery of Rob’s Mini-Mart. The Student Council has made plans to donate 100% of all its proceeds from Friday night’s social event. The group plans to split the money between two local charities.

  9. Inverted Pyramid LEAD • Most interesting news stories use this style for many reasons; it benefits: • Hurried readers • Beginning journalists • Headline writers • Page layout editors Most Important Details Less important details Least important details This style is beneficial to many different people because less time will be spent on the parts of the story that aren’t as important! If the story is edited from the bottom, important details won’t be left out.

  10. Headline Byline Lead Body Parts of a News Story An area five to eight kilometres wide was being evacuated, although Manitoba RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Steve Saunders indicated the region was sparsely populated. “The number of people that will be evacuated will be determined by the weather,” said Giesbrecht. “Right now it (the wind) is blowing in a direction where there is not a high population so it’s OK. Among the evacuees were 60 members of the Pine Creek Hutterite colony who live two kilometres from the crash site. Colony manager Lawrence Maendel was at the crash site shortly after the accident happened. “My tongue was tingling, but we should be OK,” said Maendel, who was frustrated at being … Fifteen of 20 derailed cars at an uncontrolled crossing along CN Rail’s mail line were ablaze, including cars carrying benzene and plastic pellets. At least one of the derailed cars was carrying hexane, although that car was not on fire, said CN spokesperson Jim Feeny. Emergency measures officials decided it was too dangerous to send in firefighters to try to douse the flames, said Edward Geirsbrecht, the reeve of Norfolk municipality. “At this point they’re just letting it burn,”he said. “The way it looks it could take a couple of days.” Feeny said neither the truck driver nor the train’s driver were killed in the 4:15 p.m. accident.

  11. Headline Byline Lead Body Ending Parts of a News Story … “This is a dangerous toxin – it could get you any time,” Roy said. “One of the guys came tearing down the road. He said a ball of flame was going over his house.”

  12. Objective point of view The body of the story involves combining the opinions of the people you interview, some factual data, and a narrative which helps the story flow. A word of caution, however. In this style of writing, you are not allowed to "editorialize" (state your own opinion) in any way.

  13. Objective Point of View • The writer must do his best to remain objective and report in a neutral manner. The languagethatis used must reflect this. Note how articles will report “alcohol may have been a factor” NOT “he was blind drunk and couldn’t see where he was going” ”

  14. Quoted material • Any quoted material should be accurate and should not be taken out of context

More Related