What You Need to Know About News Writing

What You Need to Know About News Writing What You Need to Know About News Writing News writing follows a basic formula. While styles can diverge more dramatically depending on the kind of story- a feature story may look and sound very different than a hard news story- all news stories are cut from the same mold. The first element of news writing is, of course, to deliver the news. The 5 Ws Many people have heard of the 5 Ws, even if they’ve never taken a journalism class. The Ws in question refer to the Who, What, When, Where and Why that every story should address. Depending on what the story is, how and when you answer those Ws may change. If, for example, you’re reporting on a drive-by shooting in a city, you’ll likely start with where the crime happened (what street or area of town for the local paper) and who was involved. Figuring out what details to give a reader, and when, is key in constructing a story. The answer, of course, depends on the facts. If you’re working on the above story, and the murder happens to be one of a string of similar crimes, that may be the point you open the story with. If, however, the above story revolved around someone notable being shot, that might be what you start your piece with. However, a story about a notable name being shot is a very different story than one about someone more in the private sector. The latter might speak more to ongoing local violence while the former is a story in and of itself- X person has been killed and here’s what X person was known for. Crafting a 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 draw readers in with a hook while stating why the story matters. Like all forms of writing, there’s no hard and fast rule about what makes a great lede. A good lede changes depending on the story you’re writing. One of the best ways to get familiar with what a good lede is  is to read. Read lots of different stories- from breaking news stories to features and reviews. Ledes vary wildly but, you’ll start to notice patterns and, more importantly, what kinds of ledes you like and feel are effective. The Purpose of a Nut Graf A  nut graf, another  journalism slang  term, is the summarization of what the story’s about. A  nut graf  (or nutgraph, nut graph, and nutgraf) can be a sentence or a paragraph and, sometimes, may also be your lede. A  nut graf  needs to address why the story is being written, whether the piece is about something like the aforementioned murder, or a profile of a famous celebrity. Like  ledes, nut grafs vary wildly from story to story, and they  can also be harder to identify than  ledes.  A good exercise is to read lots of different stories and try to find the nut graf. How Style Comes Into Play With Different Pieces The basics outlined above apply directly to all stories but, most obviously, to your classic news story. That said, all stories have  ledes  and nutgrafs, no matter what they’re about or where you find them. These elements are applied differently, and often more  subtly, in long-form journalism and  feature stories, but they’re still there. One of the best ways to see how the basic elements of news writing can be applied to very different stories is to read, back to back, three very different pieces. For a good exercise, try reading the lead story in any major paper. The front page of a paper (online and in print) offers the biggest news stories of the day and there you’ll find straight, hard news. It might be local or it might be international. Then hit the features section of the paper. Check out  the Arts  section of the  New York Times  or the  Washington Post’s  Lifestyle  section, and read a review,  then another trend story. Then read a piece of long-form journalism in a magazine like  The New Yorker  or  Esquire. (In  The New Yorker,  nearly every article, save the reviews and pieces from Talk of the Town, is an example of long-form journalism.) Now think about how different each piece reads. Find the nut graf in each story and pay attention to how much each lede varies. Notice that some stories have nutgrafs that appear well below the lede, and others begin with the nut graf.   Notice how the nut graf is more obvious in the news stories than in the features or the magazine stories. All these stories rely on the basic elements of news writing  but do so in different styles. This exercise is good for giving a sense of the breadth of journalism and how differently the rules of news writing can be applied.