Shorts Wk 6

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WRITE!

Here are notes you’ve taken for stories. Organize them into inverted pyramid style, starting with a summary lead, and write complete stories for a new audience conforming to AP style (assume the events were last night, so refer to the day...).

DUE THURSDAY 10/12!

Fire
Fire in a house. Address: 176 West 500 North, Logan, Utah, North America, Earth
10 p.m. . Two fire trucks from LFD, 12 firefighters, including two both named “Jared.” One of the firetrucks was green. Go figger. House owned by Mary and Frederick Andersen. Mary date of birth (dob) 6/25/57. Fred dob is 11/12/56. Fred is a businessman. He has nice clothes. He owns the dry cleaner shop near Albertson's. Wait. He used to own it, until one of his employees sued him. Remember that? Wow. Mary is a French Professor on tenure track with a state language grant at USU. Your Source: Steve Howard. He’s Assistant Fire Chief. His mother never wanted him in this kind of work. “The house is a total loss.” Apparent cause is electrical. Gutted the 3-bdrm house. Just two blocks off Main Street. Near the Old Folks home. The wife was on the street afterwards, crying in French: “Tout ma vie! Mes trésors, mes étudiants—tous leurs choses!! Et Charlemagne! Mon pauvre chat, le cheri, il est perdu!” (“My whole life! My treasures, my students—all their things!! And Charlemange! My poor cat, the sweet thing, he is lost!”) Turns out the main thing is that the cat died. And all the final exams of her 215 students. Burned up. So she'll have to give them the test again. Dommage!
What else do you want to know?

2 City Council mtg
Smithfield City Council met from 7-10:30 p.m. Monday night. Of the 12 agenda items, 3 were tabled until next week. Council discussed a proposal to strengthen dog leash law. Council member Joy Ferguson wants dogs euthanized if caught off leashes off owner’s property. Says “Packs of wild dogs are running rampant in town, terrorizing people and putting children at risk.” Lee Austin is Cache Valley Humane Society President. He addressed the council, along with County Animal Control Officer Rex Toothsome. Austin said there are actually fewer dogs countywide and in Smithfield than at this time last year. Toothsome agreed, and offered a chart with numbers for the County and several cities. He said that the County has issued 12,598 dog licenses in 2006. 782 of those were in Smithfield, compared to 14,115 last year (county) and 861 in Smithfield. He also said there were only half as many strays picked up in Smithfield this year (38, compared to about 70 last year). The dog debate lasted more than an hour. Smithfield mayor Clyde Spineless finally called for a vote on Ferguson’s proposal. It was defeated by a vote of four to one. After the meeting, Spineless said he was pleased. “Smithfield is still a pet-friendly town.”

What else do you want to know?

Crash (all info from “police spokesman”)
Car crash in south Logan on morning. S. Main & 300 South at traffic light. Blue 1999 Toyota driven by Floyd Finger, dob 3/12/77, 1515 W. 1000 N., Apt. 21, collided with Brown 1972 Chevy pickup driven by Marcie Mommish, dob 8/18/87, 253 Aggie Village #12. Mommish vehicle was making righthand turn at the light when struck by Toyota in the driver-side door. Mommish had green light. EMTs treated driver of the pickup at the scene, and she was transported to LRH with head trauma. Finger was cited for running the red light and arrested for DUI after officers detected the smell of alcohol. Several empty beer cans were found in the Toyota. Mommish is a practicing wiccan. Finger is Presbyterian but never goes to church. He has six fingers on his left hand. Mommish likes her new chainsaw.

What else do you want to know?

Barbershop (note: you may want to do something other than a straight summary lead here…)
There are already 17 barbershops and hairdressers in town. Today there’s one more. Good thing, because Professor Pease really needs a haircut. The new shop opens today. It’s called Keep Yer Head Down. The owner is 55. She's divorced. She moved to town from Las Vegas, NV. Her name is Franceen Follicle. He left leg is slightly longer than her right. She has hired four stylists who wear go-go boots and dance to strobe lights and disco music while they cut hair. Franceen is a funny name. She used to be a Vegas show dancer who performed at the Mirage, Harrah’s and other major casinos. The shop has a green door. It is located at the corner of Center St. and 300 East, at 301 East Center Street. A good location. “It’s a fun ‘do’ to do,” Franceen says. “We offer cutting-edge style-a-go-go. Everything from perms to colors to pedicures and nails. Grooming is more beautiful to a beat.”

What else do you want to know?

Speaker (info from CVLS press release)
The Cache Valley League of Scrapbookers (CVLS) is pleased to announce a wonderful speaker from Detroit for its meeting. The speaker will be Clarice Clipper, a scrapbooking author and expert who is president of the International Scrapbooking Society (ISS). Ms. Clipper, 31, will speak on “Clipping with Clipper—Cutting out boredom while preserving precious memories.” Ms. Clipper has been making a wide variety of scrapbooks and memory volumes since 1992, when, as a young mother of 8 beautiful children, she started trying to organize her family memories. “They were driving me nuts,” she says, with a twinkle in her eye. “One day I realized that I couldn’t tell them apart. I could remember if it was Jeremy or Fanny who had the cleft palate. And who was the soccer star—Bobbie or Keith? And why did we name that one 'Elvis'? So scrapbooking started for me as self-protection, really, so I could keep track of them all!” Ms. Clipper has become an international spokeswoman for the Art of Scrapbooking as a means of bringing mothers of all races and creeds together in peace, to share memories and to bridge different cultures. Last year, she was honored with a special United Nations award for her work with women worldwide. Her talk will be on the third Wednesday of the month in the Logan City All-Purpose Room at 255 North Main Street. It starts at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a reception with punch and cookies. The public is welcome to come and enjoy “Clipping with Clipper.”

What else do you want to know?

So write the stories, already.
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Week3 Quiz—FIXT

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NewsHounds Week3 QUIZ
Name: PEASE

PART I:
From Harrower, Ch. 2: Terminology:

• What do you call the area/subject that a reporter covers?
➢ The reporter covers a “beat”—courts, cops, USU, theatre, etc...

• What’s the function of the headline?
➢ To summarize the story content and to attract the reader.

• What is a cutline?
➢ Or a caption: the short description beneath a photo or other graphic.

• Publisher William Randolph Hearst said this is whatever makes you say, “Gee whiz!”
➢ News. Other definitions: “When a dog bites a man, that’s not news. When a man bites a dog, that’s news.” (For extra credit, who said it?)

• What is the first sentence or paragraph of a news story called?
➢ The lead. Can also refer to the first couple of paragraphs (or grafs)—the opening of a story.

• What’s a jumpline?
➢ When a story “jumps” to another page, the jumpline directs the reader to the page (e.g., SEE JUMPLINE, p. 10).

• What’s the reporter’s name at the top of a news story called?
➢ The byline (or, when a reporter screws up a story, the “blameline”).

• What is “attribution”?
➢ Information that comes from a source is “attributed” to that source (e.g.: “...USU President Stan Albrecht said” or “according to the National Weather Service…”)

• What is a newspaper’s “flag”?
➢ The newspaper’s name on Page 1 (e.g., The New York Times) (pp. 26, 32)

9/9 = 100%

PART II:
• Harrower lists five things that every reporter should remember about readers. Which do you think is most important and why?
➢ 1. Readers are in a hurry.
➢ 2. Readers have short attention spans.
➢ 3. Readers want stories to connect to them personally.
➢ 4. Readers want stories to be told in a compelling way.
➢ 5. There are many kinds of readers. (p. 18)

• 1 ordinary man + 1 ordinary life = 0 news, says Bastion and Case in “News Arithmetic.” Why? What would make an “ordinary person” newsworthy?
➢ What is news? An extraordinary person (prominence) or event (consequence or human interest). Ex: If sophomore Tim Jones goes to the grocery, that’s not news. If he tackles a Ramen thief, that’s news. (p. 16)

• Harrower lists seven elements that make news interesting. What are they? Which do you think is most important and why?
➢ Impact: How does the story matter to readers?
➢ Immediacy: News is new.
➢ Proximity: Nearby events are more important than distant ones (mostly).
➢ Prominence: How important is the person/focus of the story?
➢ Novelty: e.g., man bites dog. Human interest. Unexpected.
➢ Conflict: All disputes have the drama that can make them newsworthy.
➢ Emotion: Happy/Sad/Tragic/Joyful. (p. 17)
NOTE: See also Bill Blundell’s Story Blocks

• Harrower quotes many journalists on their jobs. Is there one comment—good or bad—about being a journalist that particularly struck you? Why?
➢ Here’s one I like from Ch. 2: “People don’t actually read newspapers—they get into them every morning like a hot bath.”—Marshall McLuhan, sociologist . . . because it illustrates the central part of people’s desire to know….

4/4 = 100%

PART III:
• Do the Test Yourself exercise No. 1 on p. 32 and type your answers below.

8/8 = 100%

PART IV: From Pease’s Newswriting “Primer”
• Explain what is meant by the “inverted pyramid.” How does it work?
➢ The inverted pyramid “design” (if you will) for news stories came about in the beginning age of the telegraph (or the town crier), when it was important to get the most important news items out before the telegraph poles fell down and cut you off: Ex: “President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated!” not “The play at the Ford Theatre started late last night…” The same requirements exist today—headlines must hit the basic news first and fast. Details follow.

• What should appear in a news story’s lead?
➢ What happened? Of the WWWWW&H, what would YOU want to know first?

• Explain the “Fred Rule.” Why does it work for newswriting?
➢ See “What Is News?” on AskDrTed.

• What’s wrong with writing a news story chronologically?
➢ ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz. See WWWWW&H, Leads, etc.

• Pease says writing is an aural art. What does he mean? Do you agree?
➢ For me, the art of writing isn’t just the words, it’s the sound they make—their cadence and rhythm and impact as they come together. What does playwright Tom Stoppard say? “Words are sacred. They deserve respect. Get the right ones, in the right order, and you can nudge the word a little.” Stoppard is talking about how words can create meaning, but a large part of that meaning for the writer (and reader) is the sound the words make in a well-engineered sentence. Read your stuff out loud. If you stumble in the reading, the sentence is poorly constructed. Strive for words in an order that pleases both the mind and the ear.

5/5 = 100%

PART V: Some Associated Press Style stuff. Correct these so they conform to AP style:

(These are now correct. If you don’t understand why, ask!)

• The boy is 5. He ate 27 chocolates. He lives at 4 Main St.
(See number/numerals; addresses, ages. What is the basic number rule? That is, what’s the different between 4 and four, and when does AP say you use each?)

4/4

• The new governor of Utah is Gary Herbert. He is friends with Sen. Orrin Hatch.
(See capitalization and titles. Formal titles (e.g., governor and senator) are lowercase when they stand alone, but uppercase and abbreviated when the come before the individual’s name. EXCEPT!!! A lot of things: mayor, professor, etc.)

2/2

• The president of USU will speak at 5 p.m. in the afternoon. It ends at 6 p.m.
(See a.m./p.m., capitalization and times/numerals)

5/5

• The hat cost $5. It is brown. He lived in Paris for seven years.
(See exceptions to the basic number rule: money/dollars; datelines (big cities e.g., Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo… don’t need their states or nations because they’re so well known)

5/5

• The conference took place over the weekend in Boston.
(See Datelines/state names—big cities—and state abbreviations: these are NOT the same as the post office abbreviations!)

2/2

• 200 N. Central Blvd. 14 Adams Road. 4 Elm Ave.
(See addresses. When it’s just the street—Central Avenue, Main Street, North Kumquat Boulevard…—everything is spelled out fully. When there’s a specific street address—7 Central Ave., 190 Main St., 215 N. Kumquat Blvd…—the address abbreviation rules kick in. Note that only street, avenue and boulevard are abbreviated in addresses; road, circle, lane, etc. are not. )

5/5

• He joined the Air Force and shipped out to Iraq.

1/1

• The car cost more than $24,000. The cuts were $12 million, or more than 6 percent of the budget, and hurt 9 percent of the staff.
(See numbers/numerals/dollars. The basic number rule: most numbers larger than nine are numerals (see exceptions), from 10 to 999,999; after that, it’s 1 million (or 1.2 million, 3.8 billion, $4 trillion). Use $$ sign, not “dollars.” Spell out %, and always use a numeral (see percent).)

6/6

• The student is 19 years old. She drove six hours to get here. She drives a 6-year-old Toyota. She had seven suitcases and 23 stuffed monkeys in the trunk.
(See number rules. The basic number rule: zero-nine spelled out, then 10 etc. are numerals EXCEPT for numerous exceptions (e.g., addresses, ages, temperatures, money, percentages, etc….). See also hyphenation: 6-year-old is hyphenated because the whole thing modifies “Toyota” (or girl or elephant or whatever). )

6/6

Total: 62/62 = 100 percent

Stories 1-4 FIXT

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A-Bombs, Kidnapped Kids and Crashes (OMG!)

PEASE
FIXT versions

In all news stories, reporters must quickly decide what’s the most important news—what happened? This soon becomes automatic, but in teaching yourself to think this way, it may be useful to think about the Fred Rule (See WWWWWH—The “Fred Rule” in your Week5 readings).

Basically, the Fred Rule describes what you do when you see your best friend, Fred, on the street. He asks, “What’s happening?” and your natural response (in the first story, for example), would be something like, “They set off a nuke in Nevada!” Usually, that natural response contains the core of what would be a news story lead. Try it.

NOTES:
Some general notes from your stories that everyone should note. (When I put ASK in your stories in future, please raise the question in Discussions: these are AP Style or other issues that affect everyone. Obviously ask other questions, too.)

• WHEN: Don’t lead with when—WHAT or WHO is more important, and the when doesn’t matter to the reader until you tell her what the story’s about.

• No yesterday/tomorrow/last night. Except for TODAY (when your story is running in the same-day’s newspaper), use the day name (or, if more than a week away, the date) to avoid reader confusion. NOTE: This also applies to cybernews—you may post something TODAY, but that’s meaningless when the post survives online for decades. Use the dayname or date.

• Day vs. Date: Use the date (e.g., Dec. 29 or Feb. 16) when the news event you’re talking about is more than a week away, in either direction. Use the day (Thursday, etc.) when the event is less than a week away, in either direction. The verb tense will tell the reader which Thursday we’re talking about: The city council voted Thursday… (that’s yesterday or last week, right?); The speech will be Thursday… (this week, right?) If I’m talking about something next month, it’s an event planned for Oct. 16 (or whatever).... NEVER use both day and date.

• Abbreviations. Check the Stylebook and also look at the additional cross-references at the bottom of the “abbreviations” entry. In these stories, state names needed to be abbreviated when they came with the city/town (e.g., LaCrosse, Wis., or Brick Township, N.J.). State names are spelled out when they stand alone (e.g., New Jersey). NOTE that AP state abbreviations are different from the Postal Service’s: see State names. Note also that some states are NEVER abbreviated. Which ones? You’ll also find differing rules on abbreviations under titles, dates, addresses and many more. Check ’em out.

• Ages. The basic AP number rule is that zero-nine are spelled out (six balloons) but 10 and larger are numerals (14 balloons). There MANY exceptions to this rule—addresses, ages, money, time, temperatures, etc. Check them ALL out. Ages are always numerals, even little ones. So, the boy is 7. Note, too, that “the 7-year-old boy” is hyphenated, because the whole thing—7-year-old—describes “boy.” So: 6-year-old car, 89-year-old grampa. But the grandfather, 89, ....

• Paragraphs. A news story is organized in descending order of importance (the inverted pyramid), starting with a summary first paragraph. Generally, try (for now) for simple, declarative sentences, with one sentence/one idea per paragraph. The questions raised or left unanswered in each paragraph should (generally) be answered in the next paragraph, resulting in a story that is structured logically, proceeding smoothly from one topic/idea to the next.

• Inverted pyramid. Draw an upside-down triangle, standing on its tip. (See discussion of the Inverted Pyramid in the text, and here.) This is a graphic depiction of what a news story looks like, starting with the “heaviest,” or most important, element (e.g., bomb, kidnapped kid found, passengers safely evacuated…) and progressing to the least important stuff until the story peters out. More on this, and other structural issue, to come.

Other questions, let me know.

Here are my versions of these first stories. Compare them to yours, and then ask (on Discussion or via an email direct to me) your questions about style, structure, news judgment, organization, etc. —TP

NUKE TEST
Pease
(Note that this is how to ID each of your stories: A “slug” to label the topic (NUKE), and your last name to ID the reporter)

As 450 nuclear protesters gathered Tuesday, just 40 miles away federal officials detonated a 150-kiloton bomb in the remote Nevada desert.

The weapons test by the U.S. Department of Energy took place 2,000 feet deep in the Pahute Mesa at the Nevada test site near Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, despite efforts by pacifists and physicians to halt such testing.

WHAT’S NEXT?

TP Note: This story has two major news elements:
1. nuclear bomb test, and
2. protesters.

I opted to combine both elements in the lead. A simpler way to go would be to focus on one of the elements first (the bomb test), and get to the protesters in a later graf.

Some tricks: 1. Nuclear weapons are measured in kilotons. How do I know? I found it in the Stylebook. 2. Anyone have any idea where Pahute Mesa is? Me neither. So I Googled it and looked at a map. Yucca Mountain, of course, is the controversial federal disposal site for nuclear waste. I include Las Vegas so readers will have a sense of where this is. “What’s next?” suggests that you think about unanswered questions for all stories.

KIDNAP
Pease

Three years after disappearing in Alabama, a 7-year-old kidnap victim was found living in rural New Jersey Monday, after a neighbor recognized the child in a TV movie about his disappearance.

Police in Brick Township, N.J., arrested the boy’s mother, Ellen Lynn Conner, 27, at the scene on Alabama kidnapping warrants.

Police said a resident called them Monday night after watching “Adam: The Song Continues,” a film about an Alabama kidnap case, and recognizing the boy’s photo.

WHAT’S NEXT?

TP Note: What would you tell Fred?
Me: “They found a 7-year-old kid in New Jersey!”
Fred: “Why? was he missing?”
Me: “Yeah! his mom kidnapped him three years ago.”
Fred: “No kidding. What happened?”
Me: “A neighbor saw the kid’s picture on TV. And the cops arrested the mom.” Etc…..

See? Logical progression through the facts, raising and answering questions as they arise.

One more note: There are two “most important” elements to this story, aren’t there? What are they? So which one do you use to focus the lead/story on—and why? I will ask on a quiz...

AP Style points: age: 7-year-old boy; mother, 27; states are spelled out when they stand alone (e.g., Alabama), but abbreviated and set inside commas when they come with a town (e.g., Brick Township, N.J.,)

AIRPLANE
Pease

Forty passengers were evacuated from a Northwest Airlines jet Tuesday when it touched down at LaCrosse, Wis., after airport officials spotted smoke coming from the jet’s wheels.

A Northwest spokesman said there were no injuries or damage in the incident. The passengers were evacuated as a precaution when flight 428 from Minneapolis set down.

Northwest’s Bob Gibbons said the smoke apparently was caused by hydraulic fluids leaking onto the jet’s hot brakes.

WHAT’S NEXT?

TP Note: What would you tell Fred?
Me: “A bunch of airplane passengers had to be evacuated from a plane in Wisconsin.”
Fred: “No kidding. What happened?”
Me: “There was smoke coming from the wheels of a Northworst Airlines jet when it landed at LaCrosse. The passengers had to slide down the chutes.”
Fred: “Anyone hurt?”

One rule of thumb: For the cynical journalist, we rank-order things this way:
1. Dead.
2. Injured.
3. Property damage (crash, fire, etc.).
So the most important thing in this story is that 40 passengers and crew were safe after being evacuated…

CAR CRASH
Pease
A 41-year-old Logan mother was injured in a car accident Monday afternoon when her car was rear-ended by a cattle truck on Main Street.

Police said Janice T. McKinney apparently turned her car into the path of a truck hauling eight steers at 4:27 p.m., according to the Logan Police Department.

The truck, driven by Joe Cowbuddy, 60, of Pocatello, Idaho, jackknifed into the oncoming traffic, police said, but there were no other accidents. Cowbuddy was uninjured, police said, but Main Street traffic was tied up for an hour.

McKinney was transported to Logan Memorial Hospital with undisclosed injuries. Her two children, ages 3 and 6, were uninjured, police said.

No charges have been filed in the accident, but a police investigation was continuing Monday evening.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? TP Note: What would you tell Fred? This should be getting clearer to you.
Fred: “What happened?”
You: “There was a car crash—a mom and a cattle truck.”
Fred: “Yow. Anyone hurt?”
You: “The mom went to the hospital, but her kids were OK, and the truck driver, too.”
Fred: “And the cows?”
You: “Straight to Mickey D’s…. No, they were fine.”
Fred: “Where?”
You: “North Main Street, yesterday afternoon.”
Fred: “What else?”
You: “Cops are investigating and may charge the mom. Otherwise, I dunno. Lots of accidents at that intersection, especially now that cattle trucks come through so often….” (That make you think of any followup stories from this one little incident?)

Other notes:
• I use, “A 41-year-old Logan mother” in the lead instead of her name. Why? (I will ask you this on a quiz)
• Note that everything (except the lead and the end) is attributed—ALWAYS attribute statements of fact to a source.
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The Inverted Pyramid

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First Things First

Why do we write news stories the way we do, beating the reader over the head and yelling, and then explaining what all the fuss is about?

There are a few good practical reasons for the “inverted pyramid” structure of hard (e.g., new) news stories. For one thing, the most interesting thing about news is the stuff that’s, well, new and now. So people naturally start with now, not three weeks of background.

Historically, “news” came in the form of long essays, with lots of opinions and background and back-filling and positioning to create a foundation that would justify (or debunk) whatever the latest developments might be. For example, “In the beginning...” is a lead that suggests a lot of backstory, so you’d best get a comfortable chair and a drink. “Let there be light,” on the other hand, is a great lead that really gets to the point.

Back in the days before print and widespread literacy, “news” was in fact told in parable form, long stories with riveting details that could stick easily in the listeners’ memories, because all these stories were oral—fables and chants and songs and minstrel acts. Memories were better then. Patience, too, I’m guessing.

When the printed word and literacy came along, after Johann Gutenberg changed the world in the mid-1400s, more and more people learned how to read and trusted their important memories to books and paper.

But even with this new technology, “news” could be a longish enterprise, with a lot of preamble and scene-setting and so forth.

But the long-form tale started to fray a bit at the edges when time was short, like when nations were at war. As it became increasingly important for people to know things fast—the Saxons are on the beach, for example—the stories got pared down to the more basic stuff. Sure, we care that it was Fenric, son of Bodric, son of Phobric, son of .... But mostly, the important part was that Fenric and his 2,000 bloodthirsty hordes were at the gate, and who cares about his lineage at the moment anyway?

It wasn’t just war. Economic interests made the news-tellers shorten up their stories as well. After the settlers from Europe arrives to colonize the “New World,” fast sailing boats would regularly shoot out from the East Coast of the colonies to meet slower European square-riggers to get their news and then scoot back to Boston and Jamestown and Manhattan with the news:
politics at court, sure, that might unseat Virginia’s colonial governor, but also about incoming products for sale that merchants could buy up and sell at a profit. So “news” became pretty simple: New shipments of linen. The tea shipment aboard the “Betty” was spoiled with rats. The slaves aboard the “Amistad” were said to have mutinied....

So although gossip has ever been gossip, paring it down to the basics had become increasingly important.

By the mid-1800s, there was yet another reason for storytellers to get to the point, and fast. Northern newspapermen (and yes, they were pretty much all male) attached to the Union troops during the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on where you were standing) used a new technology called the telegraph to shoot news flashes about the war back to New York and Philadelphia and Washington. The problem was that telegraph technology was unreliable—signals would be cut off, poles would fall down, reporters would be hit by cannonballs...the usual thing...and the big news from the front would be cut off before we could hear it:

“Thursday previous, in the aftermath of a torrential downpour so heavy and dense that even the valiant troops of the Connecticut Fourth, 12th Battalion, Ninth Infantry were forced, against their truly courageous natures and inclinations in the face of Confederate Rebels of the foulest ilk, despite the ever-present Inspiration of their most valiant General, ....”

. . . and then the telegraph failed.

So their editors told them to cut to the chase, and just send the facts, ma’am, just the facts: Who WON, fergawdsakes?!?

Thus, writing may have gotten a lot less interesting, but it was a lot more informative: The inverted pyramid placed the most important facts at the start of the story. Sentences were more focused, shorter and more active. WHO and WHAT were essential. WHEN and WHERE? The why’s and the how’s and the additional details...well, fill ’em in if and when you can, and we’ll run that stuff if there’s space.

Because that was another physical impediment on storytelling. Getting the basic facts through before the wires fell down was one thing. But then, how much room was there in the newspaper for the story? Up through today, one of the greatest limitations on news is physical spacce—how much will fit? Routinely, the people who put the final newspaper (or website or newscast) together simply paste the copy in, and then either cut from the bottom to make it fit, or just let the story meander on in cyberspace.

So it’s pretty important not to leave the most important stuff until last. Instead of building suspense, the writer who hopes to develop the theme and to create artistic tensions is more likely to find the whodunit climax cut away onto the floor, or lost at the unread/unseen/unregistered end.

So: The Inverted Pyramid was born. A pyramid, of course, starts at the bottom with the heaviest and most essential foundation, and builds in diminishing size and weight to a pinnacle, which disappears into nothing.

Invert that structure, and you start at the top with the MOST IMPORTANT stuff: WHO? Did WHAT? to WHOM? WHEN? and WHERE? So if the telegraph poles go down, you will have delivered your headlines, at least. It looks like this:

THE SUMMARY OF THE BIGBIG NEWS

A PARAGRAPH ADDING MORE KEY DETAILS
THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION

MAYBE A QUOTE OR SOME BACKGROUND
OTHER SUPPORTING DETAILS & STUFF
SOMEWHAT LESS IMPORTANT INFO
MORE, EXPANDING ON THE PREVIOUS
MORE DETAILS AND STUFF
MORE INFORMATION
AND MORE STUFF
AND MORE
AND
peter
out

This structure has its problems. For one thing, there’s no heart or soul or art or suspense, no character development or evocative descriptive detail. It assumes that people will shut you down after three sentences (if you’re lucky!).

All that is true—this is not great literature. But the inverted pyramid structure, starting with a summary lead to focus the reader’s attention and then feeding that interest one logical step at a time, is a powerful and valuable tool, not just in news writing, but in any kind of communication. Readers are busy, and especially when it comes to scanning the day’s news. If you can hook the reader in the first sentence, you can play him like a trout in the second and third grafs, and then keep reeling her into the rest of the story. This is a mechnism that not only can capture readers, but which can help you organize your own thoughts and your writing, whatever your topic and field. While your history classmates are struggling with the politics of the 14th Century, who will have framed your paper with, “For want of a horse, a kingdom died,” which in your mind is the central fact from which all other events unfolded.

If you can organize your own thoughts to focus on the most central points, your reader will thank you.

More stuff on inverted pyramid newswriting structure: From the mighty Chip Scanlan at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies... and this, too.... and from some blogs.... and you can find other stuff. But you get the idea.
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Stories 1-4

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Short News Stories

The lead, as you know, is the roadsign for the story: It summarizes the most important elements and tells the reader where the story (and the reader) are going. Technically, the “lead” (or “lede”) is just the first summary paragraph (or “graf”), but for our purposes, let’s make it the first few grafs, which get the story started.

The following provides you with four stories’ 5Ws and H, plus additional info. Your task is to take this information and organize it into the first, second and, if necessary, third paragraphs of a news story. Put all four stories in one document. At the top of each, start with the slug and your last name. Like this:

Nuke test
Pease

Then write your story with a short (one sentence, no more than 35 words) summary lead, followed by other info in logical order. Remember the inverted pyramid structure. REMEMBER THE FRED RULE! One (short) sentence per paragraph. Stop when you run out of info. If you wish you’d had other crucial info, note at the bottom in a memo to your editor (me).

Save your completed stories in a single Word.doc named

YOURLASTNAMEStories1.doc

and attach it to a Blackboard email to me by Thursday midnight. Questions, let me know.

—TedEd (Ted, your Editor)

~ ~ ~

1. Slug: Nuke test

WHO? A nuclear weapon with a yield equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT
WHAT? detonated
WHERE? In the Nevada desert, 2,000 feet underground, beneath the surface of Pahute Mesa; 40 miles away, pacifists were holding a protest rally
WHEN?
WHY? to test the weapon
HOW? Not applicable
Other info: The test was conducted by the Department of Energy. DOE officials are the source; the protest was by more than 450 physicians, scientists and peace activists, protesting continued nuclear weapons testing by the United States.


2. Slug: Boy found

WHO? 7-year-old boy missing for three years
WHAT? found
WHERE? in Brick Township, NJ
WHEN?
WHY? not applicable
HOW? A neighbor recognized the kid’s picture when it was shown after the movie Adam: The Song Continues, about a kidnapping; she called the cops
Other info: New Jersey police arrested the boy’s mother, Ellen Lynn Conner, 27, on kidnapping charges from Alabama. She will be arraigned and extradited to Alabama later in the week; the boy is in foster care until his relatives are contacted.


3. Slug: NW Airlines jet

WHO? 40 passengers
WHAT? Evacuated from a Northwest Airlines jet (flight 428)
WHERE? at the LaCrosse, Wis., Municipal Airport
WHEN?
WHY? an airport employee in the landing tower spotted smoke coming from the wheels
HOW? not applicable
Other info: the flight from Minneapolis had just landed. There was no flame, and no injuries, as emergency chutes deployed and the passengers and five crew slid to the tarmac. Smoke apparently caused by hydraulic fluid leaking onto the hot brakes upon landing. Info from NW spokesman Bob Gibbons.

4. Slug: Car crash
NOTE: I’m tired of identifying the WWWWWH for you, so do it yourself, and then write the story.

From your notes: car crash, intersection of Main Street and Biscayne Drive in north (YourTown—you choose) at 4:27 p.m. (yesterday). A sedan turned left at the traffic light into the path of a northbound cattletruck hauling 8 steers. Sedan was rear-ended and shoved onto the sidewalk. Truck jackknifed into opposite lanes; no other collisions, but traffic stopped for an hour. Sedan driver: McKinney, Janice T., d.o.b 7/18/68*, 7500 Northpark Ridge Drive, Apt. #6, (Yourtown); had two kids in the car: Celeste McKinney, d.o.b. 9/22/05; and Anthony McKinney, d.o.b. 2/09/03. Driver injured and taken to (Yourtown) Memorial Hospital; kids in seatbelts and uninjured. Truck driver Cowbuddy, Joe, d.o.b. 11/19/48, of Pocatello, Idaho, was uninjured. No charges so far; investigation pending. (All info from (Yourtown) Police Department spokesman.)

* d.o.b.= date of birth

WHO?
WHAT?
WHERE?
WHEN?
WHY?
HOW?

Week 3 Quiz

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NOTE: This got lost in cyberspace last week, so make it due Wednesday (9/16) at midnight. It has been emailed to you as a Word doc on Blackboard. Do it there and send back to me as an attachment. More stuff for this week to follow.

NewsHounds Week3 Quiz

Your Name:

From Harrower, Ch. 2: Terminology

• What do you call the area/subject that a reporter covers?

• What’s the function of the headline?

• What is a cutline?

• Publisher William Randolph Hearst said this is whatever makes you say, “Gee whiz!”

• What is the first sentence or paragraph of a news story called?

• What’s a jumpline?

• What’s the reporter’s name at the top of a news story called?

• What is “attribution”?

• What is a newspaper’s “flag”?

More stuff:

• Harrower lists five things that every reporter should remember about readers. Which do you think is most important and why?

• 1 ordinary man + 1 ordinary life = 0 news, says Bastion and Case in “News Arithmetic.” Why? What would make and “ordinary person” newsworthy?

• Harrower lists seven elements that make news interesting. What are they? Which do you think is most important and why?

• Harrower quotes many journalists on their jobs. Is there one comment—good or bad—about being a journalist that particularly struck you? Why?

• Do the Test Yourself exercise No. 1 on p. 32 and type your answers below.

From Pease’s Newswriting “Primer”:

• Explain what is meant by the “inverted pyramid.” How does it work?

• What should appear in a news story’s lead?

• Explain the “Fred Rule.” Why does it work for newswriting?

• What’s wrong with writing a news story chronologically?

• Pease says writing is an aural art. What does he mean? Do you agree?


Some Associated Press Style stuff. Correct these so they conform to AP style:

• The boy is five. He ate twenty-seven chocolates. He lives at Four Main Street.

• The new Governor of Utah is Gary Herbert. He is friends with Senator Orrin Hatch.

• The President of USU will speak at five PM in the afternoon. It ends at 6:00 pm.

• The hat cost 5 dollars. It is Brown. He lived in Paris, France, for 7 years.

• The conference took place over the week-end in Boston, MA.

• 200 North Central Boulevard. Fourteen Adams Road. 4 Elm Ave.

• He joined the air force and shipped out to Iraq.

• The car cost more than $24,000 thousand dollars. The cuts were $12,000,000, or more than 6% of the budget, and hurt nine percent of the staff.

• The student is nineteen years old. She drove 6 hours to get here. She drives a six year old Toyota. She had 7 suitcases and twenty-three stuffed monkeys in the trunk.
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