Boot CampTuesday, Aug. 11

Online NewsCovering a speech or meeting

Guidelines for Writing Effective Leads and Following Newswriting Style

• Identify the central point • Be concise and specific • Use strong, active verbs • Remain objective (no first person) • Use attribution

• Fire tore through a Main Street home early Monday morning killing three people and injuring two others, police said.

Prioritizing Information in the Lead

1. What is the most important information?

2. What action was taken?3. What are the most recent

developments?4. Which facts are most likely to affect or

interest readers?5. Which facts are the most unusual?

The Inverted Pyramid

• The most important information is at the “top,” or start of the news story.

• The first paragraph is called the “lead” or “lede.”

• The lede should contain 30 words or less.*

• A lede should include the Five WS.

The 5Ws

• Who, What, Where, When, and Why• Your lede should try to answer as

many of these as possible in one sentence. •However, prioritizing one or two

of the 5Ws in the lead also is an effective strategy.

See how news transforms

ERIC TUCKERPublished: Jan 25, 2014 • COLUMBIA, Md.--A man carrying a shotgun opened fire at a

busy shopping mall in suburban Baltimore on Saturday, killing two employees of a skate shop and then himself as panicked shoppers ran for cover, police said.

------• COLUMBIA, Md.—The gunman who killed two people at a

Maryland mall was a teenage skateboarding enthusiast who had no criminal record before he showed up at the shopping center armed with a shotgun, plenty of ammunition and a backpack filled with crude homemade explosives, authorities said Sunday.

The Who• Only mention the identity of a person in the

lede if they are prominent or well known. – A Bethesda bus driver struck and killed a

bicyclist early Tuesday morning on Sunny Street, police said.

– Beyoncé was struck and killed by a Bethesda bus driver on Sunny Street early Tuesday morning while riding a bike, police said.

Building the hard news story:Beyond the lead

• As you move down into the inverted pyramid, fill in more observation & interview material to fill out the story.

• As a general rule, paragraphs 1 & 2 are the 5Ws

• Paragraph 3 is a quote that adds details and emotions

Look at Exercise 7.10

• What are the 5Ws?

A pipe fitter was listed in serious condition Monday after he accidentally touched a wrench to a power line carrying 15,000 volts at the Municipal Power Plant in Petal, according to a company official.

7.10A pipe fitter was listed in serious condition Monday after he accidentally touched a wrench to a power line carrying 15,000 volts at the Municipal Power Plant in Petal, according to a company official.

Duane LaChance, 53, of Petal, was admitted to Methodist Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit with third-degree burns, after he touched a power line while installing new pipes at the Power Drive plant, said Henry Rosen, a project manager with Gross Engineers, LaChance’s employer.

Covering meetings and speeches• Meetings and speeches will likely dominate

your beat • Reporters on a beat need to make judgments

about which meetings to cover and find the news from them

• Chronology of the event does not apply in judging newsworthiness for your story

• Remember: The news is never that the meeting, speech or event took place but what action or events emerged as newsworthy

You need to determine:

What is the news?

Covering the Speech or Meeting; doing field reporting

• So these become routine but good reporters know how to perfect the tasks. They use: –Advance preparation – Sound news judgment –Accuracy – Ear for quotes – Eye for details—yes, observation

• If it’s a speech, get an advance copy – Check if it’s embargoed

Covering the Speech or Meeting

• Do research • Arrive early • Introduce yourself • Talk to everyone you can • Take detailed notes • As you listen to a speech or topic at a meeting,

consider how to find opposing viewpoints • Complicated and confusing? Ask questions.

Remember Your Readers

• Always remember to clarify issues so readers can understand – Eliminate jargon

• Check facts –Work with a research librarian or use

your own sources to delve deeper into a speaker’s comments

• Make meetings and speeches relevant—what’s the impact for your audience?

Adding Color: Interviews

• Using quotes and interviews are essential to provide balance and get reaction

• Reporting direct quotations and paraphrasing what people say also offers a sense of the tone

• Meetings can get very heated – Exchanges between politicians or

between a politician and a member of the public may get very emotional

• Stay objective

Adding Color: Observation

• Using observation – Imagine a Board of Education meeting where

150 teachers showed up wearing red T-shirts in a sign of solidarity over a proposed pay raise. –Or if someone in the crowd at a controversial

speaker’s talk carried a hand-made sign that read: “FIRE JAYNE DOE.”

• Use your nouns and verbs to set the scene

Covering a News Conference

• It’s On Us • Write the first three paragraphs of a breaking news

story about this news conference • Consider: – The news – The facts – The quote

• For time element, treat it as if it happened this morning meaning time element is “Tuesday” – Never use “today” or “yesterday”