Reference: Writing Leads

Leads Handout

Journalism 1

Writing leads

In the inverted pyramid style of writing, we tell the story by revealing the most important information first and the least important information last.  Therefore, the lead, which is the first sentence of your hard news story, should contain the absolute most important information.  It is imperative that the lead is well written.  The reasons for this are:

•To attract the reader’s attention and to force the reader to read on.

•Since most people read only the lead, yours must tell what happened so that the reader can get the most important information from the lead.

Every hard news story you will write is going to focus on one of two things.  These are:

•Something that happened that is of importance or interest to people.

•Someone who is important or prominent in our society who said or did something important or interesting.

Therefore, if your lead is about something that happened that is important to your readers, you must answer the following questions in your lead:

•What happened that was interesting, significant, unusual or has an impact on the community?

•Who told you what happened (the attribution).

•When did it happen (the time element).

You MUST answer AT LEAST these three questions. If you have room to answer more, then you should try to answer the question that says HOW this event impacts your readers.  Put only the most important elements in the lead.  Put whatever you cannot fit in the lead in the second, third and fourth (if necessary) paragraphs. The idea is not to put everything in the lead; the idea is to put the most important information in the lead.

Avoid burying your leads.  What this means is that you have failed to include the most important information in the first 10 words of your lead OR you have failed to include the most important information anywhere in the lead. If the information is nowhere in the lead, it is usually buried elsewhere in the story. This is not good.  Remember, the summary lead, which is what you are writing, should provide the most important information immediately.  It should NOT keep the reader guessing what happened and it should not tease the reader or tempt the reader to read more of the story.

You need to use your news judgment to determine which of the 5 W’s and the H is most important.  Remember to think of the seven elements of news when you are wondering which of the 5 W’s and H to use in the lead. The seven elements of news tell you the newsworthiness of a story.  Use them to guide you and to help you develop your news judgment.

Summary leads do two things:

•Summarize the story.

•Invite the reader to read the rest of the story.

Putting the most important of the 5 W’s and H into the lead will summarize the story.  Using the strongest possible words will entice the reader.

The trick to writing a summary lead that summarizes AND entices, rather than one that simply wraps up the story, is to continue working on the lead until the best possible combination of words is used.  This means:

•Do NOT go with the first lead you write.  After writing an acceptable lead, rewrite it to improve upon it.  Keep telling yourself that you can make it better and keep working on it until you do.

•Avoid superfluous words.

•Avoid jargon, gobbledygook or other meaningless phrases.

•Write clearly and concisely.

•Use vivid verbs.

•Use colorful words.

BAD LEAD:   Women are likely to be disappointed in their choice of a permanent mate, a study released Tuesday said.

GOOD LEAD: Women want permanent mates who are sensitive, self-assured and warm, but they usually come up cold, a sociologist’s report released Tuesday said.

BAD LEAD: More than 500 students listened to a reverend Tuesday at El Camino College who was speaking in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. at El Camino College.

GOOD LEAD:  If you graduate from college, work hard and are a responsible adult, your dreams will come true, the Rev. Mark Thompson said Tuesday to 500 high school students. 

You must spend some time working on these leads to understand how to write them as you are learning a new skill and a new way of writing. You are also learning a new way of thinking about things, so you need to give yourself permission to take the time needed to really learn how to write in this way.  You must write and rewrite several times. As every writer knows, writing is not so much writing as it is rewriting.

 Good luck!!

Reference: Libel

Libel

Libel is written defamation. This means that you’ve written something that has unjustly damaged someone’s character, reputation or standing in the community. Libel can appear in most anything that appears in print, including headlines, captions, advertisements, stories, columns, letters to the editor, etc.

When courts consider libel cases, they usually look at four categories to determine if a person’s reputation has been damaged. According to our text, these categories are:

1.    Accusing a person of a crime.

2.    Damaging a person in his or her public office, profession or occupation.

3.    Accusing a person of serious immorality.

4.    Accusing someone of having a loathsome disease. 

Libel is:

·      Material that is false.

·      Material that is published.

·      Material that identifies the person being libeled.  This can be done any number of ways, including with initials, nicknames, descriptions, uncaptioned photographs, drawings or cartoons.

·      Material that is presented as factual, not as opinion.

·      Material that defames or in any way injures the person’s reputation or standing in his or her community.

·      Material that results from negligence or actual malice. Negligence occurs when a writer or a publication publishes a falsehood as a result of failing to observe the normal standards of journalism. Actual malice occurs when a writer or a publication publishes a story with knowledge that it is false or with reckless disregard for its veracity.

Defenses for libel:

• Statute of limitation is one year.
• Truth.  You must be able to prove that what you wrote is true. 
• Matter of public record.  Any public records, like court records, congressional records or any other records that the public can get copies of are safe for you to report in the newspaper.
• Privilege. You will be protected when reporting fairly and accurately on any member of the three branches of government who is exercising absolute privilege. They can say anything at work while making or carrying out laws, and you can quote them.  
• Fair comment and criticism.  You have the right to review the work and the performances of persons and groups that offer their efforts for public approval or whose work affects the public.
• Constitutional or First Amendment defense (a.k.a. Fair and Accurate Report). This allows the media to freely and openly discuss public matters and to report on public meetings, proceedings and documents.
• Absence of actual malice.

Reference: How To Structure A Hard News Story

How to structure your hard news stories

1.         Write a short lead that simply and clearly tells what happened, who told you what happened and when it happened. If you can answer more of the 5 W’s and the H than these three, do so. If not, then make sure you’ve answered at least those three.  Remember that the lead cannot be longer than 30 words, must be only one sentence, etc.  You must follow the rules for lead writing and the Checklist for your Leads when writing this paragraph.

2.         Use the second and, if necessary, the third paragraph for additional important information.  Let the reader know why this story is important or why this event is significant.  Answer the remaining 5 W’s and H in paragraphs two and three that you did not answer in the lead paragraph. 

3.         By the third or by the fourth paragraph, use a direct quote from someone who is associated with the article.  Your best quote should go here. From this point on, sprinkle direct quotes throughout the story.  A good news story contains about 25 to 30 percent direct quotes, so try to include one every second or third paragraph throughout the story.

4.         By the fourth or by the fifth paragraph, include any background information that would be necessary for the reader to fully understand this article.

5.         Present the news in the order of descending importance.  You must look at your information and, using your news judgment and what you know about your readers, decide what is most important and present it at the top of the story with the least important information at the end.  Remember to always ask yourself:  What would the reader want to know?  Or:  Why is this story important to my reader?  Make sure that your complete story always answers these questions.

6.         Use transitions to carry the reader smoothly from paragraph to paragraph and more idea to idea.  If you do not use transitions, then the story will not flow smoothly.  If the story fails to flow smoothly, then the reader will likely stop reading whenever he or she finds your story too much work to understand or too much work to read.  The idea with your writing is to make it as smooth and as easy to read as possible.  If it flows smoothly from one paragraph and one idea to the next, then the reader will hang in there and read the entire story.

7.         Do not editorialize or let the reader know that you have an opinion about the subject.  You must remain neutral.  This also means that you must include attribution in every paragraph that you write.  The attribution lets the reader know who told you this information and it lets the reader know that someone else said this, that this is not your opinion.  Remember, this is journalism.  Journalism is about reporting the facts.

8.         Present all sides of the story. Do not give one side or another too much or too little weight. Seek to represent all stories fairly and accurately in a way that reflects the reality of the situation. Not all sides will always deserve equal weight. It is best to let one side speak and then immediately let the other side respond.  In other words, do NOT stack all of the quotes from one side in a six or seven paragraph block and then give the other side six or seven paragraphs in which to respond.  It is best to let them go back and forth.  The reason you don’t want to stack one side and then get to the other side is that readers may not read the entire story, so they may not get to the other side.  If you give each side alternating paragraphs within which to make their point, then you won’t have this problem.

9.         Generally, use only one new idea in each paragraph.  Don’t overload any paragraph with too much information or too many ideas.  Keep it simple.  Simple writing is clear writing and clear writing is writing that will keep the reader reading.

10.       Write paragraphs that are only between 20 and 40 words in length.  Keep your sentences to 30 words or less in length.  This means, then, that you can have a paragraph of one sentence of around 30 words OR you can have a paragraph of two sentences, as long as each one of those sentences is around 15 to 25 words long.

11.       Whenever you use direct quotes, they START a NEW paragraph.  This is how you would use a direct quote:  First, you write a great transition that leads into the direct quote.  This transition paragraph is the paragraph directly above the direct quote.  Then, in the next paragraph, you start off this way:

“It was the most wonderful moment in my life,” Steve Jones said. 

Then, you immediately begin a new paragraph.  You’ll notice that I used the person’s first and last name (this is assuming this was the first time I mentioned the person in my story; if it is the second time, or the second reference, then I would have used only Jones), her title and THEN I wrote said.  The said ALWAYS goes AFTER the person’s name.  Always.  You would also ALWAYS write:  she said, he said, etc.  Think of it this way: it’s awkward to write said she, so don’t write it and don’t write said Jones.

12.       Do NOT put the words, “the end” at the end of the story.  Do not conclude the story in any way.  The news story simply ends after you have told all of the newsworthy information and there is nothing left to write.  The best way to end a news story is with a direct quote from one of your sources.  Use your second-best quote as the last paragraph as a sort of treat to the reader for hanging in there so long and reading the entire story.  The person you’ve interviewed also gets the chance to have the last word.  The reader also gets to hear from the source one last time.

Fast Food Story (notes from lecture)

News Writing and Reporting

Assignment No. 9

Here are some statements made during a talk by Edith Heather Cahn, head nutritionist for the Food Studies Association of Chicago who visited the EC campus Tuesday.  Exactly 205 students and faculty members were at the Campus Theatre for her talk.  The title of her talk was “America Fattens Up” and it was given as part of EC’s Nutrition Awareness Month.  All of the following are exact quotes and you are to use the following as if these were your notes from her talk.  Please write a story of between 250 and 350 words in length.  Please note that there ARE style and spelling errors throughout this story.  They’ve been purposefully inserted to see if you will find them and will correct them.  Good luck!

We are no longer improving our diets as Americans.  For the last five years, one-third of our diet has consisted of what we call better-for-you foods.  But, recently, we have leveled off from purchasing and eating these lower fat, healthier foods and are no longer on the way to a fat-free or a lower-fat diet.  This is in spite of the fact that there are more healthier offerings today than ever before.

            Instead, we are seeing growth in another area—hamburgers, French fries, and chicken nuggets.  Americans love their junk food.  This year, in a two-week period that we studied, Americans ate five million more orders of chicken nuggets, six million more hamburgers and eight million more servings of French fries than they did during this same period last year.  That’s enough fat to fill a string of railroad tank cars for miles.

            We’re also eating on the run more.  Takeout food makes up more than half of the restaurant business, whereas only two years ago, it made up less than a third of the restaurant business.  This is why the fastest-growing restaurant items are soft drinks, French fries, hamburgers and chicken nuggets. 

Even though some fast-food restaurants are putting more salads and yogurts and chicken sandwiches on their menus, these foods are not that healthy for you.  Did you know that the average salad sold at a fast-food restaurant actually has more calories and fat than a cheeseburger at that same restaurant?  That’s because of the salad dressing.  If they included a low-fat or no-fat salad dressing, then it would be healthier, but if that choice is offered, and often-times it’s not, most young people don’t take it.  Also, those nuts they put on the salads and the yogurt have more fat in them than french fries.  And if you think that eating Chinese food is good for you, stir-fried beef and broccoli, the most popular Chinese food dish, has more fat and calories in it than a burger and fries.  So you not only have to make wise decisions about what you eat, you also have to look at the nutritional analysis of these foods that is available at any restaurant if you ask for it.  The problem is, most people do not ask for it because they don’t want to know that their favorite food is so bad for them.

            The fast-food diet is one that will not only make you obese, but it will also clog your arteries and cut your lifespan.  If you want to list the worst diet possible, this is it.  And the worst offenders are young people.  Older people tend to watch their diets and tend to consume the healthier, better-for-you foods.  Young people think they will live forever, so they just eat what tastes good and what is simple and easy to get.

            The worst eaters are college students.  In the two days I’ve been at El Camino College speaking in classes, I’ve witnessed some of the worst, most unsafe eating I’ve ever seen.  Students here are eating themselves into quick graves.  Your diets of grease-choked burgers and fries with a quart of cola on the side will come back to haunt you in about ten years.  Your arteries will be so clogged that your cardiac doctor will need a Roto-Rooter to clear them out.

After her talk, you talked to a professor and a student.  Here are their quotes:

Dr. Sally Simson, health professor at EC:

            I think what the speaker said makes a great deal of sense.  We are eating worse today than probably ever before in our nation’s history.  I think it’s great that she made such strong statements.  I hope it scares some of our students into making healthier food choices and eating healthier diets.  

John Dough, undeclared major, 20 years old, EC student:

            I love my burgers and fries and I don’t care what that old wind-bag has to say about it; I’m not giving them up!  I’m not at all worried about dying an early death and I’m not going to change my diet no matter what anyone tells me.