Newswriting - The Basics

The inverted pyramid - the model for newswriting

The Lede is the first sentence of the news story. It usually includes the Five W's and the H:

Who - What - Where - When - Why - How

Depending on the story, one of these elements might be more important than the others. If so, emphasize that element.

The lede is the main point of the story transmitted in roughly 35-40 words.

Look at this lede. See how much information it conveys in a single sentence:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, facing doubts about his handling of Iraq amid rising casualties, is asking Congress for $87 billion to fight terrorism and cautioning Americans that the struggle "will take time and require sacrifice."
 

The newswriting format developed during the Civil War as correspondents realized the need to transmit important information via telegraph quickly.

In general, newswriting should be short and to the point. Leads should almost always be one just sentence, and the rest of the paragraphs in a news story should be no more than 1-2 sentences each.

In other words, news stories should be a thorough account of the facts in the story, written as tightly as possible.

The Associated Press is known for tight, succinct newswriting. Read their stories and see how they use short ledes and paragraphs of just 1-2 sentences each.

Use the S-V-O - Subject-Verb-Object format for tight writing. What's the difference between these two sentences?

"She read the book."

"The book was read by her."

Objectivity and Fairness

Read this article on objectivity. In hard-news stories we give readers just the facts, not our opinions. We try to get both sides of issues that are in dispute. However, we don't let objectivity hinder us from finding the truth.

In the end, good newswriting starts with solid reporting. You can't write a good news story if you haven't done the reporting. A news story should be a thorough account of the facts in the story, written as tightly as possible.

Newsworthiness

So what makes something newsworthy? Editors use the criteria below to decide how newsworthy something is. Click the links and think about how and why those events were newsworthy.  

Impact - Conflict - Loss of Life/Property Destruction - Proximity - Prominence - Timeliness - Novelty

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AND AP STYLE

AP style is simply a standardized way of writing everything from dates to street addresses in news stories. AP style was developed and is maintained by The Associated Press, the world’s oldest news service. It is followed by the vast majority of news outlets in the U.S.