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Education and Communications

How to Write a News Article

Last Updated: June 5, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Gerald Posner . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 2,419,249 times.

Writing a news article is different from writing other articles or informative pieces because news articles present information in a specific way. It's important to be able to convey all the relevant information in a limited word count and give the facts to your target audience concisely. Knowing how to write a news article can help a career in journalism , develop your writing skills and help you convey information clearly and concisely.

Things You Should Know

Outline your article with all the facts and interview quotes you’ve gathered. Decide what your point of view on the topic is before you start writing.
Your first sentence is the most important one—craft an attention-getter that clearly states the most important information.
Proofread for accurate information, consistent style and tone, and proper formatting.

Sample Articles

Planning Your Article

If you’ve ever written a research paper you understand the work that goes into learning about your topic. The first phase of writing a news article or editorial is pretty similar.
Who - who was involved?
What - what happened?
Where - where did it happen?
Why - why did it happen?
When - when did it happen?
How - how did it happen?

1) those that need to be included in the article.
2) those that are interesting but not vital.
3) those that are related but not important to the purpose of the article.
This fact list will help prevent you from leaving out any relevant information about the topic or story, and will also help you write a clean, succinct article.
Be as specific as possible when writing down all of these facts. You can always trim down unnecessary information later, but it’s easier to cut down than it is to have to beef up an article.
It’s okay at this point to have holes in your information – if you don’t have a pertinent fact, write down the question and highlight it so you won’t forget to find it out
Now that you have your facts, if your editor has not already assigned the type of article, decide what kind of article you’re writing. Ask yourself whether this is an opinion article, an unbiased and straightforward relaying of information, or something in between. [2] X Research source

If you’ve ever heard the term “burying the lead”, that is in reference to the structure of your article. [4] X Research source The “lead” is the first sentence of the article – the one you “lead” with. Not "burying the lead" simply means that you should not make your readers read several paragraphs before they get to the point of your article.
Whatever forum you’re writing for, be it print or for the web, a lot of readers don’t make it to the end of the article. When writing a news article, you should focus on giving your readers what they want as soon as possible.
Write above the fold. The fold comes from newspapers where there’s a crease because the page gets folded in half. If you look at a newspaper all the top stories are placed above the fold. The same goes for writing online. The virtual fold is the bottom of your screen before you have to scroll down. Put the best information at the top to engage your readers and encourage them to keep reading.

Ask yourself the “5 W's” again, but this time in relation to your audience.
Questions like what is the average age you are writing for, where is this audience, local or national, why is this audience reading your article, and what does your audience want out of your article will inform you on how to write.
Once you know who you are writing for you can format an outline that will get the best information to the right audience as quickly as possible.

Even if you are covering a popular story or topic that others are writing about, look for an angle that will make this one yours.
Do you have a personal experience that relates to your topic? Maybe you know someone who is an expert that you can interview .

People usually like to talk about personal experiences, especially if it will be featured somewhere, like your news article. Reach out through a phone call, email, or even social media and ask someone if you can interview them.
When you do interview people you need to follow a few rules: identify yourself as a reporter. Keep an open mind . Stay objective. While you are encouraged to ask questions and listen to anecdotes, you are not there to judge.
Record and write down important information from the interview, and be transparent with what you are doing and why you are doing this interview.

Writing Your News Article

Your lead should be one sentence and should simply, but completely, state the topic of the article.
Remember when you had to write essays for school? Your lead is like your thesis statement.
Let your readers know what your news article is about, why it’s important, and what the rest of the article will contain.

These details are important, because they are the focal point of the article that fully informs the reader.
If you are writing an opinion piece , this is where you will state what your opinion is as well.

Step 3 Follow up main facts with additional information.

This additional information helps round out the article and can help you transition to new points as you move along.
If you have an opinion, this is where you will identify the opposing views and the people who hold them.
A good news article will outline facts and information. A great news article will allow readers to engage on an emotional level.
To engage your readers, you should provide enough information that anyone reading your news article can make an informed opinion, even if it contrasts with yours.
This also applies to a news article where you the author don’t state your opinion but present it as an unbiased piece of information. Your readers should still be able to learn enough about your topic to form an opinion.

Make sure your news article is complete and finished by giving it a good concluding sentence. This is often a restatement of the leading statement (thesis) or a statement indicating potential future developments relating to the article topic.
Read other news articles for ideas on how to best accomplish this. Or, watch news stations or shows. See how a news anchor will wrap up a story and sign off, then try to emulate that.

Proofing Your Article

Be sure to double check all the facts in your news article before you submit it, including names, dates, and contact information or addresses. Writing accurately is one of the best ways to establish yourself as a competent news article writer.

Step 2 Ensure you have followed your outline and have been consistent with style.

If your news article is meant to convey direct facts, not the opinions of its writer, ensure you’ve kept your writing unbiased and objective. Avoid any language that is overly positive or negative or statements that could be construed as support or criticism.
If your article is meant to be more in the style of interpretive journalism then check to make sure that you have given deep enough explanations of the larger story and offered multiple viewpoints throughout.

Step 3 Follow the AP Style for formatting and citing sources.

When quoting someone, write down exactly what was said inside quotations and immediately cite the reference with the person’s proper title. Formal titles should be capitalized and appear before a person’s name. Ex: “Mayor John Smith”.
Always write out numbers one through nine, but use numerals for numbers 10 and up.
When writing a news article, be sure to only include one space after a period, not two. [12] X Research source

Step 4 Have your editor read your article.

You shouldn’t submit any news article for publication without first letting someone take a look at it. An extra pair of eyes can double check your facts and the information to ensure that what you have written is accurate.
If you are writing a news article for school or your own personal website, then have a friend take a look at it and give you notes. Sometimes you may get notes that you want to defend or don’t agree with it. But these should be listened to. Remember, with so many news articles getting published every minute you need to ensure that your widest possible audience can easily digest the information you have provided.

Expert Q&A

Start with research and ask the “5. Asking these questions will help you create an outline and a narrative to your article. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Interview people, and remember to be polite and honest about what you are writing. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Put the most important information at the beginning of your article. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Expert Interview

Thanks for reading our article! If you'd like to learn more about writing an article, check out our in-depth interview with Gerald Posner .

↑ https://libguides.mit.edu/select-topic
↑ https://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources/different-genres/news-writing-fundamentals
↑ https://libguides.southernct.edu/journalism/howtowrite
↑ https://spcollege.libguides.com/c.php?g=254319&p=1695313
↑ https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/cm360
↑ https://mediahelpingmedia.org/basics/how-to-find-and-develop-important-news-angles/
↑ https://www.northwestern.edu/brand/editorial-guidelines/newswriting-guidelines/
↑ https://tacomacc.libguides.com/c.php?g=599051&p=4147190
↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/ap_style.html
↑ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/punctuation/space-after-period
↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/

About This Article

To write a news article, open with a strong leading sentence that states what the article is about and why it’s important. Try to answer the questions who, what, where, when, and why as early in the article as possible. Once you’ve given the reader the most important facts, you can include any additional information to help round out the article, such as opposing views or contact information. Finish with a strong concluding sentence, such as an invitation to learn more or a statement indicating future developments. For tips on researching your article, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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The Art of Journalistic Writing: A Comprehensive Guide ✍️

Journalistic writing aims to provide accurate and objective news coverage to the audience. Learn how to write like journalists in this comprehensive guide.

In the fast-paced realm of freelance writing, captivating and informative articles are the key to setting yourself apart from the competition. That's where the art of journalistic writing becomes your secret weapon.

Below, we'll delve into the significance of journalistic writing for Independents, demystify its definition and various types, explore its essential features, and provide you with invaluable tips to sharpen your skills. Get ready to unlock the power of journalistic writing and take your freelance career to new heights . Let's dive in and discover the magic behind compelling stories that captivate readers worldwide.

What is journalistic writing? 📝

Journalistic writing, as the name implies, is the style of writing used by journalists and news media organizations to share news and information about local, national, and global events, issues, and developments with the public.

The main goal of journalistic writing is to provide accurate and objective news coverage. Journalists gather facts, conduct research, and interview sources to present a fair and unbiased account of events. They strive to deliver information clearly, concisely, and interestingly that grabs readers’ attention and helps them understand the subject.

Journalistic writing also encourages public discussion, critical thinking, and informed decision-making. Since journalists present diverse perspectives, analyze complex issues, and investigate misconduct, they empower readers to form opinions and actively engage with the news. Journalistic writing acts as a watchdog, holding institutions and individuals accountable and promoting transparency in society.

Types of journalistic writing 🔥

Different types of journalism writing styles serve unique purposes, from exposing truths to keeping us informed, sparking conversations, and providing meaningful insights into the world around us.

Here are five types of journalistic writing you should know about:

Investigative journalism 🕵️

Investigative journalists are like detectives in the news world. They dive deep into topics, dedicating their time and resources to uncover hidden information, expose corruption, and bring wrongdoing to the surface.

News journalism 🗞️

News journalists are frontline reporters who inform people about the latest happenings. They cover a wide range of topics, from politics and the economy to science and entertainment. They gather facts, interview sources, and present unbiased information objectively and concisely.

Column journalism 📰

In column journalism, writers share their personal opinions and perspectives on various subjects. They offer analysis, commentary, and insights on social, cultural, or political issues. Whether they are experts in their fields or well-known figures with unique voices, their columns provide readers with different standpoints and spark thought-provoking discussions.

Feature writing 🙇

Feature writers take us beyond the basic facts and immerse us in storytelling. They explore human-interest stories, profiles, and in-depth features on specific topics. They also delve into the personal lives, experiences, or achievements of individuals or communities, providing a deeper understanding of the subject matter by using narrative techniques.

Reviews journalism 📖

Reviewers are the guides helping us make informed decisions about the arts. They evaluate and critique films, books, music, theater shows, and more. Through their opinions and assessments, they analyze the quality, impact, and significance of creative works. Review journalism not only helps us choose what to watch, read, or listen to, but it also contributes to cultural conversations and discussions.

Key features of journalistic writing 🔑

Journalistic writing distinguishes itself from other forms of writing through several essential characteristics. And here are a few:

Accuracy and objectivity: These are of utmost importance. Journalists go to great lengths to gather reliable information, verify sources, and present a balanced perspective. They strive to separate facts from opinions, ensuring readers receive an accurate account of events.
Timeliness and relevance: Journalists focus on current events and issues that are of interest to the public. They aim to provide up-to-date information, sharing the latest developments and their implications.
Clarity and conciseness: Journalists use clear and simple language, avoiding complex jargon that might confuse the audience. They use short sentences and paragraphs that enhance readability.
Inverted pyramid structure: Commonly employed in journalistic writing, this structure places the most important information at the beginning of the article –– in the headline and the first paragraph. Subsequent paragraphs contain supporting details arranged in descending order of significance. By adopting this approach, journalists enable readers to grasp the main points quickly and decide whether to delve deeper into the topic.
Engagement and impact: Journalists leverage various storytelling techniques, such as vivid descriptions and compelling narratives, to captivate their audience. They incorporate quotes, anecdotes, and human-interest elements to evoke emotions among readers and make the story relatable.

How to write like a journalist: 7 tips 💯

Now that you know the ins and outs of journalistic style and storytelling, let’s explore the best practices to follow during news writing:

1. Use the inverted pyramid structure 🔻

If you’re wondering how to structure and write a news story or article, the answer is simple: Go from the most important to the least important. Start your articles with vital facts, and arrange supporting details in descending order of significance. This structure ensures readers receive essential information even if they don’t read the entire piece.

2. Establish your angle 📐

Before you begin writing , determine the angle or perspective you want to take on the story. Although you should share a neutral opinion, choosing an angle helps you stay focused and deliver a clear message. Consider what makes your story unique or newsworthy, and shape your narrative accordingly.

3. Stick to the facts 🩹

Journalistic writing values accuracy and objectivity. Present information verifiable and supported by credible sources, and avoid personal opinions and biases –– allowing the facts to speak for themselves. Fact-checking is essential to maintain the integrity of your writing.

4. Use quotations to generate credibility 💭

Including quotes from reliable sources adds credibility and depth to your writing. Interview relevant individuals, experts, or eyewitnesses to gather their perspectives and insights. Incorporate their direct quotes to support your narrative and provide first-hand accounts.

5. Write clear and concise sentences 💎

Use straightforward language to effectively communicate your message. Journalism articles typically only include one-to-three sentences per paragraph and should not exceed 20 words per sentence.

6. Edit and revise 💻

Thorough editing is crucial to produce polished and professional journalistic pieces. So once you finish your first draft, invest time on editing and revising your work. Look for grammatical errors, clarity issues, and redundancies. And ensure your writing flows smoothly and maintains a consistent tone.

7. Maintain ethical standards 🏅

You want repeat readers who’ll come back for more from you. And for that, you must keep in mind journalistic principles and share fair, trusting, and accountable pieces. Attribute information to appropriate sources, respect privacy when necessary, and conduct thorough fact-checking.

Write like a pro with Contra 🌟

Mastering the art of journalistic writing is the key to becoming a skilled and impactful freelance writer . By understanding the criticality of thorough research, engaging storytelling, and holding the powerful accountable, you can create compelling news stories that resonate with readers.

And with Contra as your trusted companion, you'll have the tools and resources to refine your journalistic writing skills and take your freelance career to new heights. So don't miss out on the opportunity to write like a pro. Sign up with Contra today, promote your services commission-free, and connect with fellow writers.

Check out Contra for Independents , and join our Slack community to interact with a supportive network of writers, sharing knowledge and learning from each other.

How to Write an Op-Ed: A Guide to Effective Opinion Writing 🖋️

Crafting an Informative Essay: A Comprehensive Guide 📝

What Is Content Writing? Tips to Craft Engaging Content 👀

The 12 Rules Of Grammar Everyone Should Know ✍️

How to Write a Novel: A Guide to Creating a Future Classic 🐣📖

How to Make Pictures Look Professional: Photo Editing Tips 📸

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How to Write Online News Articles

By NBCU Academy

Learn story-writing tips from the NBC News Digital team.

How do you write great online news articles? Learn about writing style and the elements of a news article from Julie Shapiro, assistant managing editor for NBC News Digital Enterprise.

Journalistic writing should clearly inform the reader about a noteworthy event or development. Reporters should write online news stories in a way that’s engaging enough to keep the reader’s attention while also delivering the important facts. The following are the essential elements.

The story should begin in an interesting way that is directly tied to the main point. This is usually referred to as a “lede” or “lead.” Readers have a lot of competition for their attention, so the story needs to grab them immediately. Use a dramatic anecdote, a surprising fact or an important breaking news update.

The nut graph

The nut graph is the heart of the story. It explains what the news is about, why it’s timely and why readers should care. The nut graph can be one sentence or several paragraphs and should include the answers to who, what, when, where and why. It often places the new developments in context by describing the bigger picture.

The body

After the lede and nut graph, the rest of the story should start to fall into place. Rely on expert voices, analysis and key details.

Quotes

Quotes can be powerful, but use them sparingly so that they stand out. In general, a writer can paraphrase a point better than a character can. A good quote does more than just convey information — it can add color, drama and depth.

Selective details

The rest of the story expands on the points made in the nut graph. Informative details could include examples, scenes and background information or sensory descriptions of the news scene. But choose wisely — too much detail can make the reader lose interest.

Clear writing

Write without jargon, and keep sentences clear and direct. If a sentence needs to be read more than once to understand its meaning, trim it down or take it out. Don’t include words or phrases that would be unfamiliar to most readers.

The kicker

End with something memorable. A short breaking news story may not need a formal ending, or kicker, but most stories should end with something memorable. A punchy quote is a good option. Other options include a forward-looking line on what’s next for an issue or character, or one last memorable takeaway for the reader.

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Behind the story: ukraine’s ‘mom news network’, improve your media literacy. think like a journalist, mastering the street interview, the earth needs more environmental reporters, take our free fundamentals of journalism course, take our free bilingual journalism course.

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Master the Essentials of News Writing: A Comprehensive Beginner’s Guide

Published: November 27, 2023
By: Yellowbrick

1. Understand the News Writing Structure

2. grab the reader’s attention with a strong headline, 3. write a compelling lead, 4. stick to the facts, 5. use clear and concise language, 6. maintain objectivity, 7. write for the web, 8. fact-check and edit, 9. develop your news writing skills, 10. stay informed and adapt, key takeaways:.

Understanding the structure of news writing, such as the inverted pyramid, is essential for presenting information effectively.
Crafting strong headlines and leads helps grab readers’ attention and entices them to continue reading.
Maintaining objectivity and sticking to the facts are crucial aspects of news writing.
Using clear and concise language ensures that your articles are easily understood by a wide audience.
Writing for the web requires incorporating SEO techniques and making your content scannable.
Fact-checking, editing, and following journalistic ethics are important steps before publishing your news articles.
Developing your news writing skills through reading, practice, and additional courses like the one offered by Yellowbrick can enhance your abilities.
Staying informed, adapting to changes, and embracing new technologies are necessary to thrive in the evolving field of news writing.

Enter your email to learn more and get a full course catalog!

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Tiana brown director of broadcasting & production, university of pennsylvania game day broadcast staff, philadelphia eagles my biggest advice is that if no one wants to open the door for you, kick it off the hinges. most of the opportunities that i have been afforded thus far have come from creating my own and giving opportunities to other people. creating your own opportunities can take a lot of sacrifice, a lot of lost sleep, a lot of fun missed, but in the end it will all be worth it when you wake up every morning living out your dreams..

Stefani Marie Clare Janelli Founder, The MIC & Artist Development Specialist (13 Seconds Music) Have tough skin, but be open to learning and adapting! This industry is constantly changing overnight, and adapting to however the wind blows is vital. It's also essential to have the willingness to learn. Being open to learning a new way to do something, or to listen to a new idea, even when it's not your own, is advice anyone at any age could benefit from!

Shelby Gussman Senior Director, Social Fisch I define success as achieving my goals, assisting my team with achieving theirs, and then setting the bar higher and accomplishing more than before all while being able to enjoy life! I hope to have the opportunity to work in different global markets, travel, collaborate with new people, and continue to be challenged and learn.

Sharrod Williams Actor, Writer, Producer - Neighbors, Hamilton, Moulin Rouge! The Musical There are no small parts. None. I have been fortunate enough to wear many different hats, big and small, on different projects. But like any machine, organization, or even the human body - each role I take on is in service of the one greater purpose, to tell a story. The hat i've worn the most is "actor". In this role, I am the vessel that conveys the humanity and experience of what each character I play is going through in the story being told. My goal is make the audience feel, relate, and or think about the aspect of life that is being reflected or challenged in the story.

Shady Elsayed Guest Services, ASM Barclays Center Whether it’s through celebrity appearances, brand and apparel collaborations, sponsorships, in-arena entertainment, or business partnerships, being a part of this industry is a rewarding experience. With it’s fast paced nature, and event based daily routine tasks, the sports and entertainment industry is built on networking and creating long lasting relationships.

Sabrina Assistant Project Manager, Dirt Rock Empire For me, success means continuing to learn and grow everyday. Next, I hope to become an even bigger voice in the industry and help encourage positive change.

Rebecca O’Keeffe Content Partnerships Manager, TikTok My role is Content Partnerships Manager for TikTok Ireland. I work with creators, media partners and public figures to enhance the content ecosystem to ensure the best user experience for the people of Ireland. This includes content projects with Ireland's biggest creators and public figures, exciting hyperlocal tentpole projects and events, in-app campaigns for things like Black History Month and Pride.

Rebecca Lu Business Development, Joes Footwear The biggest challenge is you never know when you will be challenged - they just pop out somehow, even you think you are doing the best. So don’t take challenge as monster, always be positive and do whatever you can.

Pavlina Koleva UX/UI Designer, Pixum To be a designer means you give people better experience, you help people and you try to see things through their eyes. Creating flexible products even for people with disabilities is great achievement. Design was and always will be part of people's life.

Natalie Turturro Mettouchi Costume Designer, IATSE Local 829 I am most proud of designing the costumes for a short film that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2021, called "Esther in Wonderland." I had a shoestring budget and was working on two other pretty huge projects simultaneously, but still managed to design creative outfits that allowed the dancers to move freely and help develop their characters.

Meosha Enslow Seamstress, Cintas uniform company As a designer I pride myself on originality and creativity... The problem comes when I sit down to plan I begin to doubt myself and my capabilities...To avoid the setbacks filled with self doubt I think of the end result and how it always makes me feel so empowered and shuts the weak voice in my head saying I can’t do it.

Matt Popper Music Touring/Business Affairs, United Talent Agency Be relentless - the most difficult part of the job is getting your foot in the door. Once you're in, your good work will speak for itself. Of course, there will be some days where you will feel defeated and want to give up, but if this is what you're meant to do, you'll find a way to make it happen.

Deyonte Fashion Designer, DWC Project Runway Season 16 Contestant Everyone has challenges and obstacles they face in the industry. It's what you do with those minor situations that help you become better if you allow it. You have to fight for your vision and be relentless.

Mathilde Garnier Product Manager Footwear, adidas AG To me, success is passion. I strongly believe you can only be sucessful if you truly love what you are doing. Passion is a magic fuel that can inspire and drive people towards their goals... [but] passion is not enough. Our world needs more than for us to just do what we love. In order to be successful, we need to make a difference. I need to make a difference.

Lindsay Milner Sigmund Vice President of Design, Vida Shoes The highlight of my career was becoming a Vice President of Design at a respected industry company at a young age. It showed how all of the hard work I put into my career- including evolving and continuing my education in the field- really put me ahead of the curve.

Leslie Peterson Coordinator - Center of Excellence, NBCUniversal One of the hardest parts of my journey was moving to New York City from a small town and learning how to navigate the corporate world. Everyday I am learning something new and need to be okay with not knowing everything.

Kyle Rebucci Customs Team Trainer, Puma Fashion is a part of everyday life. You don’t have to like trends, brands, or designers to contribute to the giant that is the fashion industry. You can’t escape from it. My contribution will of course directly relate to fashion, but I hope to be part of some reform in the industry when it comes to sustainability and ethics.

KeNisha Ruff Founder, Marie Hunter Beauty Less than 1% of luxury beauty founders are black. I am laying the groundwork for black founders to enter the prestige sector and using my company to inspire, break the stigma surrounding mental health, and fight climate change.

Joseph Richert Manager - Corporate Development & Strategy, Universal Music Group Success to me is happiness, both professionally and personally. On the professional side, that means having an impact on helping artists and entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life in an industry I'm passionate about; which I'm lucky to say I'm doing now!

John Paul Endab Physical Education Teacher, Joppa High School As an educator, I truly believe that learning is a continuous process. It give us an opportunity to satisfy our curiosity, pursue our interests, or try new things.

Ilana Duboff Associate Media Director, OMG23 While I am proud of all the amazing films I've been fortunate to work on over the years, I am most proud of the growth I've had while working in this industry. I have been promoted three times in the past four years and now manage a team of people, which I never even thought could be possible when I first started working. I feel honored that I have the opportunity to lead a team as well as teach them and work with them.

Haramritjot Singh Founder, Cash Cow NYC I’m a kid from the Bronx, I’m a first generation American, I’m a Sikh, I’m a father in his thirties, and now I’m the owner of a clothing brand. I serve as a prime example to many different people from so many different circumstances that starting a small business and following your dreams is possible.

Giulia Baldini Fashion Journalist/Editor and Academic Researcher, Lehman College I represent the underrepresented with words. I report stories and narratives that center on the fashion industry, specifically when the protagonists are from the African Diaspora, when they are sustainable businesses, and when they are engaged in minorities' activism.

Forbs West Associate Music Curator, SiriusXM/Pandora I think one of the biggest challenges that I've faced in my journey is patience. I think especially being in Generation Z, it is important to slow down and appreciate what we have accomplished so far. I think when you least expect things, it is a surprise yet it is also very rewarding.

Elena Takmakova Manager - International Production, Universal Music Group The thing that keeps me on track is remembering how far I've come. Just that simple feeling of being proud of myself can make miracles.

Dounesha Scott Product Manager, Anna Griffin Inc. Of my career achievements, I am the most proud of being a uniform fit specialist for the Delta Style Project... Delta only redesigns their uniforms every 5-10 years. The uniforms were designed by Zac Posen and manufactured by Lands End... We are in the Delta museum and will be a part of Delta airlines history.

Six Tips for Writing News Stories That Will Grab a Reader

Start compellingly, write tight, and chose words with care

Writing Essays
Writing Research Papers
English Grammar
M.S., Journalism, Columbia University
B.A., Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison

So you've done a ton of reporting, conducted in-depth interviews, and dug up a great story. All your hard work will be wasted if you write a boring article that no one will read. Think of it this way: Journalists write to be read, not to have their stories ignored.

Follow these tips and you'll be on your way to writing news stories that will grab plenty of eyeballs:

Write a Great Lede

The lede is your best shot to get readers' attention. Write a great introduction and they're likely to read on; write a boring one and they'll turn the page. The lede must convey the main points of the story in 35 to 40 words and be interesting enough to make readers want more.

Write Tight

You've probably heard an editor say that when it comes to news writing, keep it short, sweet, and to the point. Some editors call this "writing tight." It means conveying as much information as possible in as few words as possible. It sounds easy, but if you've spent years writing research papers, where the emphasis is often on being long-winded, it can be difficult. How do you do it? Find your focus, avoid too many clauses, and use a model called S-V-O, or subject-verb-object.

Structure It Right

The inverted pyramid is the basic structure for news writing. It simply means that the most important information should be at the top of your story, and the least important information should go at the bottom. As you move from top to bottom, the information should gradually become less important, mostly supporting what came before. The format might seem odd at first, but it's easy to pick up, and there are practical reasons why reporters have used it for decades. For one, if your story has to be cut quickly, the editor will go first to the bottom, so that's where your least vital information should be.

Use the Best Quotes

You’ve done a long interview with a great source and have pages of notes, but chances are you’ll only be able to fit a few quotes into your article. Which ones should you use? Reporters often talk about using only “good” quotes for their stories. Basically, a good quote is one in which someone says something interesting in an interesting way. If it's not interesting in both aspects, paraphrase it.

Use Verbs and Adjectives Well

There's an old rule in the writing business: show, don't tell. The problem with adjectives is that they don't always show us anything worthwhile. Ordinary adjectives rarely evoke visual images in readers' minds and are often a lazy substitute for writing compelling, effective description. While editors like verbs—they convey action and give a story momentum—too often writers use tired, overused verbs. Use words that count: Instead of writing that "the fleeing bank robbers drove quickly through town," write that they "raced down deserted streets."

Practice, Practice, Practice

News writing is like anything else: The more you practice, the better you'll get. While there's no substitute for having a real story to report and then bang out on a real deadline, you can use news writing exercises to hone your skills. You can improve your writing speed by forcing yourself to pound out these stories in an hour or less.

Examples of Great Introductory Paragraphs
Learn to Write News Stories
Writing News Stories for the Web
Constructing News Stories with the Inverted Pyramid
10 Important Steps for Producing a Quality News Story
Avoid the Common Mistakes That Beginning Reporters Make
The Secret to Writing Great Headlines for Your News Stories
Learning to Edit News Stories Quickly
6 Tips for Writing About Live Events
15 News Writing Rules for Beginning Journalism Students
How to Write Feature Stories
Use Verbs and Adjectives to Brighten up Your News Stories
How to Avoid Burying the Lede of Your News Story
How Reporters Can Write Great Follow-up News Stories
Writing a Lead or Lede to an Article
5 Key Ingredients for Great Feature Stories

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Expert Commentary

Basic newswriting: Learn how to originate, research and write breaking-news stories

Syllabus for semester-long course on the fundamentals of covering and writing the news, including how identify a story, gather information efficiently and place it in a meaningful context.

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by The Journalist's Resource, The Journalist's Resource January 22, 2010

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This course introduces tomorrow’s journalists to the fundamentals of covering and writing news. Mastering these skills is no simple task. In an Internet age of instantaneous access, demand for high-quality accounts of fast-breaking news has never been greater. Nor has the temptation to cut corners and deliver something less.

To resist this temptation, reporters must acquire skills to identify a story and its essential elements, gather information efficiently, place it in a meaningful context, and write concise and compelling accounts, sometimes at breathtaking speed. The readings, discussions, exercises and assignments of this course are designed to help students acquire such skills and understand how to exercise them wisely.

Photo: Memorial to four slain Lakewood, Wash., police officers. The Seattle Times earned the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for their coverage of the crime.

Course objective

To give students the background and skills needed to originate, research, focus and craft clear, compelling and contextual accounts of breaking news in a deadline environment.

Learning objectives

Build an understanding of the role news plays in American democracy.
Discuss basic journalistic principles such as accuracy, integrity and fairness.
Evaluate how practices such as rooting and stereotyping can undermine them.
Analyze what kinds of information make news and why.
Evaluate the elements of news by deconstructing award-winning stories.
Evaluate the sources and resources from which news content is drawn.
Analyze how information is attributed, quoted and paraphrased in news.
Gain competence in focusing a story’s dominant theme in a single sentence.
Introduce the structure, style and language of basic news writing.
Gain competence in building basic news stories, from lead through their close.
Gain confidence and competence in writing under deadline pressure.
Practice how to identify, background and contact appropriate sources.
Discuss and apply the skills needed to interview effectively.
Analyze data and how it is used and abused in news coverage.
Review basic math skills needed to evaluate and use statistics in news.
Report and write basic stories about news events on deadline.

Week 1: Why journalism matters

Previous week | Next week | Back to top

Class 1: The role of journalism in society

The word journalism elicits considerable confusion in contemporary American society. Citizens often confuse the role of reporting with that of advocacy. They mistake those who promote opinions or push their personal agendas on cable news or in the blogosphere for those who report. But reporters play a different role: that of gatherer of evidence, unbiased and unvarnished, placed in a context of past events that gives current events weight beyond the ways opinion leaders or propagandists might misinterpret or exploit them.

This session’s discussion will focus on the traditional role of journalism eloquently summarized by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism . The class will then examine whether they believe that the journalist’s role has changed or needs to change in today’s news environment. What is the reporter’s role in contemporary society? Is objectivity, sometimes called fairness, an antiquated concept or an essential one, as the authors argue, for maintaining a democratic society? How has the term been subverted? What are the reporter’s fundamental responsibilities? This discussion will touch on such fundamental issues as journalists’ obligation to the truth, their loyalty to the citizens who are their audience and the demands of their discipline to verify information, act independently, provide a forum for public discourse and seek not only competing viewpoints but carefully vetted facts that help establish which viewpoints are grounded in evidence.

Reading: Kovach and Rosenstiel, Chapter 1, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignments:

Students should compare the news reporting on a breaking political story in The Wall Street Journal , considered editorially conservative, and The New York Times , considered editorially liberal. They should write a two-page memo that considers the following questions: Do the stories emphasize the same information? Does either story appear to slant the news toward a particular perspective? How? Do the stories support the notion of fact-based journalism and unbiased reporting or do they appear to infuse opinion into news? Students should provide specific examples that support their conclusions.
Students should look for an example of reporting in any medium in which reporters appear have compromised the notion of fairness to intentionally or inadvertently espouse a point of view. What impact did the incorporation of such material have on the story? Did its inclusion have any effect on the reader’s perception of the story?

Class 2: Objectivity, fairness and contemporary confusion about both

In his book Discovering the News , Michael Schudson traced the roots of objectivity to the era following World War I and a desire by journalists to guard against the rapid growth of public relations practitioners intent on spinning the news. Objectivity was, and remains, an ideal, a method for guarding against spin and personal bias by examining all sides of a story and testing claims through a process of evidentiary verification. Practiced well, it attempts to find where something approaching truth lies in a sea of conflicting views. Today, objectivity often is mistaken for tit-for-tat journalism, in which the reporters only responsibility is to give equal weight to the conflicting views of different parties without regard for which, if any, are saying something approximating truth. This definition cedes the journalist’s responsibility to seek and verify evidence that informs the citizenry.

Focusing on the “Journalism of Verification” chapter in The Elements of Journalism , this class will review the evolution and transformation of concepts of objectivity and fairness and, using the homework assignment, consider how objectivity is being practiced and sometimes skewed in the contemporary new media.

Reading: Kovach and Rosenstiel, Chapter 4, and relevant pages of the course text.

Assignment: Students should evaluate stories on the front page and metro front of their daily newspaper. In a two-page memo, they should describe what elements of news judgment made the stories worthy of significant coverage and play. Finally, they should analyze whether, based on what else is in the paper, they believe the editors reached the right decision.

Week 2: Where news comes from

Class 1: News judgment

When editors sit down together to choose the top stories, they use experience and intuition. The beginner journalist, however, can acquire a sense of news judgment by evaluating news decisions through the filter of a variety of factors that influence news play. These factors range from traditional measures such as when the story took place and how close it was to the local readership area to more contemporary ones, such as the story’s educational value.

Using the assignment and the reading, students should evaluate what kinds of information make for interesting news stories and why.

In this session, instructors might consider discussing the layers of news from the simplest breaking news event to the purely enterprise investigative story.

Assignment: Students should read and deconstruct coverage of a major news event. One excellent source for quality examples is the site of the Pulitzer Prizes , which has a category for breaking news reporting. All students should read the same article (assigned by the instructor), and write a two- or three-page memo that describes how the story is organized, what information it contains and what sources of information it uses, both human and digital. Among the questions they should ask are:

Does the first (or lead) paragraph summarize the dominant point?
What specific information does the lead include?
What does it leave out?
How do the second and third paragraphs relate to the first paragraph and the information it contains? Do they give unrelated information, information that provides further details about what’s established in the lead paragraph or both?
Does the story at any time place the news into a broader context of similar events or past events? If so, when and how?
What information in the story is attributed , specifically tied to an individual or to documentary information from which it was taken? What information is not attributed? Where does the information appear in the sentence? Give examples of some of the ways the sources of information are identified? Give examples of the verbs of attribution that are chosen.
Where and how often in the story are people quoted, their exact words placed in quotation marks? What kind of information tends to be quoted — basic facts or more colorful commentary? What information that’s attributed is paraphrased , summing up what someone said but not in their exact words.
How is the story organized — by theme, by geography, by chronology (time) or by some other means?
What human sources are used in the story? Are some authorities? Are some experts? Are some ordinary people affected by the event? Who are some of the people in each category? What do they contribute to the story? Does the reporter (or reporters) rely on a single source or a wide range? Why do you think that’s the case?
What specific facts and details make the story more vivid to you? How do you think the reporter was able to gather those details?
What documents (paper or digital) are detailed in the story? Do they lend authority to the story? Why or why not?
Is any specific data (numbers, statistics) used in the story? What does it lend to the story? Would you be satisfied substituting words such as “many” or “few” for the specific numbers and statistics used? Why or why not?

Class 2: Deconstructing the story

By carefully deconstructing major news stories, students will begin to internalize some of the major principles of this course, from crafting and supporting the lead of a story to spreading a wide and authoritative net for information. This class will focus on the lessons of a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Reading: Clark/Scanlan, Pages 287-294

Assignment: Writers typically draft a focus statement after conceiving an idea and conducting preliminary research or reporting. This focus statement helps to set the direction of reporting and writing. Sometimes reporting dictates a change of direction. But the statement itself keeps the reporter from getting off course. Focus statements typically are 50 words or less and summarize the story’s central point. They work best when driven by a strong, active verb and written after preliminary reporting.

Students should write a focus statement that encapsulates the news of the Pulitzer Prize winning reporting the class critiqued.

Week 3: Finding the focus, building the lead

Class 1: News writing as a process

Student reporters often conceive of writing as something that begins only after all their reporting is finished. Such an approach often leaves gaps in information and leads the reporter to search broadly instead of with targeted depth. The best reporters begin thinking about story the minute they get an assignment. The approach they envision for telling the story informs their choice of whom they seek interviews with and what information they gather. This class will introduce students to writing as a process that begins with story concept and continues through initial research, focus, reporting, organizing and outlining, drafting and revising.

During this session, the class will review the focus statements written for homework in small breakout groups and then as a class. Professors are encouraged to draft and hand out a mock or real press release or hold a mock press conference from which students can draft a focus statement.

Reading: Zinsser, pages 1-45, Clark/Scanlan, pages 294-302, and relevant pages of the course text

Class 2: The language of news

Newswriting has its own sentence structure and syntax. Most sentences branch rightward, following a pattern of subject/active verb/object. Reporters choose simple, familiar words. They write spare, concise sentences. They try to make a single point in each. But journalistic writing is specific and concrete. While reporters generally avoid formal or fancy word choices and complex sentence structures, they do not write in generalities. They convey information. Each sentence builds on what came before. This class will center on the language of news, evaluating the language in selections from America’s Best Newspaper Writing , local newspapers or the Pulitzers.

Reading: Relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should choose a traditional news lead they like and one they do not like from a local or national newspaper. In a one- or two-page memo, they should print the leads, summarize the stories and evaluate why they believe the leads were effective or not.

Week 4: Crafting the first sentence

Class 1: The lead

No sentence counts more than a story’s first sentence. In most direct news stories, it stands alone as the story’s lead. It must summarize the news, establish the storyline, convey specific information and do all this simply and succinctly. Readers confused or bored by the lead read no further. It takes practice to craft clear, concise and conversational leads. This week will be devoted to that practice.

Students should discuss the assigned leads in groups of three or four, with each group choosing one lead to read to the entire class. The class should then discuss the elements of effective leads (active voice; active verb; single, dominant theme; simple sentences) and write leads in practice exercises.

Assignment: Have students revise the leads they wrote in class and craft a second lead from fact patterns.

Class 2: The lead continued

Some leads snap or entice instead of summarize. When the news is neither urgent nor earnest, these can work well. Though this class will introduce students to other kinds of leads, instructors should continue to emphasize traditional leads, typically found atop breaking news stories.

Class time should largely be devoted to writing traditional news leads under a 15-minute deadline pressure. Students should then be encouraged to read their own leads aloud and critique classmates’ leads. At least one such exercise might focus on students writing a traditional lead and a less traditional lead from the same information.

Assignment: Students should find a political or international story that includes various types (direct and indirect) and levels (on-the-record, not for attribution and deep background) of attribution. They should write a one- or two-page memo describing and evaluating the attribution. Did the reporter make clear the affiliation of those who expressed opinions? Is information attributed to specific people by name? Are anonymous figures given the opportunity to criticize others by name? Is that fair?

Week 5: Establishing the credibility of news

Class 1: Attribution

All news is based on information, painstakingly gathered, verified and checked again. Even so, “truth” is an elusive concept. What reporters cobble together instead are facts and assertions drawn from interviews and documentary evidence.

To lend authority to this information and tell readers from where it comes, reporters attribute all information that is not established fact. It is neither necessary, for example, to attribute that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was first elected president in 1932 nor that he was elected four times. On the other hand, it would be necessary to attribute, at least indirectly, the claim that he was one of America’s best presidents. Why? Because that assertion is a matter of opinion.

In this session, students should learn about different levels of attribution, where attribution is best placed in a sentence, and why it can be crucial for the protection of the accused, the credibility of reporters and the authoritativeness of the story.

Assignment: Working from a fact pattern, students should write a lead that demands attribution.

Class 2: Quoting and paraphrasing

“Great quote,” ranks closely behind “great lead” in the pecking order of journalistic praise. Reporters listen for great quotes as intensely as piano tuners listen for the perfect pitch of middle C. But what makes a great quote? And when should reporters paraphrase instead?

This class should cover a range of issues surrounding the quoted word from what it is used to convey (color and emotion, not basic information) to how frequently quotes should be used and how long they should run on. Other issues include the use and abuse of partial quotes, when a quote is not a quote, and how to deal with rambling and ungrammatical subjects.

As an exercise, students might either interview the instructor or a classmate about an exciting personal experience. After their interviews, they should review their notes choose what they consider the three best quotes to include a story on the subject. They should then discuss why they chose them.

Assignment: After completing the reading, students should analyze a summary news story no more than 15 paragraphs long. In a two- or three-page memo, they should reprint the story and then evaluate whether the lead summarizes the news, whether the subsequent paragraphs elaborate on or “support” the lead, whether the story has a lead quote, whether it attributes effectively, whether it provides any context for the news and whether and how it incorporates secondary themes.

Week 6: The building blocks of basic stories

Class 1: Supporting the lead

Unlike stories told around a campfire or dinner table, news stories front load information. Such a structure delivers the most important information first and the least important last. If a news lead summarizes, the subsequent few paragraphs support or elaborate by providing details the lead may have merely suggested. So, for example, a story might lead with news that a 27-year-old unemployed chef has been arrested on charges of robbing the desk clerk of an upscale hotel near closing time. The second paragraph would “support” this lead with detail. It would name the arrested chef, identify the hotel and its address, elaborate on the charges and, perhaps, say exactly when the robbery took place and how. (It would not immediately name the desk clerk; too many specifics at once clutter the story.)

Wire service stories use a standard structure in building their stories. First comes the lead sentence. Then comes a sentence or two of lead support. Then comes a lead quote — spoken words that reinforce the story’s direction, emphasize the main theme and add color. During this class students should practice writing the lead through the lead quote on deadline. They should then read assignments aloud for critique by classmates and the professor.

Assignment: Using a fact pattern assigned by the instructor or taken from a text, students should write a story from the lead through the lead quote. They should determine whether the story needs context to support the lead and, if so, include it.

Class 2: When context matters

Sometimes a story’s importance rests on what came before. If one fancy restaurant closes its doors in the face of the faltering economy, it may warrant a few paragraphs mention. If it’s the fourth restaurant to close on the same block in the last two weeks, that’s likely front-page news. If two other restaurants closed last year, that might be worth noting in the story’s last sentence. It is far less important. Patterns provide context and, when significant, generally are mentioned either as part of the lead or in the support paragraph that immediately follows. This class will look at the difference between context — information needed near the top of a story to establish its significance as part of a broader pattern, and background — information that gives historical perspective but doesn’t define the news at hand.

Assignment: The course to this point has focused on writing the news. But reporters, of course, usually can’t write until they’ve reported. This typically starts with background research to establish what has come before, what hasn’t been covered well and who speaks with authority on an issue. Using databases such as Lexis/Nexis, students should background or read specific articles about an issue in science or policy that either is highlighted in the Policy Areas section of Journalist’s Resource website or is currently being researched on your campus. They should engage in this assignment knowing that a new development on the topic will be brought to light when they arrive at the next class.

Week 7: The reporter at work

Class 1: Research

Discuss the homework assignment. Where do reporters look to background an issue? How do they find documents, sources and resources that enable them to gather good information or identify key people who can help provide it? After the discussion, students should be given a study from the Policy Areas section of Journalist’s Resource website related to the subject they’ve been asked to explore.

The instructor should use this study to evaluate the nature structure of government/scientific reports. After giving students 15 minutes to scan the report, ask students to identify its most newsworthy point. Discuss what context might be needed to write a story about the study or report. Discuss what concepts or language students are having difficulty understanding.

Reading: Clark, Scanlan, pages 305-313, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should (a) write a lead for a story based exclusively on the report (b) do additional background work related to the study in preparation for writing a full story on deadline. (c) translate at least one term used in the study that is not familiar to a lay audience.

Class 2: Writing the basic story on deadline

This class should begin with a discussion of the challenges of translating jargon and the importance of such translation in news reporting. Reporters translate by substituting a simple definition or, generally with the help of experts, comparing the unfamiliar to the familiar through use of analogy.

The remainder of the class should be devoted to writing a 15- to 20-line news report, based on the study, background research and, if one is available, a press release.

Reading: Pages 1-47 of Stein/Paterno, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Prepare a list of questions that you would ask either the lead author of the study you wrote about on deadline or an expert who might offer an outside perspective.

Week 8: Effective interviewing

Class 1: Preparing and getting the interview

Successful interviews build from strong preparation. Reporters need to identify the right interview subjects, know what they’ve said before, interview them in a setting that makes them comfortable and ask questions that elicit interesting answers. Each step requires thought.

The professor should begin this class by critiquing some of the questions students drew up for homework. Are they open-ended or close-ended? Do they push beyond the obvious? Do they seek specific examples that explain the importance of the research or its applications? Do they probe the study’s potential weaknesses? Do they explore what directions the researcher might take next?

Discuss the readings and what steps reporters can take to background for an interview, track down a subject and prepare and rehearse questions in advance.

Reading: Stein/Paterno, pages 47-146, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should prepare to interview their professor about his or her approach to and philosophy of teaching. Before crafting their questions, the students should background the instructor’s syllabi, public course evaluations and any pertinent writings.

Class 2: The interview and its aftermath

The interview, says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jacqui Banaszynski, is a dance which the reporter leads but does so to music the interview subject chooses. Though reporters prepare and rehearse their interviews, they should never read the questions they’ve considered in advance and always be prepared to change directions. To hear the subject’s music, reporters must be more focused on the answers than their next question. Good listeners make good interviewers — good listeners, that is, who don’t forget that it is also their responsibility to also lead.

Divide the class. As a team, five students should interview the professor about his/her approach to teaching. Each of these five should build on the focus and question of the previous questioner. The rest of the class should critique the questions, their clarity and their focus. Are the questioners listening? Are they maintaining control? Are they following up? The class also should discuss the reading, paying particularly close attention to the dynamics of an interview, the pace of questions, the nature of questions, its close and the reporter’s responsibility once an interview ends.

Assignment: Students should be assigned to small groups and asked to critique the news stories classmates wrote on deadline during the previous class.

Week 9: Building the story

Class 1: Critiquing the story

The instructor should separate students into groups of two or three and tell them to read their news stories to one another aloud. After each reading, the listeners should discuss what they liked and struggled with as the story audience. The reader in each case should reflect on what he or she learned from the process of reading the story aloud.

The instructor then should distribute one or two of the class stories that provide good and bad examples of story structure, information selection, content, organization and writing. These should be critiqued as a class.

Assignment: Students, working in teams, should develop an angle for a news follow to the study or report they covered on deadline. Each team should write a focus statement for the story it is proposing.

Class 2: Following the news

The instructor should lead a discussion about how reporters “enterprise,” or find original angles or approaches, by looking to the corners of news, identifying patterns of news, establishing who is affected by news, investigating the “why” of news, and examining what comes next.

Students should be asked to discuss the ideas they’ve developed to follow the news story. These can be assigned as longer-term team final projects for the semester. As part of this discussion, the instructor can help students map their next steps.

Reading: Wickham, Chapters 1-4 and 7, and relevant pages of the course text

Assignment: Students should find a news report that uses data to support or develop its main point. They should consider what and how much data is used, whether it is clear, whether it’s cluttered and whether it answers their questions. They should bring the article and a brief memo analyzing it to class.

Week 10: Making sense of data and statistics

Class 1: Basic math and the journalist’s job

Many reporters don’t like math. But in their jobs, it is everywhere. Reporters must interpret political polls, calculate percentage change in everything from property taxes to real estate values, make sense of municipal bids and municipal budgets, and divine data in government reports.

First discuss some of the examples of good and bad use of data that students found in their homework. Then, using examples from Journalist’s Resource website, discuss good and poor use of data in news reporting. (Reporters, for example, should not overwhelm readers with paragraphs stuffed with statistics.) Finally lead students through some of the basic skills sets outlined in Wickham’s book, using her exercises to practice everything from calculating percentage change to interpreting polls.

Assignment: Give students a report or study linked to the Journalist’s Resource website that requires some degree of statistical evaluation or interpretation. Have students read the report and compile a list of questions they would ask to help them understand and interpret this data.

Class 2: The use and abuse of statistics

Discuss the students’ questions. Then evaluate one or more articles drawn from the report they’ve analyzed that attempt to make sense of the data in the study. Discuss what these articles do well and what they do poorly.

Reading: Zinsser, Chapter 13, “Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street,” Dan Barry, The New York Times

Week 11: The reporter as observer

Class 1: Using the senses

Veteran reporters covering an event don’t only return with facts, quotes and documents that support them. They fill their notebooks with details that capture what they’ve witnessed. They use all their senses, listening for telling snippets of conversation and dialogue, watching for images, details and actions that help bring readers to the scene. Details that develop character and place breathe vitality into news. But description for description’s sake merely clutters and obscures the news. Using the senses takes practice.

The class should deconstruct “Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street,” a remarkable journey around New Orleans a few days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. The story starts with one corpse, left to rot on a once-busy street and then pans the city as a camera might. The dead body serves as a metaphor for the rotting city, largely abandoned and without order.

Assignment: This is an exercise in observation. Students may not ask questions. Their task is to observe, listen and describe a short scene, a serendipitous vignette of day-to-day life. They should take up a perch in a lively location of their choosing — a student dining hall or gym, a street corner, a pool hall or bus stop or beauty salon, to name a few — wait and watch. When a small scene unfolds, one with beginning, middle and end, students should record it. They then should write a brief story describing the scene that unfolded, taking care to leave themselves and their opinions out of the story. This is pure observation, designed to build the tools of observation and description. These stories should be no longer than 200 words.

Class 2: Sharpening the story

Students should read their observation pieces aloud to a classmate. Both students should consider these questions: Do the words describe or characterize? Which words show and which words tell? What words are extraneous? Does the piece convey character through action? Does it have a clear beginning, middle and end? Students then should revise, shortening the original scene to no longer than 150 words. After the revision, the instructor should critique some of the students’ efforts.

Assignment: Using campus, governmental or media calendars, students should identify, background and prepare to cover a speech, press conference or other news event, preferably on a topic related to one of the research-based areas covered in the Policy Areas section of Journalist’s Resource website. Students should write a focus statement (50 words or less) for their story and draw up a list of some of the questions they intend to ask.

Week 12: Reporting on deadline

Class 1: Coaching the story

Meetings, press conferences and speeches serve as a staple for much news reporting. Reporters should arrive at such events knowledgeable about the key players, their past positions or research, and the issues these sources are likely discuss. Reporters can discover this information in various ways. They can research topic and speaker online and in journalistic databases, peruse past correspondence sent to public offices, and review the writings and statements of key speakers with the help of their assistants or secretaries.

In this class, the instructor should discuss the nature of event coverage, review students’ focus statements and questions, and offer suggestions about how they cover the events.

Assignment: Cover the event proposed in the class above and draft a 600-word story, double-spaced, based on its news and any context needed to understand it.

Class 2: Critiquing and revising the story

Students should exchange story drafts and suggest changes. After students revise, the instructor should lead a discussion about the challenges of reporting and writing live on deadline. These likely will include issues of access and understanding and challenges of writing around and through gaps of information.

Weeks 13/14: Coaching the final project

Previous week | Back to top

The final week or two of the class is reserved for drill in areas needing further development and for coaching students through the final reporting, drafting and revision of the enterprise stories off the study or report they covered in class.

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How to Write a News Story

Newspaper article outline, how to write a news story in 15 steps.

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The Purdue Owl : Journalism and Journalistic Writing: Introduction

From Scholastic: Writing a newspaper article

Article outline

I. Lead sentence

Grab and hook your reader right away.

II. Introduction

Which facts and figures will ground your story? You have to tell your readers where and when this story is happening.

III. Opening quotation

What will give the reader a sense of the people involved and what they are thinking?

IV. Main body

What is at the heart of your story?

V. Closing quotation

Find something that sums the article up in a few words.

VI. Conclusion (optional—the closing quote may do the job)

The following is an excerpt from The Elements of News Writing by James W. Kershner (Pearson, 2009). This book is available for checkout at Buley Library (Call number PN 4775 .K37 2009, on the 3rd floor)

1. Select a newsworthy story. Your goal is to give a timely account of a recent, interesting, and significant event or development.

2. Think about your goals and objectives in writing the story. What will the readers want and need to know about the subject? How can you best tell the story?

3. Find out who can provide the most accurate information about the subject and how to contact that person. Find out what other sources you can use to obtain relevant information.

4. Do your homework. Do research so that you have a basic understanding of the situation before interviewing anyone about it. Check clips of stories already written on the subject.

5. Prepare a list of questions to ask about the story.

6. Arrange to get the needed information. This may mean scheduling an interview or locating the appropriate people to interview.

7. Interview the source and take notes. Ask your prepared questions, plus other questions that come up in the course of the conversation. Ask the source to suggest other sources. Ask if you may call the source back for further questions later.

8. Interview second and third sources, ask follow-up questions, and do further research until you have a understanding of the story.

9. Ask yourself, “What’s the story?” and “What’s the point?” Be sure you have a clear focus in your mind before you start writing. Rough out a lead in your head.

10. Make a written outline or plan of your story.

11. Write your first draft following your plan, but changing it as necessary.

12. Read through your first draft looking for content problems, holes, or weak spots, and revise it as necessary. Delete extra words, sentences, and paragraphs. Make every word count.

13. Read your second draft aloud, listening for problems in logic or syntax.

14. Copyedit your story, checking carefully for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and style problems.

15. Deliver your finished story to the editor before deadline.

Kershner, J.W. (2009). The Elements of News Writing. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

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The future of international business journalism starts with us. Are you ready?

Aug 22, 2021

The 10 essentials of news writing

By RICK DUNHAM

Global Business Journalism co-director

No matter how good a writer you are, you cannot be a good journalist without a solid grounding in journalism basics. After 35 years in journalism and a decade in journalism education, I have boiled down the basics to 10 essential traits. Here they are:

Journalism is nothing without a solid bedrock of truth. Your writing must be accurate. But accuracy is not enough: Your stories must be true. If you accurately report an untrue or misleading statement, you are doing a disservice to your audience.

Make sure your audience understands clearly what you are saying. The words you use should convey the meaning you intend. Be specific. Use active voice. Put numbers into context – particularly large numbers. Avoid long, disjointed sentences shackled with confusing dependent clauses.

3. Completeness

Make sure you have included all of the most important and relevant details. Make sure you placed the main facts of the story into context. Don't just report on "what's new" – mention "what's next" or "why." Don't include irrelevant and unimportant details. But make sure you have not misled you audience through omission.

4. Compelling storytelling

You are competing for your audience's attention in a cluttered information world. Readers are easily distracted, especially when they are consuming your story on a mobile device. To keep their attention, your story must be better than good. There is no substitute for compelling storytelling. Hook the reader from the first sentence. Demonstrate quickly why the story is interesting and important. Make sure that fresh information and strong details are at the top of the story. All of your quotations should add value. The story should move briskly. Every sentence should enrich the reader's experience.

5. Tight writing

As Strunk and White wrote more than a century ago, "Omit needless words." Be concise. Keep your sentences short. Keep your first paragraph short (usually under 35 words). Avoid superfluous adverbs and adjectives. When in doubt, leave it out. But remember this: Tight writing does not mean leaving out important details or analytical points. It means trimming the merely ordinary to leave more room for the extraordinary.

6. Precision

Use the right word to convey the right meaning. Avoid vague verbs such as "to have," "to be," "to do" or "to get" when you can be more specific. Avoid over-general words such as "some" or "many" or "a lot." If you have trouble with precise word choice, you need to expand your English vocabulary.

7. Timeliness

You always want a time peg for your news story. On breaking news, that's easy: News is happening now and I am writing about it. But news features and enterprise projects should be timely now. You might "peg" your story to an anniversary date, an upcoming event or the release of a book or movie. Always be able to answer this question: "Why is this story of interest to my audience right now?"

8. Fairness, balance and responsibility

Ethics are a core value of journalism. Your stories, even opinion pieces, should be fair. You should provide context for breaking news. Multiple points of view should be considered, although you have no obligation to give equal space to everyone. The "target" of a critical story should be given an opportunity to respond before publication. Fairness sometimes includes truth-telling and fact-checking. It is your responsibility to report the truth, not to repeat the assertions of powerful people.

9. Transparency and honesty

You must be straight with your audience if you expect them to trust you. Don't steal material from others. Properly attribute all material (facts and quotations) that you found on other platforms. Avoid conflicts of interest. Never take money or gifts in exchange for writing a story (or not writing a story).

10. Real reporting

Don't expect to write a complete report if you have not done some first-hand reporting. A pandemic is not an excuse: You owe it to your readers to gather facts yourself. Don't just repeat what you saw in a report or a press release. Don't "curate" the best work of other journalists. In the old days, engaged in what old-timers called "shoe-leather reporting." Today, you might be wearing slippers in your home office. But get to work and do some real reporting!

Rick Dunham is co-director of the Global Business Journalism program at Tsinghua University and is author of the journalism textbook Multimedia Reporting (Springer, 2020). He is working on a new textbook, English News Writing for a Global Audience, which will include this tip sheet.

More information on "Multimedia Reporting"

Buy "Multimedia Reporting" on Amazon.com

Journalism tips

More From Forbes

Five newswriting rules everyone should use in their communications.

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Patricia Pehar is Chief Communications Officer at Web Safe 101 and a communications consultant with a 20-year background in broadcast news.

I flunked my first writing assignment in journalism school.

I was devastated.

How could this happen? I’d always been a straight-A student, and writing was my thing ! I was the one friends went to when they needed someone to edit their essays. I was the one that classmates side-eyed as teachers presented my work as a way to shame them (something I was not okay with, for the record).

Now here I was staring at my rejected assignment — a pseudo-local newspaper article about a deadly house fire — and wondering if I ever really had any talent at all.

After a few more lackluster grades and humiliating stories for the college newspaper — one of which involved a game of “pin the doodle on the turkey” (don’t get me started) — what I eventually came to realize was that I needed to learn a new way to write by unlearning nearly everything I had been taught up until that point.

Throughout most of our educations, teachers give us a minimum word count on assignments, praise us for using big, fancy words and assign us essay after essay in which we’re taught to methodically build a thesis.

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Newswriting is the opposite — vocabularies are economic, print space and broadcast time are commodities (so shorter is better) and, most importantly, there’s no crawling to get to your point. You run with your best and most important stuff first.

This is a philosophy that has naturally extended into my everyday life — emails, texts, social media posts and even conversations are byproducts of my newswriting background. But it’s not just communications nerds like me who can benefit from it. Knowing how to master a message can help you persuade others, stand out in presentations and, yes, get you that raise.

Here are five basic newswriting principles that can rock your world:

Never Bury The Lede

This is the first commandment in newswriting. As I already mentioned, you should start your story with the point of your story. The same can be said about writing an email to a colleague, boss or client. Sure, there’s the brief, basic pleasantries to get out of the way — “hope you’re well,” “how was your weekend?” and so on — but after that, let them know why you’re reaching out. What do you need from them? Or what do they need from you? Don’t make someone sift through a lengthy email to find what you’re trying to say.

This is especially important, albeit difficult, when you’re relaying bad news. Most people tend to bury the lede in this case because they feel it’ll soften the blow. But it’s better to get it out first and then move onto an explanation from there. When you bury bad news, especially when you’re sharing it face to face, it can just leave the other person frustrated, anxious or even suspicious as they wait for you to finally tell them what’s wrong.

Know Your Audience

Not all messaging is created equal. You need to tailor it to your audience. This really comes into play during a sales or marketing pitch. If you’re trying to sell something complicated to someone who’s not familiar with your product, speak to them on their level. If they don’t understand what you’re telling them, they likely won’t buy into it.

It’s also important to know what your audience cares about so you can cater your message specifically to them. For example, if you’re a department head hoping to have your budget-conscious boss approve a new software program for your team, don’t focus on telling them how great the program is. Instead, tell them how it will help make your team more productive so they end up saving money in the long run.

Don’t Miss Deadlines

A news story that’s late is no good to anyone. While the consequences of a late deliverable may not be as dire in other industries, it’s not a good look. If you’ve told someone you’d have an answer for them about something by a particular day, make it so. If it’s just not possible, let them know ASAP, explain why, set a new deadline that’s realistic and do what you need to do to make sure you don’t disappoint again.

Be Clear And Direct

Don’t make people have to guess what you’re asking for or trying to say. Any confusion will just be an opportunity for them to ignore you. If you’re on a group text or email correspondence and you need something from a particular person or department, address them specifically. When you ask favors of no one in particular, it’s likely that no one will do them.

When it comes to planning or executing a complicated project, I like to break down what needs to happen into digestible lists of actionable items. For example, have headings for each department with a list of what you need from each one and when. I’ve found this not only helps simplify things for others but also for me. Complex undertakings are much less daunting when you break them down into small tasks.

Avoid Jargon

Another key element to effective news writing is using plain language, which often involves translating technical, medical or legal speak into wording that a broad audience can comprehend. The same should be done in business when you’re communicating with clients or consumers. Sorry-not-sorry, jargon lovers, but a message your audience doesn’t understand is a message they won’t hear. While it may be tempting to fall into a shorthand way of speaking, not everyone gets it, so why leave room for miscommunication when you don’t have to?

These newswriting rules may be simple — even obvious — but they’re not common. You can stand out by implementing them in every area of your career and in your business.

As for me: I ended up finishing at the top of my journalism class and am still unlearning every day.

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

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Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

5 Tips for News Writing

By CS Rajan

News writing is quite different from other forms of writing. The main characteristic of a news piece is that you get a real life story in the briefest and most information packed form possible, arranged in a logical and systematic structure. Here are 5 key tips to help write a good news article:

1. News in pyramid structure:

With most other types of written content, the introduction, background, premise and arguments constitute the beginning and body of the piece, while the conclusion or the main point is presented at the end of the piece. News writing requires the exact opposite approach. The main point of the story- the actual news- must be presented at the very beginning of the article. Then, the essential details must be provided in subsequent lines, followed by interesting but not essential details, finally ending with background details for any reader who is interested enough to know.

This is called the pyramid structure, and the point of this format is to allow the readers to grab the gist of the news story right at the start, and then continue to read for more information if they choose to. If the readers stop reading at any point along the news article, the story should still make sense.

The facts and details should be arranged in this order: essential facts > useful information > Interesting details but not essential > background and supporting information.

2. The “5 Ws and H”:

A news article is all about providing details and information regarding an event. So make sure that all the essential facts have been provided. The “5 Ws and H” are the main points to include while writing the news.

Who, What, When, How, Why and Where- these six questions need to be answered in the news article, and should ideally be covered within the first few lines. The ‘Who’ and the ‘What’ especially should be mentioned at the start, since most news is about people doing something.

3. First line:

The first sentence of the news article is most important and it lets the reader know immediately what the story is. Reading further will then depend on the reader’s interest in that particular event; in any case the reader would be informed about the main points of the event from the first line.

This doesn’t mean that you need to include the “5 Ws and H” in the first line itself. The first line should be catchy while remaining informative, and entice the reader to read on for more details.

4. Succinct and to the point:

Journalists are given tight word counts or column spaces. Within this restriction, they need to include the exciting news scoop, all the relevant details and the background information needed to understand the context- all the while trying to make the story sound interesting and appealing to readers. It is a tough call!

It often helps to make a clear outline of the news article before writing it, to ensure that all the facts and information have been included, and arranged in order of decreasing relevance to the story.

5. Stay unbiased:

News writing requires objectivity from the author, and should just focus on reporting the facts- accurately and concisely. Even if you feel strongly about the story, try to keep it free of personal opinions, speculations, unnecessary remarks, or any editorial comments. The tone of the article should not reflect any positive or negative leaning towards the story or any persons involved in it.

Image credit: Alexander Torrenegra on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0 [author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/CS_Rajan.jpg [/author_image] [author_info]CS Rajan is a freelance writer who loves to write on various topics, and is currently working on her first novel. [/author_info] [/author]

Editorial Guidelines

Newswriting Guidelines

Organization (the inverted pyramid).

People have a tendency to tell stories chronologically. Newswriting style is not chronological. The inverted pyramid turns storytelling on its head. Picture an upside-down triangle: the broad base represents the most newsworthy information, and the narrow tip the least newsworthy—that’s the inverted pyramid. It puts the most important or juiciest information at the top of the story; the rest of the information is given in order of descending importance. (In addition to presenting the most important information at the top, in newspaper composing rooms the inverted pyramid traditionally served the purpose of allowing stories that ran long to be cut from the bottom without losing essential information.)

The start of a news story should present the most compelling information. If it’s a report about a meeting, for instance, look for the keynote speaker’s main point, decisions taken, record-breaking attendance, or some other newsworthy information. To start by saying X society held its annual meeting on X date at X isn’t news; that lead could have been written months before the meeting. What is lead material goes something like this: <something significant that happened> at the meeting of X society <when and where>. (And speaking of the when and where, when a newsletter is coming out months after a meeting, it’s not necessary to give the date; just the month or even the season is adequate.)

Fact (Not Opinion) and Attribution

Newswriting traditionally doesn’t express opinion unless it’s attributed to a source. Of course, we don’t have to be so scrupulous about saying Northwestern is great, but opinions that people might contest should be attributed. Facts (and anything that someone would ask “Says who?” about) should also be attributed if they’re not generally known and accepted.

Identification

A person’s full first name or both initials should be used on first reference—not just a single initial. It shouldn’t be assumed that every reader knows who the person is; he or she should be identified in a way that’s relevant to the article. In captions, it’s not necessary to use a middle initial if it’s already been used in the text.

Short Paragraphs

In newswriting, paragraphs are kept short for punchiness and appearance.

Newswriting is generally in the third person. If there is compelling reason to use first or second person, don’t jar readers by abrupt switches of person.

Headlines should be short and preferably snappy. They should come out of information in the body of the text and not present new information. Headlines are usually not in past tense; a headline about a past event is generally in present tense; one about a future event generally includes to (to meet, to decide, etc.) Within a publication section, headlines should be consistent; those that are mere labels shouldn’t be mixed with those that have verbs. Articles (a, an, the) are usually not used in headlines.

Mastering Journalistic Writing: Tips for Effective News Reporting

Published: December 7, 2023
By: Yellowbrick

Journalistic writing is a crucial skill for anyone pursuing a career in the media industry. Whether you aspire to become a journalist, news reporter, or even a content creator, having a solid foundation in journalistic writing is essential. In this article, we will explore the key elements of journalistic writing and provide you with valuable tips to improve your news reporting skills.

1. Understanding the News

The first step in journalistic writing is to have a clear understanding of what constitutes news. News is not just about reporting events; it is about presenting information that is timely, relevant, and significant to the audience. Journalists must identify newsworthy stories and present them in a compelling manner.

2. Research and Fact-Checking

Journalistic writing requires thorough research and fact-checking. Before writing any news article, it is essential to gather accurate information from reliable sources. Verify the facts and cross-reference the information to ensure its authenticity. Remember, credibility is the backbone of journalism.

3. Clear and Concise Writing

Journalistic writing should be clear, concise, and to the point. Avoid using jargon or unnecessary technical terms that may confuse your readers. Use simple language and structure your sentences in a way that captures the essence of the story without overwhelming the audience.

4. The Inverted Pyramid Structure

The inverted pyramid structure is a common technique used in journalistic writing. This structure entails presenting the most important information at the beginning of the article, followed by supporting details in descending order of importance. This approach allows readers to grasp the key points even if they only read the first few paragraphs.

5. Captivating Headlines

A compelling headline is crucial in attracting readers to your news article. Your headline should be concise, attention-grabbing, and accurately represent the content of the story. It should pique the curiosity of the audience and entice them to read further.

6. Objective Reporting

Journalistic writing requires objectivity. Reporters should present the facts without personal bias or opinions. It is essential to remain neutral and provide multiple perspectives on a story. This allows readers to form their own opinions based on the information presented.

7. Ethical Considerations

Journalism is governed by a set of ethical principles. Journalists should prioritize accuracy, fairness, and transparency in their reporting. Respect the privacy of individuals, obtain consent when necessary, and always attribute your sources. Adhering to ethical guidelines builds trust with your audience.

8. Adaptability and Flexibility

Journalism is an ever-evolving field, and journalists must be adaptable to new technologies and changing trends. Embrace multimedia platforms, such as online articles, podcasts, and videos, to reach a wider audience. Develop skills in digital storytelling and engage with your readers through various channels.

9. Continuous Learning

Journalistic writing is a skill that can be honed through practice and continuous learning. Stay updated with current events, industry trends, and new reporting techniques. Attend workshops, seminars, or online courses specifically designed to enhance your journalistic writing skills. Platforms like Yellowbrick offer comprehensive online programs that can help you refine your craft.

10. Building a Portfolio

Aspiring journalists should focus on building a strong portfolio of their work. Start by contributing to school or local newspapers, blogs, or online publications. Internships and freelance opportunities also provide valuable experience and allow you to showcase your writing skills to potential employers.

Key Takeaways

Understand the importance of presenting timely, relevant, and significant news to your audience.
Conduct thorough research and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and credibility in your writing.
Write with clarity, conciseness, and simplicity to effectively communicate your message.
Utilize the inverted pyramid structure to prioritize important information and engage readers.
Craft captivating headlines that accurately represent your content and attract readers.
Maintain objectivity and present multiple perspectives to allow readers to form their own opinions.
Adhere to ethical principles such as accuracy, fairness, transparency, and source attribution.
Embrace adaptability and stay updated with new technologies and trends in journalism.
Engage in continuous learning through workshops, seminars, or online courses to enhance your skills.
Build a strong portfolio by contributing to various publications and showcasing your writing abilities.

To further enhance your journalistic writing skills and gain valuable insights from industry professionals, consider enrolling in the “NYU | Modern Journalism” online course and certificate program offered by Yellowbrick. This comprehensive program will provide you with the necessary tools and knowledge to excel in the field of journalism. Start your journey towards becoming a successful journalist today!

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A man runs past the WWII Memorial on a hot day in Washington, D.C., with the Lincoln Memorial in the background

Extreme heat can be dangerous for runners, cyclists and anyone spending time outdoors: 6 tips for staying safe

Associate Professor of Athletic Training, University of South Carolina

Disclosure statement

Susan Yeargin is affiliated with the Korey Stringer Institute as a volunteer on their Medical and Science Advisory Board.

University of South Carolina provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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When summer starts with a stifling heat wave, as many places are seeing in 2024 , it can pose risks for just about anyone who spends time outside, whether they’re runners, people who walk or cycle to work, outdoor workers or kids playing sports.

Susan Yeargin , an expert on heat-related illnesses, explains what everyone should think about before spending time outside in a heat wave and how to keep yourself and vulnerable family members and friends safe.

What risks do people facing running, walking or working outside when it’s hot out?

The time of day matters if you’re going for a run, or if you’re walking or cycling to work during a heat wave. Early risers or evening runners face less of a risk – the Sun isn’t as hot and the air temperature is lower.

But if your normal routine is to go for a run midmorning or over lunch, you probably want to rethink exercising in the heat.

Pretty much everywhere in the U.S., the hottest part of the day is between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m . The body will gain heat from both the air temperature and solar radiation. The ground also heats up , so you’ll feel more heat rising up from the asphalt or grass.

Add humidity to the mix and that will also affect your body’s ability to dissipate heat through sweat.

Symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke

Don’t forget that the body also generates internal heat when you’re active, whether you’re running or even mowing your lawn. When it’s warm to hot outside, you’re further increasing your heat gain through that exertion. The harder someone runs or cycles, the more heat they’re generating.

Outdoor workers on farms, construction sites or even walking dogs are often in the heat longer, with less flexibility for breaks.

Do our bodies eventually adapt to summer heat?

It takes about two weeks for the typical person to fully acclimatize to higher temperatures. Over that time, your body makes amazing adaptations to handle the heat.

Your sweat rate improves , dissipating heat more effectively. Your plasma volume expands so you have more blood pumping through your body, so the heart doesn’t have to work as hard. Because your cardiovascular system is more efficient, your body doesn’t heat up as much. You also retain salt a bit better, which helps you keep water in your body.

A young baseball player puts hit head down in the dugout while sitting on a bench.

That doesn’t mean you’re ready for even higher temperatures or extreme heat, though. Even if you’re acclimatized to 80-degree weather, you might not be ready for a 95-degree heat wave. When we get early season heat waves and high humidity, that can reach a level people aren’t adapted to handle yet. And some combinations of heat and humidity are too much for anyone to safely spend much time in.

Are young children and older people at higher risk in the heat?

In older adults, the cardiovascular system isn’t as flexible and powerful as it used to be, so it doesn’t operate as efficiently , and sweating mechanisms decrease . That leaves older adults at greater risk for illnesses such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke .

Their thirst mechanism may also not function as well, leaving them more likely to become dehydrated. Some older adults are also less willing or able than younger people to seek out cooling centers.

An older woman holds a glass of water next to a list of safety tips for older adults facing heat waves.

Children might take a few more days to acclimatize than adults. They’re also more dependent on skin heat loss than sweating, which is why their skin can get red and flushed-looking.

Children are probably better about complaining about feeling too hot or not feeling well, though, so listen to them and help them seek out cooler areas. They might not realize that they can take a break during soccer practice, or that they should come in from the beach.

What are your top heat safety tips?

Be smart about the time of day you’re being active : People love their routines, but you need to get the workout and yard work and other outdoor activities done early in the day or late in the evening. Avoiding the hottest parts of the day is the smartest way to prevent heat illnesses. When outside and the Sun is up, seek places with shade.

Have good hydration habits: Don’t ignore thirst – it’s your body telling you something. Hydration keeps your plasma volume higher to help your heart work less and decreases your overall risk for heat illnesses . Your brain and muscles are also composed of water, so if your body senses that you don’t have enough water, it will start to sacrifice other things, including how much you’re sweating.

Listen to your body : When you do need to be outside to work or play, your body will give you cues regarding how it’s handling the heat. If you don’t feel well, feel hot or can’t seem to push harder, your body is telling you to slow down, add extra breaks or get out of the situation.

A man in a floppy hat and T-shirt pours water from a bottle into his mouth in front of a truck.

Make smart clothing choices : Wear light-colored clothing, which absorbs less heat than dark clothes. Short-sleeved shirts and shorts can also avoid helping heat build up or impairing sweat evaporation.

Remember that helmets and sports equipment hold in heat : Construction workers often have to wear hard hats, but athletes don’t always need to practice with shoulder pads and helmets, especially in high heat. To help workers, there is a push for companies to follow health safety guidelines , such as providing cooling stations and hydration breaks.

Get a good night’s sleep : Heat exposure one day can affect your risk the following day . If you can sleep in air conditioning and get a good night’s sleep , that may help decrease the risk of heat illness.

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OPINION ANALYSIS

Supreme court limits scope of anti-bribery law.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken. Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained that state and local governments already regulate gifts to officials, and so the federal law “does not supplement those state and local rules by subjecting 19 million state and local officials to up to 10 years in federal prison for accepting even commonplace gratuities.”

The question came to the court in the case of James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Ind., who was convicted and sentenced to 21 months in prison for violating the federal law at the center of the case, known as Section 666. That law bars state and local government officials from “corruptly” accepting “anything of value of any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded” for an official act. In 2014, Snyder received $13,000 from a truck company that had recently received contracts totaling over $1 million for new trash trucks for the city. Snyder maintains that the payment was for consulting services, but federal prosecutors called it an illegal gratuity.

Kavanaugh pointed to six reasons that, considered together, lead to the court’s conclusion that Section 666 does not criminalize gratuities to state and local officials for their past acts. First, he explained, the text of the statute is modeled on the provision criminalizing bribery for federal officials, and it “bears little resemblance” to the provision that makes it a crime for federal officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.

Second, Kavanaugh continued, although when Congress first enacted Section 666 it had used language from the gratuities statute for federal officials, it later changed the law so that it more closely resembled the bribery statute for federal officials. “It therefore would be strange to interpret” Section 666 “to mean the same thing now that it meant back in 1984, before the 1986 amendment.”

Third, Kavanaugh wrote, it would be “highly unusual, if not unique” for Congress to draft a law that applies to both bribery and gratuities, which are “two separate crimes with two different sets of elements.”

Fourth, Kavanaugh observed, because accepting a bribe and accepting gratuities are different crimes, Congress imposed very different punishments for the two in the laws that apply to federal officials: up to 15 years for accepting a bribe, but only up to two years for accepting an illegal gratuity. The government’s interpretation of Section 666 as applying to gratuities would therefore create “an entirely inexplicable regime for state and local officials,” Kavanaugh posited, by authorizing the same 10-year sentence for both crimes.

Fifth, Kavanaugh reasoned, the government’s interpretation would interfere with the right of state and local governments to regulate the acceptance of gratuities by their officials. He described a scenario in which “a county official could meticulously comply with her county’s local gratuities rules — say, by declining a $200 gift card but accepting a $100 gift card from a neighbor as thanks for her diligent work on a new park — but still face up to 10 years in federal prison because she accepted a thing of value in connection with an official act.”

Sixth and finally, Kavanaugh concluded, if Section 666 applies to gratuities, state and local officials would not have enough warning about when it applied (and they might therefore face criminal liability). The government did not offer “any remotely clear lines separating an innocuous or obviously benign gratuity from a criminal gratuity.” And he rejected the government’s assurances that prosecutors “can be trusted not to enforce the statute against small-time violators.” The Supreme Court, he said, “cannot construe a criminal statute on the assumption that the Government will use it responsibly.”

Kavanaugh closed his opinion by noting that “Congress can always change the law if it wishes to do so” – but it has not, since 1986.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. In her view, the plain text of the statute led easily to the conclusion that Section 666 applies to gratuities paid to state and local officials after they have acted. She emphasized that the statute makes it a crime to accept “anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded.” “The term ‘rewarded,’” she contended, “easily covers the concept of gratuities paid to corrupt officials after the fact — no upfront agreement necessary.”

Jackson pushed back against Kavanaugh’s contention that the government’s interpretation of Section 666 could sweep in too much conduct without clear notice to state and local officials. She argued that the law “was not designed to apply to teachers accepting fruit baskets, soccer coaches getting gift cards, or newspaper delivery guys who get a tip at Christmas.” In particular, she wrote, the text of Section 666 itself imposes limits on the scenarios in which it can apply – for example, it applies only when state, local, or tribal governments receive at least $10,000 per year from a federal program, it does not apply to legitimate compensation, and the official who accepts the payment must do so “corruptly.”

Indeed, Jackson posited, “the real cases in which the Government has invoked this law involve exactly the type of palm greasing that the statute plainly covers and that one might reasonably expect Congress to care about when targeting graft in state, local, and tribal governments. After today, however, the ability of the Federal Government to prosecute such obviously wrongful conduct is left in doubt.”

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court .

Posted in Merits Cases

Cases: Snyder v. United States

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Supreme Court limits scope of anti-bribery law , SCOTUSblog (Jun. 26, 2024, 6:50 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/

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14 ways to get better at using ChatGPT: Comprehensive prompt guide

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm — but some struggle to get the chatbot to do what they want.
Insider asked AI enthusiasts how they interact with the chatbot to produce desirable outputs.
Here are 14 tips for crafting the best ChatGPT prompts, from assigning it a persona to being polite.

Since launching over a year ago, ChatGPT has become seemingly omnipresent.

At work, people have used the OpenAI product to develop code , generate marketing materials , and create lesson plans . It's become so popular that companies are now hiring workers who have ChatGPT expertise to boost their bottom lines.

And in their everyday lives, people are turning to the chatbot for help with losing weight , landing dates , and delaying aging.

But ChatGPT doesn't always produce desirable outcomes, and the tech can be prone to errors and misinformation.

It all comes down to the prompts users put into ChatGPT.

"If you really want to generate something that is going to be useful for you, you need to do more than just write a generic sentence," Jacqueline DeStefano-Tangorra, a consultant who uses ChatGPT to secure new contracts, told Insider .

Insider sifted through AI research and asked AI enthusiasts, ChatGPT coaches, and workers who use the chatbot for tips on how to get ChatGPT to do what you want.

Here are 12 ways you can write better ChatGPT prompts.

1. assign chatgpt a specific role.

ChatGPT works best when you assign it a persona — such as a specific job role — Jason Gulya, an AI council chair at Berkeley College who teaches clients how to use ChatGPT, said.

Rob Cressy, the founder of the AI-coaching firm GPT Leaders, told Insider to "talk to ChatGPT like an employee" to help accomplish particular goals or tasks.

To do this, Gulya suggests that users write a prompt that includes a specific, concrete description of the persona you want the chatbot to take on. Begin your prompt with "act as a professor" or "act as a marketing professional," followed by a description of the desired outcome.

2. Be specific — and only give the bot one task at a time

Once you give ChatGPT a role, craft the prompt so it can accomplish a singular task such as writing a 300-word cover letter or generating a recipe for a protein-packed dinner.

"Don't ask it to do too much at once," Cressy said.

If you're a marketing professional, and you want ChatGPT to build a list of emails, Peggy Dean, an artist who runs a ChatGPT course for creatives , recommends crafting what she calls a "power prompt," a concise and detailed prompt.

If asking ChatGPT to brief a marketing campaign, she said she'd include target audiences, key features, and calls to action.

If asking the chatbot to come up with an email list and calls to action, she said she'd say:

"Pretend you are an expert email marketer and your client is a [role] specializing in [offerings] for [target audience]. Your goal is to build a robust email list in order to accomplish [goal]. Your client uses [platform(s)] to reach their audience. Come up with [details or quantity] ideal call to action ideas of [freebies or lead magnets] your client can provide."

"It's crucial to have a clear idea of what you hope to achieve," Dean told Insider.

3. Refine your prompts based on a previous outputs

If ChatGPT's response isn't quite what you're looking for, Cressy said to build on its output by fine-tuning the initial prompt. He calls this process "peeling back an onion."

"Don't be afraid to refine your prompts," DeStefano-Tangorra said. "If the initial output doesn't match your expectation, rephrase the prompt, add more detail, or clarify the context."

If the answer to a prompt asking ChatGPT to "suggest a good book" is too vague, refine it to something like: "As someone who loves mystery novels with strong female leads, like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series, can you suggest other similar books that I may enjoy?"

4. Provide context

ChatGPT prompts should include context such as historical information, user profiles, preferences, or any relevant details to guide its response, DeStefano-Tangorra said. The more specific, the better.

Asking ChatGPT to "suggest dinner recipes," will lead to a generic output. Instead, DeStefano-Tangorra suggests tweaking that prompt to say: "As someone who loves trying out new cuisines and has a particular fondness of spicy food, can you suggest an exciting dinner menu for my next weekend get-together with my friends?"

If you want to apply ChatGPT to your business, Cressy suggests creating a "best-practices document" that includes details on who you are, what you do, and what your brand voice sounds like. That way, users can copy and paste the information into the chatbot whenever they start a new conversation.

Instead of asking ChatGPT to "create me a marketing strategy" the prompt should say "I am a world-class [role] who helps [target audience] for business growth. Our brand voice is friendly, positive, inspiring, brand-safe, conversational. Create me a marketing strategy to help build my brand on Facebook and Instagram by leveraging my podcast."

5. Break down the desired output into a series of steps

While it's best for prompts to be specific and include context, writing a long prompt can be counterproductive, Gulya said.

"More often than not, a long mega-prompt does not give the desirable output," he said.

6. Ask ChatGPT for advice on how to prompt it better

To ensure your prompt is as thorough as it can be, Dean suggested asking ChatGPT what other details it needs from the user to produce the best output.

To do this, Dean suggests adding a line to your prompt that follows this template: "If I want to [desired outcome], what prompts should I share with ChatGPT in order to get the best results?"

Once ChatGPT has generated an output, tell the chatbot what you like and dislike about the output and ask it to "request additional results, edits, or tweaks," she said.

7. Prioritize clarity and precision

DeStefano-Tangorra suggests that ChatGPT users "explicitly outline your expectations within the prompt" by adding precise words.

"Clear and specific prompts lead to more relevant and useful responses," she said.

The prompt "compare and contrast using an oven versus a microwave for preparing dinner," should be tweaked to "can you compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of using a traditional oven versus a microwave for preparing a family dinner?"

8. Use a thesaurus

To write your prompt with precision, Anna Bernstein, a prompt engineer at the generative-AI writing tool Copy.ai, suggests using a thesaurus to find the words that can increase your chances of getting what you want out of the chatbot.

"Don't give up on a concept just because your first prompt didn't get the result you wanted," Bernstein previously told Insider . "Often, finding the right word or phrasing can unlock what you're doing."

9. Pay attention to verbs

A thesaurus can help you find verbs that clearly express your intent. That way, the AI has a better chance of fully understanding your request, Bernstein said.

She said that a prompt including the phrase "condense this" is stronger than "rewrite this to be shorter."

10. Be polite, but direct

While ChatGPT users may have different conversational styles, Gulya said he finds that talking to the AI using polite, direct language — as if he's writing to a friend — yields the best results.

"Doing so puts me in a more collaborative, more flexible mindset," he said.

When interacting with the chatbot for, say, advice on how college professors can enhance their skillsets, Gulya suggests writing flattering comments such as, "You're magnificent at seeing the root causes in faculty member's anxieties about artificial intelligence."

After the chatbot spits out a response you like, express gratitude by saying something like, "This is great. Thank you so much!" followed by a request to make revisions to its output.

11.Talk to ChatGPT with emotional language

If talking to ChatGPT like a friend doesn't produce desirable results, try adding some emotion to your prompts.

A study conducted by a team of researchers from Microsoft, William & Mary, and research centers across Asia found that adding phrases like "This is very important to my career" and "You'd better be sure" to ChatGPT prompts yield better responses.

ChatGPT users can also try writing prompts with phrases like "You'd better be sure," "Take pride in your work and give it your best," and "Remember that progress is made one step at a time. Stay determined and keep moving forward."

12. Check and tweak the copy's tone and reading level

If you're using ChatGPT to generate copy or captions for social media posts, make sure to tweak its tone so the content resonates with your target audience, Ashley Couto, a marketing professional who uses the chatbot to reduce her workload, told Business Insider.

Couto finds that the best marketing copy reads at a fifth- or sixth-grade level, which includes "short sentences and paragraphs, a conversational tone, and simple language."

To do this, Couto recommends asking ChatGPT to "change the reading level and tone" after it spits out a response.

13. Feed ChatGPT an outline

If you want ChatGPT to generate longer posts, Couto suggests giving the AI a specific structure and outline. She said the more specific you can be with your instructions, the better its output will be.

Here's one prompt Couto uses to generate a company blog post:

"Following this story structure — 1. Capture the heart, 2. Set up a tension, 3. Resolve the tension, 4. Conclude by offering value — write a 1,000-word story at a grade-five reading level in the first person using the following information."

14. Include reference text

Is ChatGPT making up answers that are factually incorrect? If so, adding bodies of text from trusted sources into the prompt may help eliminate these hallucinations.

OpenAI's prompt guide suggests copying and pasting articles into ChatGPT, and then asking the chatbot to answer questions based on them.

An example of a prompt OpenAI provides is "Use the provided articles delimited by triple quotes to answer questions. If the answer cannot be found in the articles, write 'I could not find an answer.' After that, insert the text from the article below, followed by the questions you want ChatGPT to answer."

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

Main content

Election latest: Labour set for landslide if polls correct, minister acknowledges - as Braverman tells Tories to 'read the writing on the wall'

We're in the final 24 hours of the general election campaign, and both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will spend the day making their last ditch pleas to Britons for their votes.

Wednesday 3 July 2024 10:45, UK

General Election 2024

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Beth Rigby: Labour insiders remain cautious - but can't help feeling the party's time has come
Labour on course for landslide if polls are correct, minister acknowledges
Electoral Dysfunction: What to watch out for on election night
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Over the course of the campaign, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has developed a reputation for headline-grabbing, and at times comical, stunts.

We've seen him paddle-boarding, bungee-jumping, Zumba dancing and teacup riding.

Now, breaths are being held in newsrooms across the country as to what denouement Sir Ed Davey has planned today, the last one before voting begins.

We're getting a taste this morning in the first of three campaign visits by Sir Ed.

On a field in Chippenham, he gives a double thumbs up to the cameras before getting inside a yellow JCB tractor, with the phrase "he who dares wins" emblazoned on its window.

Another pulls up alongside him - it appears a race is about to begin.

Sir Ed pulls away at, well, the speed of a tractor, but appears to be winning.

Several laps in the tractors follow, the details of which are pretty identical to the first.

Pulling to a stop and leaning out the door of the vehicle, he tells reporters: "We've talked about the blue wall in the home counties, we've talked about the blue wall in the west country. This is the blue wall across rural Britain, and the yellow tractor is coming for it."

He continues: "I'm really proud in this election campaign that, as well as having a bit of fun, we have brought the issue of caring out of the shadows.

"We have made the argument that if you look after family carers, if you look after professional carers, you can rescue our NHS as well.

"That's the message I want people to have as they go into the voting booths."

The fastest results, the sharpest analysis and an award-winning line up - as the general election unfolds, Sky News will bring you the full story, first.

Whether you want to settle down in front of the TV, stay in the know on the move, or keep updated from work, we'll have live coverage across our platforms to bring you everything as soon as it happens.

We'll have expert commentary and analysis to help you digest key developments, kicking off with the exit poll and running through the weekend.

Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, has continued to insist that his party is not counting on a victory in tomorrow's election, despite Conservatives appearing to concede their own defeat.

Asked if he believes Labour has already won, Sir Keir says: "No."

He explains that his party will continue to "fight for every vote", saying: "There will be constituencies which will go down to the wire and therefore, we will continue to fight until 10pm tomorrow night, making the case to change only happens if you vote for it.

"But it is a huge opportunity for our country."

Does Boris Johnson's appearance at a Tory rally last night concern him?

"Not in the slightest," Sir Keir says. "I've been arguing that the last 14 years have been about chaos and division.

"Last night they wheeled out the architect of chaos and division."

And, asked how he is feeling on the precipice of what could be a historic win, Sir Keir says: "Very pleased and confident."

He adds: "I want to now get on with the opportunity to roll up our sleeves and bring about the change which I think the country deserves and to return politics to the politics of public service, not entitlement."

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is in South Wales this morning, for the start of his tour of England, Scotland and Wales on the very last day of campaigning.

He was joined by the leader of Welsh Labour - Vaughan Gething - who hails the prospect of "two Labour governments working together" to deliver for Britain.

He says: "It is time for change - it is time to win."

Sir Keir now takes to the floor, making his last minute pitch to those in Wales to vote Labour tomorrow.

He says: "We've now had 14 years of chaos, of divisions, of failure - and the choice tomorrow is to bring that to an end, to turn the page and start to rebuild with Labour."

Sir Keir goes on to criticise the Tory campaign, noting Rishi Sunak began by campaigning with Lord Cameron, "then he borrowed Liz Truss' programme and put it in his manifesto of unfunded tax cuts, and last night they wheeled out Boris Johnson".

He adds: "When I say chaos, division and failure - they've just exhibited that in this campaign. Nothing is going to change."

The Labour leader reiterates his line that people need convincing that "change is possible" - if you vote for the party.

"There's no point in voting. They're all the same. Nothing ever changes anyway."

In the run-up to general elections past and present, you may have heard various iterations of the above from friends, family, colleagues, and strangers.

Repeated political scandals have seen the public's distrust of politicians and voter apathy increase. At the 2019 General Election, roughly a third (32.7%) of the country didn't vote.

At the link below, we look back at changes brought in by both Conservative and Labour governments that have fundamentally changed day-to-day life in the UK - many for the better.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman has told the Conservatives to "read the writing on the wall" and prepare for the "reality and frustration" of losing the election.

Poll after poll is now suggesting the Labour Party is expected to win a large majority in parliament, with the Sky News poll of polls putting Sir Keir 19 points ahead this morning.

An average of all polls with fieldwork completed during the seven days to 2 July puts Labour on 40%, 19 points ahead of the Conservatives on 21%, followed by Reform on 16%, the Lib Dems on 11% and the Greens on 6%.

And Rishi Sunak has repeatedly been warning of a Labour "supermajority", appearing to concede himself that his party may not win.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Ms Braverman said victory should no longer be the ambition for the Tories.

She added: "Thursday's vote is now all about forming a strong enough opposition.

"One needs to read the writing on the wall: it's over, and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition."

Pat McFadden, Labour's national campaign co-ordinator, tells Sky News that it is "disrespectful" for the Conservatives to call the outcome of the election before polling day.

Earlier, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said "we know what the result is going to be if the polls are right - we know it's going to be a Labour landslide".

And Rishi Sunak has repeatedly warned of a Labour "supermajority", urging the British public to make sure the Conservatives keep enough seats to challenge a potential Labour government.

But Mr McFadden rejects the idea that the race is won.

He says: "No it's not all over, I think lots of voters have still got to make up their mind.

"I've been reflecting on the Conservative messages about us, I think it was exactly two months ago today when I sat in this studio and people were quoting Rishi Sunak to me after the local elections saying the real problem is Labour can't get a majority.

"Fast forward two months, and now they're trying to say something else.

"I think it's disrespectful to the electorate to call the outcome of an election before people have gone to the polls.

"It's in the voters' hands."

By Jason Farrell , home editor

The Adventure Bike Rider Festival in Warwickshire is Glastonbury on Wheels.

Fields on the beautiful Ragley Hall estate are full of tents and motorcycles, where the sound of rumbling exhausts mix with pumping music from tribute rock bands on the main stage.

We've come here on our last stop of Bench Across Britain, where we've been testing the mood of the nation ahead of the general election by sitting people on a green commons seat and asking them to share their thoughts.

This is our last stop, and what we find is an electorate that is still uncertain, still hard to read, as polling day is almost upon us.

We park our parliamentary bench amid gleaming chrome BSA bikes where retired IT professional Richard Bellis sits down with his friend, former firefighter, Darren Higginson.

What unfolds is a conversation that will make pollsters shudder.

The first big moment of election night this Thursday is the exit poll.

It'll provide us with our first major insight into the result.

Our political correspondent Serena Barker-Singh explains all you need to know:

Rishi Sunak has been warning of a Labour "supermajority" for weeks, without explaining exactly what it means.

What's the PM getting at?

"Supermajority" is being used by Mr Sunak to refer to the scale of the Labour victory being projected by many pollsters - with some saying they could top the 419 seats won by Tony Blair in 1997.

That gave Labour a majority of 179, but with the Tories tipped to do even worse than they did back then (165 seats), Sir Keir Starmer could end up enjoying the biggest parliamentary advantage on record.

Mr Sunak has said such a "supermajority" would make it harder for the Labour Party to be held to account in the Commons.

Is he right to sound the alarm?

Well, no - because the concept of a supermajority is meaningless in British democracy.

It's a familiar phrase in US politics, where a supermajority of two-thirds really does matter in some votes.

For example, Congress is required for particularly significant legislation like impeaching a president to hit that two-thirds threshold.

In the UK, a governing party only has to hold more than half of the 650 seats in the Commons, whether that be 326 or much more.

A majority of one could be just as effective as something much bigger - as long as the majority party keeps its MPs in line.

Some have argued the "supermajority" concept isn't without merit, for example in referendums, but it's certainly not relevant to this election despite the Tories' best efforts to make it so.

Whether it's healthy for parliament to be as dominated by one party as it could be from 5 July is another question - but whatever the majority Labour might have, there'll be nothing super about it.

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How to Write a News Article: 14 Steps (with Pictures)
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How to Write a News Article: 14 Steps (with Pictures)
2. Compile all your facts. Once you can clearly answer the "5 W's", jot down a list of all the pertinent facts and information that needs to be included in the article. Organize your facts into three groups: 1) those that need to be included in the article. 2) those that are interesting but not vital.
10 Dos and Don'ts of Writing a Piece of Journalism
5. Do Use Multiple Sources. Find and use multiple sources in your piece, be it records or people. Use quotes from those who are in some way involved in the story, from experts to victims. Conduct interviews either in-person, by phone, or your choice of digital recording method. Always be accurate when quoting.
News Writing: Tips and Examples for Better Reporting
1. Stay consistent with news values. The first thing you should do before starting a piece of news writing is consider how the topic fits in with the 6 key news values. These values help journalists determine how newsworthy a story is, as well as which information should be included in the lede and article as a whole.
How to Write an Effective News Article
The article should not contain your opinions. Detail any events in chronological order. Use the active voice —not passive voice —when possible, and write in clear, short, direct sentences. In a news article, you should use the inverted pyramid format—putting the most critical information in the early paragraphs and following with ...
15 News Writing Rules for Beginning Journalism Students
Tips for News Writing . Generally speaking, the lede, or introduction to the story, should be a single sentence of 35 to 45 words that summarizes the main points of the story, not a seven-sentence monstrosity that looks like it's out of a Jane Austen novel.; The lede should summarize the story from start to finish. So if you're writing about a fire that destroyed a building and left 18 people ...
How to Write a News Article & Publish in 9 Simple Steps
Never take anything for granted if you want to make it as a news writer. 2. Outline the Main Point of Your Article. Once you have the relevant details you need, you should start outlining the main point of your article. Sum up the entire piece in one sentence before you move on to outlining the whole piece.
Master the Essentials of News Writing: A Beginner's Guide
News articles should be written in a clear and concise manner. Avoid jargon, technical terms, and complex sentences that may confuse the reader. Use simple, everyday language that is easily understood by a wide audience. 6. Maintain Objectivity. Objectivity is a cornerstone of news writing.
The Art of Journalistic Writing: A Comprehensive Guide ️
The main goal of journalistic writing is to provide accurate and objective news coverage. Journalists gather facts, conduct research, and interview sources to present a fair and unbiased account of events. They strive to deliver information clearly, concisely, and interestingly that grabs readers' attention and helps them understand the subject.
How to Write an Online News Article
The nut graph. The nut graph is the heart of the story. It explains what the news is about, why it's timely and why readers should care. The nut graph can be one sentence or several paragraphs and should include the answers to who, what, when, where and why. It often places the new developments in context by describing the bigger picture.
Master News Writing: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners
Mastering the art of news writing is essential for anyone aspiring to pursue a career in journalism or related fields. By understanding the basics, conducting thorough research, crafting compelling headlines, and adhering to journalistic principles, you can become a skilled news writer. Remember to practice regularly and seek feedback to ...
The Writing Center
Attributing information. ALL information in a news article MUST be attributed to the source where the reporter got his/her information. The reporter must indicate in his/her article where material was obtained from - from an interview, court documents, the Census, a Web site, etc. Direct quotes and paraphrasing can be used to attribute information obtained in an interview with a source.
Master the Essentials of News Writing: A Beginner's Guide
News writing is based on facts, not opinions. It is crucial to present accurate information and verify your sources. Double-check names, dates, and statistics to ensure the credibility of your article. Avoid biased language and present multiple perspectives when appropriate. 5. Use Clear and Concise Language.
How to Write Like a Journalist: 8 Tips
The same approach can be applied to any style of writing, from high school writing assignments to novels. It's a way of disseminating information in a way that makes sense to readers. Follow these eight journalistic writing tips for your next reported story: 1. Gather the information. Gather the information you need to construct your story.
Tips for Writing News Stories That Will Grab a Reader
Six Tips for Writing News Stories That Will Grab a Reader. Start compellingly, write tight, and chose words with care. Caiaimage/Robert Daly / Getty Images. By. Tony Rogers. Updated on July 15, 2019. So you've done a ton of reporting, conducted in-depth interviews, and dug up a great story. All your hard work will be wasted if you write a ...
News Writing Fundamentals: Tips, Tricks & Best Practices
Use Clear and Concise Language. News writing should be clear, concise, and to the point. Avoid using jargon or technical terms that might confuse your readers. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short, and use simple language that is easy to understand. Remember, your goal is to inform, not impress with your vocabulary.
Basic newswriting: Learn how to originate, research and write breaking
Review basic math skills needed to evaluate and use statistics in news. Report and write basic stories about news events on deadline. Suggested reading. A standard textbook of the instructor's choosing. America's Best Newspaper Writing, Roy Peter Clark and Christopher Scanlan, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006
How to Write a News Story
The following is an excerpt from The Elements of News Writing by James W. Kershner (Pearson, 2009). This book is available for checkout at Buley Library (Call number PN 4775 .K37 2009, on the 3rd floor) 1. Select a newsworthy story. Your goal is to give a timely account of a recent, interesting, and significant event or development.
The 10 essentials of news writing
Use active voice. Put numbers into context - particularly large numbers. Avoid long, disjointed sentences shackled with confusing dependent clauses. Your writing should be clear, complete and compelling. 3. Completeness. Make sure you have included all of the most important and relevant details.
Tips for Writing in a Newspaper
Looking for some tips for writing in a newspaper? We've collected the tips, tricks and fundamentals you need to write a clear, easy-to-read, informative story.
Five Newswriting Rules Everyone Should Use In Their Communications
Here are five basic newswriting principles that can rock your world: Never Bury The Lede. This is the first commandment in newswriting. As I already mentioned, you should start your story with the ...
5 Tips for News Writing
Here are 5 key tips to help write a good news article: 1. News in pyramid structure: With most other types of written content, the introduction, background, premise and arguments constitute the beginning and body of the piece, while the conclusion or the main point is presented at the end of the piece. News writing requires the exact opposite ...
Newswriting Guidelines: Brand Tools
A person's full first name or both initials should be used on first reference—not just a single initial. It shouldn't be assumed that every reader knows who the person is; he or she should be identified in a way that's relevant to the article. In captions, it's not necessary to use a middle initial if it's already been used in the text.
14 Best Writing Tips to Improve Your Writing Skills
Whether you're a student, a professional, or just someone who loves to write, we hope you'll find something here to help you improve your writing skills. Following these writing tips can help you to become a better writer. Here are the 14 Best Writing Tips to Get Started. Set Writing Goals; Decide on the Best Time to Write
Mastering Journalistic Writing: Tips for Effective News Reporting
The first step in journalistic writing is to have a clear understanding of what constitutes news. News is not just about reporting events; it is about presenting information that is timely, relevant, and significant to the audience. Journalists must identify newsworthy stories and present them in a compelling manner. 2. Research and Fact-Checking.
Extreme heat can be dangerous for runners, cyclists and anyone spending
Tips for avoiding heat illness can save lives, but they can be difficult to follow, even in wealthy countries. ... Want to write? Write an article and join a growing community of more than 186,000 ...
Supreme Court limits scope of anti-bribery law
Writing for a si The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken. ... or newspaper delivery guys who get a tip at Christmas." In particular, she wrote, the text of Section 666 itself imposes limits on the ...
Prompt Guide: How to Use ChatGPT
Here are 14 tips for crafting the best ChatGPT prompts, from assigning it a persona to being polite. Sign up to get the inside scoop on today's biggest stories in markets, tech, and business ...
Election latest: Labour set for landslide if polls correct ...
We're in the final 24 hours of the general election campaign, and both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will spend the day making their last ditch pleas to Britons for their votes.
5 Ways to Make Your Scholarship Essay Stand Out
Start writing essays early to allow time for research and editing. Grab the reader's attention immediately with a compelling story. Answer questions directly with sound grammar and style. With so ...

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Six Tips for Writing News Stories That Will Grab a Reader

Write a Great Lede

Write Tight

Structure It Right

Use the Best Quotes

Use Verbs and Adjectives Well

Practice, Practice, Practice

Basic newswriting: Learn how to originate, research and write breaking-news stories

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Week 1: Why journalism matters

Week 2: Where news comes from

Week 3: Finding the focus, building the lead