Useful Reading on News and News Values

For Students of Print Journalism. Here are a few links to sites that could give you more information, and help you understand and write better answers.

Definition and what's news  

What's news?

Sources of News for Journalists

Journalists have traditionally used three sources of information to get news. These are:

a. Direct observation b. Human or secondary sources  c. Documents or tertiary sources

Each of these sources is equally important. Often, a news report is based on information obtained from all three sources; sometimes from just one. Much depends on how a journalist is able to filter out information that has relevance for his readers.

For this, a journalist must be familiar with the needs of his target audience; should know his subject well; and should be willing to go the extra mile to obtain that little nugget of information that can give life to a news report.

Direct observation

This can be a most rewarding source, especially if you want to be a good storyteller. For instance, you can station yourself outside the emergency ward and observe how the victims of a blast are being handled.

Are the stretchers in good condition? Are there enough doctors, nurses to handle the stream of patients? How are the relatives of patients behaving? What is the effect of the frenzied activity on patients who were already admitted in the hospital? What happens when the VIPs start arriving?

You can gather this information only through careful observation, and meticulous note taking. Don’t depend upon your memory alone. Note every point that strikes you as unusual or noteworthy.

It is this description that will make your story different. Of course, you must not turn your news report into fiction. You must stick to facts, and describe what you see. You can gather this information only through careful observation, and meticulous note taking. Don’t depend upon your memory alone. Note every point that strikes you as unusual or noteworthy.

One reason the sports stories have more life is because they are based on direct observation. The sports reporter witnesses the game, makes copious notes, and then writes the report.

 Secondary sources

The bulk of news reports are based on secondary sources that is information provided by authorities, eyewitnesses, or individuals directly associated with an incident or event. This information is obtained through:

a. Interviews: A reporter gets to know about rioting in a city market. He immediately calls the police official in charge of that area to get details. The police official will provide only those facts that are “official”. This may include the number of people who have died or injured in the rioting, what the administration has done to control rioting, what are the possible reasons of rioting, where have the victims been taken.

The reporter can limit his report to information provided by authorities or visit the site of the riots, and obtain more information through direct observation and by interviewing residents of the area, who had witnessed the riots. The reporter can also speak to the policemen who were involved in bringing the riots under control.

The reporter can also phone or visit higher officials, if he is not satisfied with the official version of the event. Much depends on how good the reporter’s contacts are, and how far they are willing to provide information.

Interviews can also be conducted under sterile circumstances. In such cases, the reporter fixes a time with a well known public figure, and visits his home or office at the appointed hour. The reporter then asks a string of questions that may have been prepared before hand or may be framed on the spur of the moment. A news report is then prepared based on these answers. These reports can be exciting or dull based on how provocative are the answers given by the subject.

b. Press conferences: These are staged news events. A minister, a government official, a corporate chief or any celebrity may call a press conference to present his point of view. These may be the achievements of the government or of a corporate house or steps the local administration may be planning to tone up law and order. But the information flow is controlled by the individual who has called the press conference.

c. Press notes: Many organizations find it easy to mail press notes detailing their activities to newspapers. The newspaper reporters can then pick out useful information, and write news stories. Like press conferences, the press notes also portray the individual’s or organization’s point of view. It is for the reporter to use the information on face value or dig up more information before writing a story.

Documents
An important source of material is what researchers call tertiary sources. These are reports of inquiry commissions, research material, documents, newspaper clippings, copies of judgements, hospital records etc.

This information can be used to supplement a report or else can be used to write a stand alone report. However, sifting through these reports is not easy. It requires great patience, and steely determination.

[Prepared by Sunil Saxena]

What is chronological writing?

Report writing can be classified into two main bodies: chronological and logical.

 ‘Chronos’ is the Greek word for ‘time’. Therefore a chronological report follows the clock.

The events taking place are written down in the same order that they have occurred.

Chronological writing may be seen in the minutes of meetings, proceedings of the State Assembly or Parliament, scientific reports, cook books and so on.

What is logical writing?

Report writing can be classified into two main bodies: logical and chronological.

Logical reporting or writing is usually followed by news agencies and news papers. Here, the writer sorts out those parts of information, which according to his logic, are the most relevant or important aspects.

These relevant details are given prominence and placed in a manner that the reader gets to see them first. Logical writing starts with a 'lead sentence' or 'focus sentence'. Other less important details are placed afterwards.

What is the advantage of inverted triangle style of reporting?

The ‘inverted triangle’ is a format used when reporting hard news for a newspaper.

The advantage of this style is that the most important portions of the report appear in the lead sentence and in the lead paragraph. The following paragraphs contain details of lesser importance.

A reader in a hurry can get the gist of the report by scanning the lead paragraph.

Since newspapers are often pressed for space, the story in ‘inverted pyramid’ style can be trimmed from the bottom without losing its essence.

What do you understand by ‘lead sentence’ in a newspaper report?

The ‘lead sentence’ is the first sentence in a hard news story, which is written in the ‘inverted pyramid style. The ‘lead sentence’ contains the main points of the story. It is usually a long sentence which answers the questions: Who did what, where, when, and why? And sometimes it also answers the question ‘how?’

Example: Superstar Amitabh Bachhan donated Rs 25 lakh to Children’s Cancer hospital in Patna at a ceremony held on Monday in order to motivate other movie stars to take up the cause of helping poor kids fight cancer.

Give four examples of chronological writing

Chronological writing occurs in many forms. Some examples are:

Journal or Diary: People and organisations maintain diaries or records about what they do or what events occur on a daily basis. This sort of writing is chronological.

Minutes of a meeting or proceedings of a formal event: Whenever an organisation has a formal meeting, the secretary or other designated officer writes down whatever issues are discussed on the agenda in the same order that they are discussed by members. This is chronological reporting.

Recipes and instructions: people who love to cook write down the process of cooking and the ingredients they use for further reference. Cookbooks are examples of chronological writing.

History: historians record events according to how they occurred in time. History is always written according to a time line.

Writing a news story

Writing a News Story

News writing is an art. It is usually a reporter who writes the news story. Even though the newspaper is full of news stories, which are fair, impartial and objective, each story needs a different approach. Every newspaper follows its own style while presenting the news and to make every story work effective writing skill need to be cultivated. To make his news story readable a journalist will plan his work thus:

1.  The structure building starts with the selection of lead. Since the reporter knows which is the interesting element that needs to be emphasized and what the reader would like to read, while writing the reporter checks if the story has all interesting and important facts of the event.

2.  Rough plan is made initially by jotting down the key words which will help in providing a structure to the story. However a majority of the times the construction happens with the help of background knowledge and personal experience of the reporter.

3.  The reporter will identify the most interesting element about event covered and considers about it from readers' point of view

4.  The story construction at any point of time should not confuse the reader.

5.  The story is put together/constructed according to the number of main elements/theme, the writer decides to use.

Contents of the News Story

The construction of a news story is different and almost opposite writing a fiction.

Writing a news story is immediate and often delivers perishable content that may change moments later.  It competes with many other I written/gathered by other fellow journalists.  The main purpose of the story is to grab a reader's or listener's attention and force the reader to continue reading/ listening , in its first few words. A journalist will In keep the elements  like objectivity,  fair play,   balance,  clarity,  accuracy, impartiality and briskness while writing.  In a news story, the first paragraph of the story is a do or die paragraph. Though a journalist structures his story in various patterns suitable to the 'style’ and content, it is  necessary that that a news story is developed keeping the fol elements in mind:

A news story, which has a defined structure, may have single two or multiple elements. And its basic structure consists of,

1.  The Beginning also called Lead or the Intro.                                                 "*•

2.  A middle also called Body or Development; a, id

3.  An end, also known as conclusion.

The Lead

The lead, or opening paragraph, is the most important part of a news story.

The lead, which answers most important aspects of 5 'W's and 1 H, is written in many ways. Lead writing may appear to be simple, the reporters may take it in routine sense. But writing a lead needs a lot thought process and practice. As William Zinsser says: "The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead".

The lead highlights one or more elements of the story. A standard length of a lead is 15 words for single element lead and if combining two important elements is essential then the sentence requires more than 35 to 40 words. In such a situation it is better to highlight the elements in two different sentences.

Writing the lead and angle involves making some difficult decisions. A news writer must sort through the facts that were gathered from the reporting and decide what the theme is. There may be several different themes, but the writer must decide what the central theme of the story will be in the lead.

In a single paragraph, a lead must summarize the basic facts of a story and convey to a reader what you found out in your reporting. But it must be more than just an opening to your story. The lead must also catch a reader's or listener's attention and make them want to read the rest of your story. And that makes the lead the hardest part of a news story to write.

Whatever may be the kind of lead, unfortunately there is no magic formula to tell you how to write a perfect lead. If we may draw a formula to write a good lead one may say it's a combination of carefully thought, sometimes prolonged words, which are written under the pressure of deadline. Remember you assume yourself to be in good company because a good journalist will admit it never gets any easier to write a great lead.