Cyber Communication & Journalism (Lec-06)

   Cyber Communication & Journalism (Lec-06) The inverted pyramid—a news story structure that places all the important information in th...

  

Cyber Communication & Journalism (Lec-06)

The inverted pyramid—a news story structure that places all the important information in the first paragraph—has been used to write the “first draft of history”.

The Inverted Pyramid

• Requires the writer to rank the importance of information.
• Puts the most important information first.
• Arranges the paragraphs in descending order of importance.

The Six Basic Questions

1. Who?
2. What?
3. Where?
4. When?
5. Why?
6. How?

More questions:

1. So what?
2. What’s next?

When Writing the Lead, remember

1. Always check names.
2. Keep the lead to fewer than 25 words.
3. Attribute opinion. »
4.  Find out the who, what, where, when, why and how.
5. Tell readers what the news means to them.
6.  Report information basic to the story even if it is routine. Not everything you learn is important enough to be reported, but you’ll never know unless you gather the information.