This document discusses the principles of writing for media and news writing. It defines what constitutes news based on elements like impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict, weirdness and currency. It then discusses the basics of newswriting, including using accuracy, conciseness, facts over opinions, past tense, short words, attribution rules and showing rather than telling. It provides examples of news ledes that follow the who, what, when, where structure and characteristics of good news stories and ledes.

1. WRITING FOR MEDIA
AND ITS PRINCIPLES

2. 1. What is News?
 There are no pat answers but some general guidelines exist. All at their core, all news
answers the questions: What Happened? And So what?
 Here are seven elements that are often associated with news:
 a. Impact: information has impact if it affects a lot of people.
 i. A proposed income tax increase, for instance, has impact, because an income tax
increase would affect a lot of people.
 ii. The accidental killing of a little girl during a shootout between rival drug gangs has
impact, too. Even though only one person -- the little girl -- was directly affected, many
people will feel a strong emotional response to the story

3.  b. Timeliness: information has timeliness if it happened recently
 i. For "Newsweek," events that happened during the previous week are timely.
 ii. For CNN Headline News, events that happened during the past half hour are timely
 c. Prominence: information has prominence if it involves a well-known person or
organization.
 i. If you or I trip and fall, no one will be all that interested, because you and I aren't well
known.
 ii. But if the president of the United States trips and falls, everyone will be interested
because the president is well known.

4.  d. Proximity: information has proximity if it involves something happening somewhere
nearby.
 i. If a bus wreck in Uganda kills 25 people, the Indian Express will devote maybe three or four
four paragraphs to the story.
 ii. But if a bus wreck in Delhi kills 25 people, the Indian Express will devote a sizable chunk of
of its front page to the story
 e. Conflict: information has conflict if it involves some kind of disagreement between
people.
 i. Fights have drama -- who will win? -- and invite those watching to choose sides and root
for one or more of the combatants.
 ii. Good democracy involves more civil -- we hope -- conflicts over the nature of public
policy. That's why the media carry so much political news. Journalists see themselves as
playing an important role in the public debate that forms the basis for democracy.

5.  f. Weirdness: information has weirdness if it involves something unusual or strange.
 i. Charles A. Dana, a famous editor, once said, "If a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if
if a man bites a dog, that's news!“
 g. Currency: information has currency if it is related to some general topic a lot of
people are already talking about.
 i. A mob violence in Mumbai generally won't attract much attention from The Hindu.
 ii. But if the mob violence occurred a day after a report by the CBI had named Mumbai
the city with the state's fastest-growing crime rate, the mob violence would be big news.

6. 2. What is Newswriting?
 Newswriting has some things in common with regular English, but in
other ways it’s a foreign language. It has a lot of rules, some of them
seemingly arbitrary. Below are a few of the basic principles.
 Many of them (a prominent exception being the first) can or should be
broken now and again. And by the way, many of them are broken in this
document, which is not a news article.

7.  I. The Basics
 • The number-one requirement is accuracy.
 • Second to that, strive to be concise, precise, specific and clear.
 • No opinions, just facts.
 • Always write in the past tense (assuming the events you are describing occurred in the
past).
 • Use short (mostly one- and two-syllable) and plain words instead of fancy synonyms.
example: often instead of frequently, get instead of acquire or obtain, about instead of
regarding, lives instead of resides, funny instead of humorous, try instead of attempt,
about instead of approximately, and also instead of additionally.

8.  • Quotation marks only around quoted material. Periods and commas ALWAYS go inside
quotation marks, “like this,” not “like this”.
 • Except in quotes, do not use the words I, me, my, we, us, our, you or your.
 • In news (as opposed to feature stories), put the most important material at the beginning
of the story, at the beginning of paragraphs, and at the beginning of sentences.
 • Write mainly short declarative sentences.
 • For the subject of a sentence, choose the main actor, which will usually be a person, a
group of people or an organization, rather than a concept or idea. Starting with “It is,”
“What” or “There are/there is” rarely leads to a good sentence.

9.  • Here is a poor news sentence:
 “Drinking was the main thing that took place at the party.”
 Instead, figure out who took action and make them the subject, for example:
 “By the end of the night, the partygoers had consumed seven one-gallon bottles of
Smirnoff vodka.”
 Note that the second sentence is factual and specific and has a strong verb (which is good),
while the first is general and vague and has the weak verb “to be” (which is bad).
 Also, to write the second sentence, the reporter had to report—in other words, take the effort
to find out relevant facts. Good reporting makes for good writing; poor reporting makes for
poor writing.
 That follows from one of most important principles in news writing, and in writing generally:
“Show, don’t tell.”

10.  • When possible, find a stronger verb than to be.
 Instead of “He is the owner of the shoe-repair store,” write, “He owns the shoe-repair
store.” Generally avoid the passive voice, not only because it has the weak verb to be but
because it tends to leave out significant information. For example, “The president was
criticized for his speech” is a poor sentence because it neglects to say who criticized him.
 • Use a mix of one-, two- and three-sentence paragraphs. One-sentence graphs
(journalism lingo for “paragraph”) are good for emphasis and for setting up quotes. Do
not use more than two ofthem in a row.

11.  • The first sentence of a news story is called the “lede”—rhymes with “reed.” It is
also the first paragraph of the story.
 • The most important stories (9/11, hurricanes, major crimes, presidential elections)
and the least important stories (brief articles about relatively minor events) get news
Ledes. Everything in between usually gets a feature lede, which follows a different
form. (which we’ll learn about later!)
 • A news lede is in the past tense (assuming the events it describes took place in the
past). Headlines are in the present tense. (MAN BITES DOG) Editors, not reporters,
write the headlines, so don’t include them in your stories.

12.  • A news lede summarizes what is most important about the story. It usually takes this
form and this order: Who-What-When-(Where)-(Context/Additional Relevant
Information)-(Attribution).
 The elements in parenthesis are sometimes used and sometimes not, depending on the
nature of the lead.
 • “Who” corresponds to the subject or main noun of the sentence, and “What” to the
predicate or main verb and, sometimes, a direct object.
 • The Context/Additional Relevant Information usually comes after a comma, as does
the Attribution.

13.  1. “WILMINGTON, NC.—The first punch of Hurricane Irene (WHO) landed (WHAT) here
(WHERE) on Friday (WHEN), foreshadowing what is to come as this vast storm, its most
forceful winds stretching outwards for 90 miles, churned north towards New York City
(CONTEXT/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION).”
 2. “New York City officials (WHO) issued what they called an unprecedented order (WHAT)
on Friday (WHEN) for the evacuation of about 250,000 residents of the low-lying areas of
the city’s edges (ADDITIONAL INFORMATION).”
 3. “The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke (WHO), said Friday (WHEN) that the
political battle this summer over the federal government’s borrowing and spending had
disrupted financial markets ‘and probably the economy as well.’” (WHAT. Note that, to
avoid awkwardness, the WHEN comes between the first word of the WHAT—“said”—and
the rest of it.)

14.  4. “The State Department (WHO) gave a crucial green light (WHAT) on Friday (WHEN) to
a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from oil sands in Canada
across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast (ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION).”
 5. “ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Gunmen (WHO) abducted the son of a slain former governor
from the eastern city of Lahore (WHAT) on Friday (WHEN), relatives and police officials
said (ATTRIBUTION).”
 6. “ABUJA, Nigeria—A suicide bomber (WHO) detonated a vehicle packed with
explosives (WHAT) outside the United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital of
Abuja (WHERE) onFriday (WHEN), destroying several floors in a thunderous blast that left
at least 18 people dead (ADDITIONAL INFORMATION), witnesses and officials said
(ATTRIBUTION).

15.  Characteristics of News Stories
 1. The story’s importance is made clear right away.
 2. Factual accuracy is stressed, so that audiences know they can rely on
the information.
 3. Sources are identified, and statements and information are carefully
attributed.
 4. Most sentences and paragraphs are short. Reporters rely on nouns
and verbs more than adjectives and adverbs.
 5. Adequate context and background are included.

16.  Characteristics of Ledes
 1. Good ledes are concise. Often they are confined to one sentence of 20
words or fewer. That’s especially true in broadcast writing.
 2. Good ledes focus on why people will or ought to care about a
story. Journalists often talk about the impact of the lede – rational,
emotional, or a combination of the two.
 3. Good ledes rely on answering the key two or three who, what, when,
when, where, why and how questions rather than trying to deal with all
six equally.
 4. Good ledes rely on nouns and verbs and simple sentence structure to

17.  5. Good ledes help audiences see how the story might affect them and
decide whether to read the rest of the story.
 6. Good ledes are the product of thought, hard work and several
rewrites.
 7. Good ledes help the writer organize the rest of the story, and the
audience understand it.
 8. Good ledes should sound right read aloud, whether they are written
for print, online or broadcast media.
 9. Good ledes serve the facts. They avoid assumptions and speculation.

18. Making News: A Six-Step Process
 1. Discovery. A reporter turns up something interesting, or someone passes
along a tip.
 2. Information gathering. The reporter tries to verify the tip, and to find out
more.
 3. Judging impact. He/She carefully weighs whether the information will carry
any impact for her audience.
 4. Focusing on critical elements. He/She chooses the elements that will show
her audience the impact.
 5. Organizing. He/She uses strategies to help her arrange the information in
a coherent way that reflects its impact.
 6. Using words effectively. By choosing and organizing words with great care,
He/She shapes a story that shows his/her audience why what he/she has
learned is important. The story is often the product of several rewrites.

19.  Impact, Elements, Words
 As you try to judge the news value of information, and then as you try to
turn that information into news, remember to follow these steps, keyed to
three words:
 1.Impact. What’s this story about? Why should anybody care? How will it
affect the lives of my audience?
 2.Elements. Asking who, what, when, where, why and how should show
you how to convey that impact to your audience.
 3.Words. Used properly, words will fashion information into
something understandable and meaningful.

20.  Characteristics of audiences and stories
 Knowing your audience will have a profound effect on all three parts of
your impact, elements, words process. So it’s important here to review
some characteristics of mass audiences that make news writing different
from fiction or scholarly writing:
 1. You are writing for members of an audience who will be coming to
your story with little or no expertise in what it deals with. What they
understand will come from your story.
 2 They may have little initial interest in your story, so you must show
them right away why it might be important to them.
 3. They are trying to assimilate a substantial amount of new information
information in a short time.

21.  “Shared Values” are the most important shared asset between publisher
and employee, and constitute the foundation of publishing or
broadcasting principles.
 It also form the basis of the intangible yet critically important contract
between Media Group and its readers, viewers and listeners.

22.  1. Trust
 Earning society’s trust through the media house general attitude and the
audience’s trust through what they print and broadcast is one of the most
important value.
 The very foundation of Media Group today, as well as in the future, is
comprised of trust.

23.  2. Independence
 Media Group employees and management respect their professional
position above and beyond any and all relationships based on interest
influence.
 Separate and identify commercial elements appearing in the production,
such as advertisements, commercial messages and sponsorship matters.

24.  3. Accuracy and Truthfulness
 a) The fundamental purpose of any production is to relay facts to the public
at large in an objective manner, without distorting, exaggerating or censuring
said facts, and without being influenced by any external pressure or special
interest groups along the way.
 b) The element of speed should never overshadow truthfulness, and
exaggeration and simplification should never stand in the way of the multi-
faceted nature of truth.
 We should openly admit to what we do not know and make an effort to
speculation.

25.  4. Impartiality, Pluralism, Fairness
 Broadcasting should be pluralist in a manner that reflects different
of the truth, and be impartial in the face of ideas that represent different
sides of the truth and social actors.
 Impartiality and pluralism means considering the broadcasting in their
entirety and within a reasonable time span, and reflecting all mainstream
ideas existing within society, without ignoring any such ideas within the
confines of proportional fairness.

26.  We aim to be open-minded and free of prejudice in the course of
evaluating opinions and elements of proof that either defend or oppose an
idea, attitude or behavior.
 We must act fairly in the face of different opinions, ideas, attitudes and
behavior.

27.  5. Compliance with Social Values
 We live in a nation of many voices, within a society that is rapidly
changing.
 We regard wealth in terms of the ideas, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of
our society, and consider it as a resource that feeds our publishing
endeavor.
 We are respectful towards our democratic and secular system, and the
Constitution and Laws that bind such diversity and wealth together.

28.  6. Right to privacy and protecting privacy
 Respect the privacy of individuals.
 We do not disclose individuals’ private lives, communications,
correspondences or documents unless there is a compelling reason to
disregard the requirements of the principle of privacy in order to serve
greater good.

29.  7. Transparency and accountability
 We are obligated to be accountable to our audience in every endeavor
undertake.
 Owning up to our errors openly, if that is the case, and remedying such
errors in the most expedient manner is our priority.