COM 140 - Inverted Pyramid

COM 140– Storytelling
Rich Hanley, Associate Professor
The Inverted Pyramid Decoded

COM 140- Storytelling
Structure of the Inverted Pyramid
● Background
- The inverted pyramid is the most widely used structural news writing
style.
- Developed in the 19th century to meet the technological instability of
the telegraph, the inverted pyramid required reporters to stuff all the most
important information in the first paragraph, followed by more detail in the
second and subsequent paragraphs.

● Background
- In that way, if the telegraph failed amid transmission, the most
important information would get through first.

● Background
- The format stuck even as technology changed as it provided readers
with the most essential facts first and they could decide whether to read
deeper into the story.
- Wire services – Associated Press, United Press International and
Reuters, for example – adopted the style for news, sports and businesses.
- It remains the style that all journalists must master before moving on
to less conventional means of conveying information.

● Structure
- The Inverted Pyramid is a convenient structure in which to port
information.
- It also works for journalists as a tool for thinking and organizing a
story.
- The structure compels reporters to order information according to its
importance.
-Because of that. It promotes concision.

Structure of News Gathering
● Structure
- The who/what/when/where/how and why questions that every story
must answer are addressed mostly in the first paragraph.
-That launches a specific rhythm of information conveyance that
includes but is not limited to:
- Additional detail
- Quotes
- Transitions

● Structure
- And here’s what it looks like as we reflect the geometric basis of the
structure.

● Structure
- Information when ordered by importance gives journalists a signal
when to end the story, too.
-Even though there is a theoretical infinite length of stories, most
ordinary news written in the Inverted Pyramid structure tend to end
after 400 or 500 words.
- There may be more to write, but the reader won’t have the patience
for it.

● Structure
- How do we know that?
- By studying how people read.
- Just study the eye-tracking heat map example on the following
slides.

● Structure
- Here’s a heat map that reflects the same pattern but instead of a
story in a web page, it’s a Google search page.

● Structure
- So, the pattern of reading and searching for information is the same.
- The most important material is wedged into the top of the page,
whether it’s news or search.
- And we are wired to follow this pattern in a more profound way
because of the way text is consumed online.

● Structure
- That is not to say that we should only write 200 words.
- We should write in a way that compels the reader to go deeper into a
story.
- There are a host of other lede forms for stories that are more than
information conveyances.

● Structure
- But for now, let’s master the Inverted Pyramid.
- Here are more examples.

COM 140 - Inverted Pyramid

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COM 140 - Inverted Pyramid