This document provides guidance on organizing news stories through various structures like the inverted pyramid, martini glass, and kabob formats. It emphasizes beginning with the most important information and transitioning between ideas. Key tips include outlining your story before writing, periodically asking "who cares?" as you write, and ruthlessly cutting words to maintain reader interest with a clear beginning, middle and end.

1. Presented by Prof. Grabowski

2. Organizing Stories
• Organizing the way you write journalism
articles is as important as organizing the way
you tell any story. Readers won't tolerate a
confusing story. They want a story that reads
clearly and naturally.

3. Organizing Stories
• Organizing your journalism stories in a
chronological way (e.g. First this happened
and then this happened...) seldom works well.
• Keep in mind that readers also have short
attention spans.
• Hook them into your story from the beginning
and hold their interest until the end.

4. Getting Ready to Write
• It's best to write immediately after the
interview -- while the information is still fresh
in your mind.
• Before you sit down to write, follow these
steps to organize your notes and thoughts.

5. Post-Interview /Pre-writing Steps
1. Rewrite your interview and research notes so they're complete
and make sense to you.
2. Categorize the info in your notes under each of the 5 W's and H
or under other topic headings that emerge.
3. Prioritize. Which facts are most newsworthy? Which quotes are
most interesting? Consider numbering your facts in order of
importance and putting stars next to the best quotes.
4. Which quotes correspond to which facts? Match them up.
5. Write a statement of one or two sentences that explains your
story. Imagine you're telling a friend about it. This statement will
guide you as you write your lead and the rest of your story. Make
sure your statement explains your angle.

6. Choosing a Structure
• The inverted pyramid is the most common way
journalists organize their stories. (But it's not
always the best way – more later.)
• Hard, breaking news stories (like the ones you'll
be writing on your exams in this class) are usually
best written in the inverted pyramid format.
• In this format, the most important information
comes first. In each successive paragraph, the
information is a little less important.

8. Inverted
Pyramid
Imagine writing a murder
mystery in reverse order . . .
"An example of a regular pyramid
story might be an old-fashioned
mystery where the reader is
introduced to more and more
important clues as he or she reads
on. It is only after collecting all of
those clues that the reader can
finally begin to solve the mystery.
With an inverted pyramid story we
give away the solution (or in our
case a summary) at the very
beginning. The rest of the story
contains less and less important
information until we just stop.”
Rich Cameron
Journalism professor
Cerritos College

9. Inverted Pyramid in a Nutshell
• Begin with the lead: a sentence, less than 25 words, that
summarizes the most important information of the
story. Imagine that you have only 20 seconds (or a
tweet) to tell someone what happened -- what would
you say? That's your lead paragraph.
• Next comes important but no absolutely necessary info.
• Then, keep adding and organizing paragraphs in order of
relevance and importance until the least relevant and
least interesting info is at the bottom.

10. Martini Glass
• A close cousin of the inverted pyramid is the "Martini
Glass" format.
• It works like this: You begin with an inverted pyramid
summary of the story's most important facts. This is
usually just a few short paragraphs. Once that's done,
you shift into a chronological order of what happened.
Then detail what happened step by step.
• If possible, end with a kicker (a surprise twist or strong
closing quote). This approach works well for crime
stories.

12. Not Always Suitable
• Sometimes these aforementioned formats
aren't the best way to tell your story. Imagine
the story of Goldilocks in the inverted pyramid
format:
The three bears lived happily ever after once upon a
time before Goldilocks ate all their porridge and
broke Baby Bear's chair.

13. Kabob Format
• In the Kabob format, the story begins with an
anecdote about a specific person.
Immediately after this, be sure to include a
nut graph -- a paragraph that summarizes the
story idea and the who, what, when, where,
why and how. After this, then story broadens
into a general discussion of the topic. It ends
by returning to that specific person again and
concluding with another anecdote or quote.

14. Kabob Format
“Think of it as arranging
meat and veggies on a
shish kabob skewer. Start
with a juicy red tomato --
an anecdote. Follow with a
nut graph. Then add meat
-- chunk after chunk after
chunk -- until you reach the
end, where you reprise
with another tomato -- a
final quote or anecdote.”
Tim Harrower
Author, Inside Reporting

15. Other Structures
• Beyond this, there are many other ways a
story can be organized. There is no simple,
one-size-fits-all solution for organizing stories.
Every story unfolds in a different way. But
there's nothing random about good writing.
Every story needs a beginning, middle and
end.

16. Flow
• Your story must logically flow from one idea
or paragraph to the next. Otherwise, it will
sound choppy if you discuss one idea and then
switch to a completely different idea … unless
you use a transition.

17. Example
. . . Riordan said Trump plans on honoring 25 Adelphi
students who performed more than 200 hours of community
service last year.
“I bet those students never thought the President of the
United States would honor them for their community
service,” Riordan said.
Senior Darryl Butler, one of the seniors who will be
honored, volunteered more than 300 hours at the Garden
City Food Bank last year.
“I learned so much working there,” Butler said. “I am
excited the president is honoring us, but my real reward is
helping people in our community.”

18. Transitions
• If you need to switch ideas or “change gears”
in a story, then use a transition to indicate
that.
• A transition may be a factual statement, a
direct quote, an indirect quote, etc.

19. Transitions
• Transitions usually are prefaced with words
such as:
After all, Also, And, Finally, In addition, Additionally,
However, But, Otherwise, Then, Subsequently,
Therefore, Likewise, For example, For instance,
Conversely, On the other hand, In the meantime,
Furthermore, Together With, Consequently, As a
result, In other words, Before, Next (week, month,
year, etc.), First, etc.

20. Example
President Donald Trump will speak on Friday to Adelphi
University students about getting involved in community
service work.
“Seniors will learn a lot about duty and commitment
when they hear President Obama,” Adelphi University
President Christine Riordan said. “We are so excited that he
agreed to come.”
Trump said he believes community service is “extremely
valuable lesson” for every college student to have.
(NEW IDEA & TRANSITION) In addition to speaking about
community service, Trump plans to talk to students about
the importance of voting in the upcoming election.

21. In short (that’s a transition)
• As you move from the beginning or your story
to the end and from one paragraph to the
next paragraph, be sure to include transitions.
Transitions are words or phrases which keep
the story flowing smoothly and let the reader
know you are either talking about the same
thing as before or you have changed subjects.
They are the glue that holds seemingly
different paragraphs together. Without them,
your story will sound scattered.

22. Final Tips
1. As you write, periodically ask yourself: Who
cares?
2. As you write, periodically frighten yourself:
The audience is leaving.
3. When you finish, go back and ruthlessly cut
words and sentences.
4. Before last reading, say “no one cares”; let
the story change your mind.
– Len Reed, reporter at The Oregonian

23. Lesson Summary
• Journalism is not free-writing. Before you start typing
up your story, sit down and jot down the highlights.
Organize your ideas. Create an outline. If you get stuck,
try carving your story up into broad sections, such as:
I. The Person you’re profiling (lead,
nutgraph, quote)
II. How she got started/inspired
III. What she’s doing now
For an example, see Lauren Stranieri’s story on the
YouTube star at http://pojonews.co/1TDzRRs

24. Questions?
• Email Professor Mark Grabowski:
mgrabowski@adelphi.edu