If you're a fan of the Big Bang Theory or you've ever really watched the show then you know that one of the the plot points there is that Sheldon is very particular about the way that things need to be done and they have to be done in a certain order in a certain way especially if you've agreed upon that and you've signed the the roommate contract or whatever it is that that he's established for that it has to be done in that way otherwise it's it's hard for him to function right and in fairness I kind of relate to that in some ways there's a there's a right way to do things that's gonna make it easier on everybody then why would you not do that but sometimes it led to different outcomes for Sheldon and his compatriots there but but I did have some appreciation for that and there's some of that that exists really in the function of news writing if you are a journalist you're writing of course this is particularly important for you but even if you're on the periphery of that if you work in public relations or some other field that works with journalists and you expect them to help you or to work with you on something then it's important to know the way that news writing functions not just how stories get on the video on news values which is important but just like what is the appropriate way to write something for journalistic purposes for media purposes so let's take a look at some of the news writing basics that will make our lives easier and make the lives of those around us easier if we're working with journalists and and also make it more likely that we're gonna get things published or get things on the air if we're providing it in the right way and we're writing it in the right way making their life easier so first of all just to quickly classify and categorize there are a couple different types of news stories we need to just be aware of the basic differences here first there's what we call hard news hard news is what you would see like in the newspaper generally like in the in the front page or whatever it's just the basics right if you're a dragnet fan it was just the facts ma'am that's it it's giving us the bear details and some context for that and it's really just what we would call straight news or hard news very objective in terms of the way it's presented it's just giving us that information so that we're aware of this thing right that so that's hard news that's what we see a lot of times in what we would call traditional or straight news reporting but there are also we call features these are articles or stories that are a little more in-depth they provide more of the story behind that they're gonna have more of an emotional connection so when you see an article about you know an actor in their background or maybe maybe from your hometown you have somebody who's a successful actor from your hometown and your paper your local news station does a story on that person where they just follow them around see what their life is like and see what they've been up to and how they got to where they are and providing some stories and quotes you know anecdotes and things from there their career that's what we call a feature right it's a little more emotional connection it's not strictly the hard news not just the facts it gives much more breadth and background on that topic or on that subject right so that's a feature it's more of a connection with the audience on an emotional sense and an emotional basis right then there's also we call editorial editorial writing editorial type of news story which is essentially the opposite of hard news in some ways it's very opinionated that's where you can express your opinion and you say this is why we should support this or not support this or or this person should be elected or not elected or whatever these are editorials where they're giving opinions you know hard news is more objective just the facts just trying to share the information with the audience and let the audience make your own determination about what's good what's not about that editorials though are offering an opinion in fact there's often times called op-eds for opinion and editorial right so an editorial though extends into this is the opinion this is the why this is important and this is what you should do about it so there are different types of news stories we need to understand where they fall in and if we're presenting a story to news outlet what kind we might be presenting so we need to be clear about those distinctions and definitions those broader categories okay next up when we're writing for news most news publications use what we call the inverted pyramid structure of media writing so the inverted pyramid is just what you see here it's an upside down pyramid right so basically says okay you're gonna start with this the top this is the most more and then we're gonna narrow things down as we get down to the bottom so the most important what should be at the top is what we call the lead right and the lead is where we're just gonna establish the the key principles who what where when and how right who what where when how and and maybe even why if that's a part of that we could add why to that but it's the one or two paragraphs at the very top that convinces the audience to read the rest the article but it also provides specific information provides all them we should be able to read those first two paragraphs and really know at least the details the sketchy not sketchy the the the framework of what is going on in that situation right we should have a sketch of what's happening in that situation maybe not as much detail but it's gonna give us the basics so that we can at least have an understanding of what is happening there in the who what when where how maybe even why in the lead so it may though include as well a compelling narrative which is just a story or a provocative quote a question a noteworthy statistic something that's there to hook the reader though to help keep us reading so that that lead should have all those basic details the most fundamental details but also be put together in a way that that compels us to go even further and whether that's written in a newspaper or a magazine something that or whether it's the lead story in like television news or a podcast or something like that it's the same idea we should give the basic facts up front but also something that's going to hook the audience do it in a way that's going to hook the audience and get them to keep reading or keep listening or keep watching or whatever it is okay so the lead is what starts us off here then we get into the body the body is the next segment it could be you know a few paragraphs depending on how long you have or how long this article is or you know depending on how much time you have in your broadcast this is though where you're going to get into things like the story the arguments the issues in greater detail you're going to be much more expansive in the body of the of the article or the story you're going to include quotes you're going to include photos video and audio and any other kind of evidence that you may have that's going to support dispute or expand that topic for the audience so this is where you throw in everything else so the lead is you know again bare bones who what where when how and why and then maybe something that that's going to hook them but in the body that's when you get into everything else you put in as much as you can to compel the reader to inform the reader and provide context and depth and background and all of that in the body then okay because hopefully again if you've done your job in the lead hopefully they're continuing on into the body where you can do that now you need to be strategic about what you're saying and how you're saying it when you're saying it within the body as well but this is where you have a chance to paint with that broader brush provide those greater details and fill in some of the gaps that may be missing even from the lead so we've got the lead then you've got the expansive part in the body and then at the very end though you know what's called the tail the tail is just going to be any interesting extras that you want to throw in there so maybe some wrap around to the beginning if you started with a narrative in the lead and started telling a story there maybe in the tail you you wrap that around and bring that story back to its conclusion so that people can know how that story ended or whatever and then any analysis that you you have to throw in there would be in the tail that you wanted to include so this is the inverted pyramid though structure of media writing so when you're writing for media you need to keep this in mind this is what's going to make it easiest for them to use because this way when you send an article to to a TV station radio station or to a newspaper they know that if they have you know just this much column space or if they have 30 seconds to give to the story then they have their information in the lead that they can use to really put that together then as they have time they can fill things out with the with information from the body if they have more time or more space you can fill that out and they have that information there but they also have just what they need in the lead to do what they need to at the beginning right so they can fill in then they can draw from that as you as you're pulling from that story especially if it's like a news release that's why you want news releases for example to be structured usually in the inverted pyramid so that news organizations know well if you only have this much then share this part first and then as you have more opportunity you can share the rest of this information but got to prioritize in that sense because this is how they're going to be looking at it I'm from a news structure and this how many many many stories are structured now this is not the only way of doing this but this is the way a lot of news organizations will structure a story they will use the inverted pyramid structure so it's important that we understand that and have an idea of how to utilize the inverted pyramid as well okay last thing we're writing headlines and the reason that this is the last thing we're talking about is really because it's the last thing we ought to be doing but headlines can be important but it shouldn't be the first thing on our mind headlines should wait till the end you should begin your story you should have an idea what you want to write about and then you write and then you keep writing and rewriting and so forth and then when you're all done with that when the story is really pretty finalized and good to go that's when you might write your headline because that's when you know what your story is about you don't start with the end necessarily in mind you got it you got to write the story and see where it ends up then you'll know what needs to be in your headline so wait until the end for your headline you don't write your headline first you write your headline last really you got to summarize the content in like six or seven words or less in that headline what's the story about if I'm only going to read the headline if I'm if you've only got six or seven words to describe it what would they be you got to summarize that and get it down to its its most concise version and form for that headline so it ought to summarize the content obviously you're not going to have the opportunity to get in great detail but again if somebody's just going to look at the headline would they know essentially what happened there was an earthquake there was a car accident this person was arrested whatever can they can at least have some idea of what would be and then and should also hopefully compel them to read the article but but it ought to summarize the content it should be concise again headlines especially in newspapers things like that shouldn't be more than six or seven words at most guys you got six or seven words and most to convey what that article is about if it's on the web or something you can sometimes get away with a little longer especially if you're trying to do some clickbait type thing then you may want to have something a little longer to to share with the audience but but but in a newspaper again what space is limited and it really does need to be concise no more than six or seven words at the absolute most it ought to be short but it ought to be clear we got to focus on key words this is you know grammatically we're not going to worry about that too much in headlines we're going to focus on you know we're going to leave out any like you know ands and does and where it's where it's possible right so it's going to read more like a telegraph in some ways right if you can imagine that but but we're going to leave we're going to focus on key words key words that share information and draw attention again we have six or seven words we're not going to waste a lot of those on a and and but and those types of things we're going to focus on just those keywords and make them count for headlines okay so there is a right way to do things in writing for media it's not the same as writing for anything else not the same as writing for academics it's not the same as writing for just just writing novels or for personal pleasure or anything like that there's a specific way to do it and first we ought to understand it so that we understand how the media works but also as if we're working in the periphery of that if we're working in something like public public relations or some area that may want to entice media a media organization to run with the story we ought to know how they write so that we can make their job easier and we'll have a better chance then of of getting what we want publicized publicized hopefully this helps you understand a little bit about the basics for news writing obviously there's much much more to go into but i just wanted to give you an overview here really quickly of some of the basics and especially the inverted pyramid and talk about that just briefly so you're aware of it and something you can work with as we move forward here if you have questions about any of this please feel free to email me i'd love to hear from you there but again hopefully this gives you some sense of what is unique and special and important when we're writing for the media