Name: ______Date: ______2019 Boot Camp

10 Elements of Newsworthiness

What makes worthy of news coverage? Sex Appeal Timeliness (being relevant to the present) Emotion Progress (or lack of progress/regression) Prominence (quality of being well-known) Proximity (closeness) Impact (importance) Drama Oddity Conflict

While knowing the fundamentals of spelling, grammar, and punctuation is important, being aware of your purpose and audience are especially key to creating a good .

The Four Phases of the Journalistic Process

Credibility, or trustworthiness, requires time and effort on the part of the . To gain and maintain credibility, move through the following four phases before their articles get published: 1) Conceive: At this stage, you should develop the idea for your story. 2) Collect: This is the reporting stage where you interview your sources and gather as much information as you can about your topic. You should seek out several points of view. 3) Construct: This is the writing stage where you bring your research together. Develop your story around a main focus and choose the details that support the main idea. 4) Correct: This is the revision and stage that entails checking for spelling, grammar, style, and general typing errors. It is also the phase in which the reporter should review all facts to make sure they are accurate, which is defined as the quality of being correct.

Interviewing skills are necessary for successful reporting. Journalists need to be patient, proactive, and persistent to get the information they need from their sources. A source can be defined as the person, place, or document from which a journalist gets his/her information. All non-opinion articles should show evidence of at least three sources. Even opinion articles, however, can benefit from sourcing.

Beginning and Ending an Article

An article always begins with a lead. A lead is the first sentence (or first few sentences) of an article. Often, the lead consists of just one sentence. Your lead should have impact and somehow reflect your focus for the article. The goal of the lead is to capture the reader’s attention quickly and honestly. Listing the five W’s (who, what, where, when, why) and H (how) of the article and working from there may be a constructive approach.

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As you continue writing your article, concentrate on the “why” and “how.” This is where the most interesting information lies!

Answering the question, “So what?” is also a good way to keep your focus in mind. Here are some questions to ask yourself when trying to think of a lead: • What struck you as most interesting about the topic about which you are writing? • What do you think readers want/need to know? • What do you think might capture the reader’s attention? • What scene, person, or small group can you describe to convey the importance of the event or topic? (Note that the vignette lead is a lead that specifically describes a significant scene, person, or small group. In order to write a vignette lead, the reporter must have witnessed/seen what he/she is describing.)

The closing paragraph of an article is known as the kicker. It should provide a sense of closure (completeness), make the reader think, and/or convey valuable information.

The Three Basic Forms of Journalistic Writing

The traditional format of a basic news story is the inverted pyramid. The broad part, or base of the upside- down triangle, is where the most important facts are placed. As the pyramid narrows, the facts become less significant and detailed. There are many advantages to this style, which is a rather natural way of telling a story. A hurried reader can obtain the most important facts easily and an editor can trim a story to fit an allotted space without being worried about cutting essential details.

It is important to remember that inverted pyramid is only one style, albeit a popular one, in news writing. In recent years, journalists have instead favoured the modified inverted pyramid. This form is similar to that of the inverted pyramid in that facts are arranged from most to least important, but in this form, the reporter closes the article with a catchy or interesting fact.

Especially for feature articles, you may want to write an article using the storytelling form, whereby you apply the “tell-a-friend” technique. After collecting all of necessary information for your story, think about what you would explain first about the story if you were to tell your friend what happened. In storytelling form, you usually discuss the events in the chronological order in which they occurred, meaning that you would report the facts in the order in which they occurred.

Writing Basics

When writing articles, there are many basics to keep in mind. Paragraphing is very important to the organization of a story. Keep in mind that paragraphs in articles are usually quite short. They range from one to eight sentences and are far shorter than the paragraph length in literary essays.

Transitions are also important because they make articles cohesive and easy to follow. Transitional words are words that help tie together concepts in an article. These words include furthermore, however, nevertheless, consequently, although, therefore, also, and additionally. The use of quotes is also essential to writing a good news or feature story. The most important aspect of using quotes is accuracy, which means the quality of being correct. Quotation marks indicate that a person’s exact words will follow, without distortion. The first quote in an article is called the lead quote. It is usually the strongest quote you have and supports the concept in the lead without repeating the same information or wording. The use of quotes demands attribution, which provides the reader the name of the source. Generally, the best verb to use when giving credit to a source is “said,” as is opinion-free. Other words such as “stated” or “declared” may carry hidden meanings. 2

At most news organizations, journalists are assigned to beats. A beat is a topic or person routinely covered by a specific news organization. A beat system is the plan to routinely cover specific topics or people. Examples of beats covered by high school are academic departments, the athletic director, school band, drama director, travel, law, internet, politics, fine arts, and the environment.

Regardless of the beat a journalist is covering, he or she must steer clear of inserting his or her own opinion. Outside of opinion and review writing, this journalism would be recognized as biased (opinionated) reporting. Adjectives (such as great, bad, large, small, etc.) should be kept to a minimum so as not to convey prejudice or partiality. In a strong article, the facts should speak for themselves.

Objective (uninfluenced by personal feelings) journalism may be an unrealistic goal, but journalists should ask themselves certain key questions to keep their writing as fair and multi-dimensional as possible. • Are all sides represented? In other words, is the article balanced? • Is all information accurate? • Would the advocates or disputants of a news story recognize the arguments of the journalist? • Has the reporter explained the story’s context? This means giving necessary background information so that the audience does not misinterpret information.

Straight News Articles

The most well-known and oldest type of article is the straight news article. This type of writing is unbiased (un-opinionated), and most often is an example of hard news. Straight news must be timely and is usually meant to inform rather than entertain. News articles regarding current politics, weather, and local events are typically straight news stories. Sports articles are usually classified as straight news, though they may also be regarded as features.

Feature Articles

Feature articles are similar to straight news stories, though they allow the writer more flexibility in writing style. They do not have the time-sensitive nature of straight news articles and rarely cover breaking news. Therefore, they are generally not front-page stories. They include factual information that can be presented in a friendlier tone than straight news stories allow, which causes them to often be categorized as soft news. Examples of features are profiles that focus on important leaders or specific individuals, analyses of a long- term problem facing a group, or articles that offers the reader useful tips.

A feature article expands on the facts of a straight news story. It may interpret and add depth to a straight news story or function to entertain the reader. Be sure that as you write your feature, the tone, language, and content remain geared toward your reader.

The introductory paragraph should grab the readers’ attention and motivate the audience to read the rest of the article. The body should consist of accurate information, anecdotes (very short stories), and quotations. As in straight news stories, it is important to rely on several sources to give a well-rounded, dynamic perspective. Unlike straight news, features usually have a conclusion that wraps up the entire article and provides some final insight for the reader.

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Opinion Articles

Opinion articles are intended to persuade, answer criticism, briefly comment, criticize, praise, offer a potential solution to a problem, motivate the reader to take action, and/or entertain. When writing an opinion article, research is just as important as it is for a straight news or feature article. Opinion articles are very similar to persuasive essays. They usually consist of the following parts: • Introduction: a brief statement of background concerning the topic • Thesis: the position/argument taken by the opinion piece • Body: support for the writer’s position • Conclusion: a restatement of the writer’s position and the potential recommendation of solutions and alternatives

Before authoring an opinion article, a journalist should create a punch list. This is a list of bullet pointed (•) facts or ideas the journalist wants to convey in his/her article. By typing up a punch list and then revising by rearranging the bullet points, the writer essentially creates an outline for the article.

There are three main types of opinion articles: • Single-author opinion (also known as an op-ed, or opposite-the-editorial): an opinion article that represents the opinion of its writer. The writer could be on staff at the news organization or be invited as a guest to author the article. • Editorial: an opinion article that express the general opinion of the entire news organization staff. Usually, this is written by an editor. These articles appear without a byline (the name of the reporter featured nearby his/her article), meaning that the writer remains anonymous. • Review: a type of opinion article where journalists provide their opinions on a specific movie, book, t.v. show, food, travel location, art exhibit, play, or other part of popular or social culture.

Often, opinion articles appear as columns, meaning that they follow a certain theme that appears consistently in every issue of a publication. Examples of columns that have been featured in The Lighthouse are: Advice Annex, Do-It-Yourself, What Would Newman Do, Leisure Literature Review, Video Game Review.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor are submitted by readers of a specific publication. Typically, they respond to a journalist’s article or an editorial that appeared in a previous edition, comment on a current event, respond to another writer’s letter, or correct a misrepresentation that has been printed. Letters to the editor are wonderful for grassroots campaigning or mobilizing publics to get involved in a cause or pay attention to a specific issue.

Visual Elements

Visual elements can make your article look good and easier to read. These can be placed at what is called the “point of entry” or the point where the reader “enters” the story. Every page in a newspaper should contain a dominant element, which is the largest and most noticeable visual element on that page. The dominant visual element should be at least twice as large as any other visual element on that page.

Headlines (the titles of articles), fact boxes (textual representations of information), infographics (graphic/pictorial representations of information), and captions (explanations written beneath or beside a photo or illustration) are examples of visual elements. Fact boxes enforce key points from an article, such as dates of a chronology or important statistics. Infographics convey information through graphs and charts. Captions can

4 be used in conjunction with other graphic material, pictures, or illustrations. A pull quote can also visually enhance an article. A pull quote is an interesting or important quote that is broken out of an article, placed in larger type, and used to grab the readers’ attention.

Illustrations (art) and photography can be meaningful accompaniments to news. Some pieces in a newspaper may consist only of photographs and a one- or two-paragraph article and/or a caption. These pieces that consist mainly of photos with very little text are known as photo stories.

It is important that the media be careful when interpreting photos. Visuals taken out of context can present incorrect information or influence opinions. Just as reporters fact-check an article, photography and layout editors need to be critical of photographs and illustrations.

Similarly, audiences cannot take visual aids at face value. We live in an age of air-brushing and computer imaging. The media can and does use such tools to create false impressions. Sometimes, the intention is harmless. In other instances, the media makes a conscious effort to mislead the reader to promote its own perspectives.

The Changing Face of Journalism

In the age of high-speed internet, e-mail, and smartphones, news reporting has indisputably undergone a transformation. National and foreign news can now reach a global audience nearly instantaneously. The trend of up-to-the-minute news is known as the CNN Effect, a term that was first used in reference to cable channels’ comprehensive, round-the-clock news coverage. Now, daily news is deemed “old” or irrelevant even before the latest newspaper arrives at one’s doorstep.

On the one hand, communication between nations and groups may be richer than ever. The internet encourages a democratic outpouring of opinion and free or affordable easy access to news. On the other hand, fact- checking and careful editing has often fallen by the wayside. It is expected that today’s journalists report in a frenzied state, working to beat the clock and their competitors.

The media has forever faced deadlines. However, now there is increased pressure to be the first to “break” a story. Rather than aiming toward quality reporting, many have opted for immediate coverage. Reporters today cut corners with their research, accuracy, and analysis to deliver the most current news. News is more interactive than ever before, but critics suggest that acceleration of the news cycle has deprived the media of having adequate time for contemplation and fact-checking.

Television news producers as well as print media editors are always looking for timely news worthy of immediate coverage and photography. Sometimes the news story with the most visual appeal will take precedent over news with large-scale implications. As competition between different news mediums gets more severe, so does the necessity for striking visuals, which often come at the expense of quality content.

Many believe that news is reported with only profit in mind. Nonetheless, the growing popularity of smaller media outlets and social media has made differing perspectives quite available to the public, often challenging the voices of mainstream media. A criticism of the latest news trends are that and social media are unreliable and reinforce users’ current beliefs rather than introducing them to new perspectives. However, they allow for a diversity of opinions, a wide array of sources, and a variety of voices in news coverage. It is now widely believed that everybody can act as a journalist by documenting and reporting what is going on around them. The phenomenon whereby average citizens report news is known as .

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Successful Interviewing During the Collection Phase

A successful interview is comprised of several key elements. First, there is the preparation component, at which point the journalist develops a direction and intent for the news story. At this point, it is necessary to research the subject better and develop background knowledge.

Following research, the journalist must create interesting interview questions to ask their sources. These questions should elicit facts and details about the subject matter, as well as encourage interviewees to express their feelings and reactions to the events that took place. You may want to underline, highlight, or capitalize key questions that you will be asking to remind yourself to focus attention on a specific area of interest or theme. Although you should write down questions prior to the interview, you should be prepared to take a different path of questioning if new information steers the interview in a new direction. A great interview should feel like a conversation, rather than having a strict question-answer structure.

In-person interviews are always the best, followed by phone interviews and communication through writing. Throughout your interview, it is important to remain energetic, speak at a balanced speech rate, project your voice, pronounce words clearly, and maintain eye-contact with your source.

Elements for Effective and Accurate Communication

Accuracy is a necessary fundamental of journalism. Therefore, reporters should take good notes and ask the interviewee to repeat what he or she said, if necessary. The reporter should not volunteer information unless it is meant to bring a digressive discussion back on track or to give background information that is relevant to the topic being discussed.

Listening skills are crucial and there are several points to keep in mind regarding listening skills: • Most listening mistakes are made by people who only hear the first few words in a sentence and miss the second half of the sentence. A few words can make a significant difference in the interpretation of the interviewee’s central point. • If you do not understand, or did not hear, a comment your source made, ask him/her for clarification or to repeat what he/she said. • Open-mindedness to new information and viewpoints, whatever one’s personal feelings are on the subject, is necessary. • When you are interviewing a student, be sure to write down the spelling of his/her name and the student’s year (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). • Represent all viewpoints fairly and correctly, even when you disagree with your source. • Despite distractions, focus on the content the interviewee is discussing.

Formulation of Questions

It can be easy for sources to become lost or confused by questions that are too long or complex. Strive to make questions clear and to the point. Also, aim to ask your questions in the most logical order possible. This will help your interviewee feel comfortable and capable of responding to your questions.

There are two basic types of interview questions. The first type is known as the closed-ended question. These are questions that require a yes/no or short response. The second type of question is the open-ended question. This type of question requires a more detailed response.

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Specific, thought-provoking questions that are open-ended are key to a successful interview. Open-ended questions produce the most detailed answers and the “quotable quotes.”

Characteristics that make a quote “quotable” are: • Humor • Opinion • Personality • Emotion

Beyond open- and closed-ended questions, there are many other types of interview questions. Each of these questions serves a different purpose: • Opening questions are intended to elicit energy and enthusiasm for the topic, and to make the source feel at ease. These questions help to build rapport (a good relationship) with the interviewee. It is important to have rapport with your sources so that you can visit them with follow-up questions and interview them for future stories. If you have rapport with your sources, they will be willing to give you leads for future stories and connect you with other sources they know. • Factual questions are the who, what, where, and when questions that will go in the article’s lead. • Probing questions ask for more details on a particular point. They address the why and how of the topic. • Hypothetical questions ask the subject to infer from experience, research, and facts. These are known as the “what if” questions. • Grand tour questions draw out an in-depth, descriptive sequence explaining a series of events or activities. • Example and experience questions request the interviewee to support a statement with an example or an experience. • Native Language questions are asked to explore unfamiliar terms, also known as jargon, used by the source for the interviewer’s clarification.

Many of your interview questions may emerge as follow-up questions. Follow-up questions are questions that build on the interviewee’s response to a previous question. It is meant to help the interviewer gain more information or insight on a specific topic.

The italicized question below is an example of a follow-up question: Interviewer: What was your favorite class in school? Source: English. Interviewer: So, what did you like most about your English class? Source: I liked discussing and writing poetry.

Types of Probing

A probe is a technique used to gain information from a source without interjecting the journalist’s personal views on a matter. There are several types of probes: • The silent probe is used by waiting quietly after the source finishes talking to encourage the source to provide more details on the topic. • The echo probe is employed by repeating back something that the interviewee said. This gives the journalist an opportunity to demonstrate a clear understanding of the source’s perspectives and opinions. The echo probe can also give the interviewee a chance to correct misunderstandings or provide more information.

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• The “uh-huh” probe is used when the subject pauses after finishing a thought. It is effective in letting the source know that the journalist is ready for him or her to continue speaking or shift the focus of discussion, and assures the source that the journalist is attentive to what has been said.

Ending Your Interview

A journalist should always end an interview by asking the following questions: • Is there anything else you would like to talk about that we have not addressed during this interview? If yes, allow your source time to add any comments he/she would like to add. • I want to make sure I have spelled your name correctly (and have correctly listed your grade. Your name is spelled ______and you are a (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior), correct? • Have you been interviewed by any other students from The Lighthouse this month? If so, who and for which article? • If I need to reach you in the future, what would be the best way to contact you (ie. phone, in-person, through e-mail)? When would be the best time to contact you? Follow-up interviews are critical to good reporting! Make sure all of your sources know that there is a possibility you will need a follow-up interview.

Attribution, On the Record and Off the Record

Your sources will want to negotiate with you limits to their disclosure or put limits on your ability to publish. Here are two terms they are likely to use in an interview. Before understanding these definitions, one must understand the meaning of the attribution, which means giving credit to a specific source.

If a source says information is on the record, this means that you may publish, quote, and attribute anything he/she says during the interview. Journalists should strive to collect as much information as possible that is on the record, and should avoid interviewing sources that are not willing to talk on the record.

If a source makes a comment off the record, the information being provided is confidential and not for publication. Some journalists interpret off the record to mean that if you find the information from another source, then you can use the information and attribute it to the source that is willing to “go public.” Most sources do not even understand the meaning of off the record. Avoid interviewing anybody who wants to speak off the record.

A Closing Thought

In all cases, keep in mind that your source is likely to know less about journalism than you do. It may also be his/her first time being interviewed by the media. Remember that the school newspaper is meant to be a learning opportunity for everyone in the community, not just the students on The Lighthouse staff. Therefore, do not hesitate to educate your source on journalistic ethics (principles and morals) or jargon they may not already know.

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