What is defined as a ‘news story’ is changing rapidly as online blogs and podcasts became a popular and efficient form of storytelling.
However, despite where a news story is published, the fundamentals to an engaging news article remains the same.
Read on for some handy tips and tricks when completing assignments in journalism, or for creating news stories for our own use. This guide’s written in a real-life format where a student is considered the journalist and the teacher marking your assignment is your intended audience. It’ll focus on written news articles, but these techniques can be applied to radio broadcasting, video and podcasts.
Journalism Writing Form Basics
Focus on one main topic
It’s important when planning your news topic to focus only on one main idea. One news story can have main ideas and angles. It’s your job as a journalist to focus on one of these ideas and report on a different and unique angle on this idea. Dig deep into researching the different angles that could come from this one story and write on that.
Keep the language clear
As students, it can be tricky to write in simple language because we are used to our assignments written in critiquing language. News story should be written in a simple and concise form. The use of uncommon or academic words would make it hard for your audiences to understand. Keep the language simple and straight to the point.
Active Voice
Active voice tone is used over passive tone in news stories. For example: ‘Chantelle opened the door’ rather than, ‘the door was opened by Chantelle’. Keep this in mind when writing your article.
Writing Structure - Follow the Inverted Pyramid
Have you ever begun to read or listen to a news story and have lost interest after the first paragraph? This is where the inverted pyramid becomes an essential tool when structuring your news story.
Headline - The headline is the title of the news story. Keep this as short as possible but make sure to include what the story is about so readers are engaged to the article.
Lead paragraph - The lead is the first paragraph that’s viewed and gives readers the most important information in a clear, concise and engaging format. The reader should know what they are about to read about from this paragraph. The lead should be around 30 words. It can be considered the hardest part of the news article to write as it needs to be short yet contain the most interesting information for readers to want to read more.
Explanation - Here, the news topic is explained in detail with quotes from sources and interviews to back up the story.
Extra - Any minor or extra details are included at the end of the story.
What are 'News Values'?
News values is a term commonly mentioned amongst writers and educators. It’s the foundation for compiling a news article and must be evident in the Journalist’s writing to capture audience’s attention.
Below are a few commonly used news values for you to think about when writing your article:
Timeliness - The topic that you are reporting on should be timely. Audiences want to know what is happening now rather than what has already happened or could happen in the future. This is why journalists work fast and by the hour as they capture events as they happen; not after. In saying this, there may be a potential news article on an event that has happened in the past but there is a recent update. In this case, the update would be considered the news topic and is therefore timely.
Proximity - Consider: ‘who is my audience and where are they located?’ If you’re completing this as a student from Deakin University Burwood, you wouldn’t report on a story that’s happening in Queensland unless it has some effect on audiences in Victoria. Consider why the story would affect audiences in the area.
Significance – This is considered one of the most important news values. Why is this story important? Who does this affect? Considering this news value when planning your news article is important. If this news article does not have an impact or influence over audiences, why are you as a journalist reporting on it?
Human interest - Whilst other potential topics in news stories are influential, the stories with a human interest are the most engaging for audiences. How a news topic affects someone is important when audiences are reading the article. You will find when you read a news story, you’re drawn to the stories that are about a person.
Final tips for your news article assignment:
Planning
This may sound cliché but planning your news story is essential to making sure you include the fundamentals of a news story. Plan your news article in advance. Use the inverted pyramid to structure where each segment of the news article will belong. Research your potential interviewees in advance and how they can strengthen your news article.
Read News!!!
Reading news stories will help guide your writing and format your article. Read different stories from different news publications: a few from a local newspaper, one from the Herald Sun, and one from a social media news publication, etc. Reading different types of news articles help you to understand the differences and similarities and can be used as a guide for when writing your news articles. Other news stories also help you with potential sources. Have a look at who’s being quoted in a news article and why. Perhaps they could be useful as a source for one of your articles.
Sources/ Interviews
The sources you choose for your news article is super important and whoever is marking your assignment will look closely at the sources you have used. Make sure your sources are credible and are relevant to the story. Aim for good sources, but always have back up in case you cannot contact your source. For example, if you are writing a news article on a government topic and can’t reach any state government representatives, why not try local government? Perhaps a representative there will be able to assist.
This is why it’s also crucial to plan your interviews and contact them in advance, so you have plenty of time to arrange a time with them (though in the real world, you wouldn’t have the chance). When you do arrange a time, make sure to plan what questions you want to ask them. Keep the questions open ended so you have more content to work with when you’re writing your article. There’s no such thing as TOO much information from an interview. You never know when you will need those extra quotes and information from them.
Sources should be interviewed and spoken to directly. Don’t pull quotes or information from another article. Make sure the quotes and sources used are who you have contacted and spoken with to get quotes.
Spelling and Grammar
Practice good spelling and grammar. There are plenty of short courses online that offer spelling and grammar guidance to help.
About the author
Chantelle Fowler holds a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) and is currently studying a Bachelor of Honours (Communications).
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