Read Every Story Thrice -
- familiarization
- once while editing
- to check your work
spelling, punctuation, grammar, expression, accuracy. comprehensibility
Format of a News Story
graph
A(News Story)-->B
A-->C
B(Opening)
C(Body)
Opening Aka lead Aka Introduction
Most vital part of the story Lead should describe story in a very simple way; concise - ~25 words; max - 40 words eye catching; attention grabbing should summarise
Example -
“James Wilson lit a cigarette while soaking his feet in gasoline. He may live”
Body
should build on the lead inverted pyramid start from big things and then go into details If short of words, the story can be cut from the bottom. This is due to the structure used
- self contained - even if paras are deleted at the bottom
- hurried reader to skip over and gain info from just the opening paragraph
- subeditor writes headline
- might rearrange paras