2. • Good journalists have a nose of news. They work hard to
‘sniff out’ original stories and find the facts of the events
they are assigned to cover
• News is created
What is news?
3. • Know their audience
• Understand what makes a strong news story
• Recognize the best angle
• Avoid repeating press releases verbatim
What is news?
Good journalists strive to:
4. • News is what is extraordinary, interesting and not known.
[Gillian Hargreaves, BBC reporter]
• News is an account of a current idea, event, or problem
that interests people. [Campbell & Wolseley]
• News is a timely report of facts or opinions that hold
interest or importance, or both, for a considerable number
of people. [Mitchell V. Charnley]
What is news?
5. • A report
• Ideas, events, and problems
• News is real
• News is current
• News interests people
• News elements: timeliness, nearness, size, importance,
personal benefit, policy, journalistic treatment, and space
allocation.
What is news?
7. • Frequency or time span
• Meaning
• Significance
• Clarity
• Closeness to home
• Consonance or predictability
• The unexpected or rare
• Continuity
• Composition
• Concentration on elite nations and individuals
• Person-centred
• Negativity
What is news?
Johan Galtung & Mari Ruge
- factors important to news gatherers when deciding what’s
news
8. • Others
• The law
• Work routines
• Financial control
What is news?
Johan Galtung & Mari Ruge
- factors important to news gatherers when deciding what’s
news
12. Good writers make it easy for their readers by using:
- everyday words
- short, simply structured sentences
- active verbs
- anecdotes and quotes
Telling the story
- grammar and style
13. • Think clearly – you have to know what the story is and
then tell it in the most direct and succinct manner.
• Language must be appropriate for the audience
Putting the message
across…
14. • Be clear about what you want to say
• Say it with everyday words
• Use simple sentences
• Use short paragraphs
• Use verbs in the active voice
• Report details, draw a picture with words
• Use a style that is natural to you
• Keep adjectives to the minimum
• Use strong quotes close to the beginning of the story
• Avoid clichés as far as possible.
• Don’t repeat words
• Don’t bury your quotes
• Don’t use ‘officialese’
Good Writing: some rules
15. • Focus on the strongest angle
• Write an intro that attracts the reader
• Set out facts faithfully and lucidly
• Structure the story to encourage reading
• Use the most compelling quotes early on.
Structuring the story
16. Good interviewers are easy to trust and can put people at
their ease. When conducting an interview they:
- Have a clear idea of its purpose
- Prepare carefully and consider lines of questioning
- Interview rigorously but fairly
- Remain well mannered at all times
Effective Interviewing
17. • Interviewing successfully is one of the great arts of
reporting and a sure way to a good story.
• In broadcast news, the interview has become a form of
packaged news itself.
• Its question and answer style has the advantage of giving
a journalist an opportunity to explore issues in greater
depth.
Effective Interviewing
How important?
18. • It is a conversation with a source
• It isn't just an informal chat
• The source has an important information, so an interview
is meant to get it, by getting the source to tell you
Effective Interviewing
What exactly is an
interview?
19. • The informational interview
• The expositional interview
• The interpretative interview
Effective Interviewing
Types of Interviewing
20. • First, check the library clippings for stories relevant to the
interview
• Think about what you want from the interview
• Think of lines of questioning which may elicit memorable
quotes or anecdotes or other evidences from the source
• You may prepare a list of questions beforehand but you
don’t have to follow it slavishly
• If the subject is a sensitive issue prepare beforehand for
the most probable attitude from your source
How to prepare for an
interview?
21. • First impressions
• Simple is not stupid
• Use lots of open questions to draw out the information
• The less threatening you can be the better even if the source
seems unwillingly or unruly
• Don’t open with challenging or sensitive questions
• Don’t be afraid to ask the difficult or tough questions when the
time comes
• Strive to get good quotes. This brings the human element and
animate a story
• Silence can be golden
The interview
22. Make sure to note:
- Why the news conference was called
- The main points being made by the speaker/speakers
- The consequences of the news conference
- The names and job titles of the speakers
- The best quotes (strict accuracy is essential here)
- Any good points to come out of the follow-up asked by
reporters.
Covering news
conferences
23. • Is one of the hardest part of your job
• It involves going uninvited to someone’s house or waiting
outside a restaurant, cinema, or court in the hope of
getting a few comments from the source
• Public figures are used to this but ordinary people who
have been caught in a news story should be handled
carefully.
Door stepping
25. • ‘off-record’
• keep whatever promise made to the source
• Protect and minimize harm to the source
Ethical issues
26. Good journalists know how to dig out information. They
don’t wait to be given stories, they go looking for them.
They
- Have excellent contacts
- Will not accept information in press releases, leaks or tip-
offs at face value, but will always seek to verify it
- Know where to find and how to use reference
books, records and reports
- Can interpret and analyze figures
Finding the news
27. • There’s no such thing as a story. Stories don’t exist they
happen.
• A story is an event, not an object. It exists in time and
space. It’s a performance by the giver and an experience
for those receiving it.
• Tell journalistic stories much like other stories.
Reporting as “story”
28. • Every real story has a setting, a place where it happens
and a combination of circumstances that provides its
context.
• Every real story has one or more characters, with some
being major players and some playing bit parts.
• Every real story has some sort of complication that
occurs, triggering the chain of events that makes the story
more than just simple description.
Reporting as “story”
29. • Every real story puts its character through a process of
responding to this complication as they try to resolve the
problem or conflict, take advantage of the opportunity or
achieve their goal.
• Every real story brings this process to a resolution, happy
or otherwise.
Reporting as “story”
30. • And every real story includes some sort of closure that
looks into the future or provides meaning.
• The reporter’s shopping list:
- Setting – where and when
- Characters - who
- Complication – what and why
- Process of responding/resolving – what (happened)
- Resolution - How
- Closure – so what?
Reporting as “story”
31. • There’s a difference between story and myth
• Report only as much of the story as you’ve really
gathered
• The story you are telling is often the story of being told
things by other people
Story as Trap
32. Treat any story, be it for print
or broadcast, as a story to
be told, and read your draft
out loud to test how well it
works.
33. Attribute meticulously.
Remember, your story is
often about people telling
stories of their own. Don’t
fall into retelling those
stories as though they were
facts.
35. Listen with ear that’s hungry
to study how people
instinctively tell their
stories.
36. Tell stories yourself, and tell
them as real stories, no
matter to whom, no matter
why, no matter about what.
37. • Harper, C. and The Indiana group.(1998). Journalism
2001. Madison: CourseWise Publishing Inc.
(www.coursewise.com)
• Campbell, R.L. and Wolseley, R.E. (1961). How to report
and write the news. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
• Dennis, E.E. and Ismach, H.A. (1981). Reporting
Processes and Practices: Newswriting for Today’s
readers. California: Wadsworth Pub. Co.
• Sissons, H. (2006). Practical Journalism: How to write
News. London: Sage Publications.
references
