On inverted pyramid... (article)

Newspapers throughout the United States are scrambling to shore up weaknesses when it comes to readership, but they are spread thin in terms of manpower and finances. It would cost any newspaper an unobtainable amount of money to fix every aspect of readership individually. However, there is one area a newspaper can go after, invest little financially and reap huge benefits in circulation, readership, brand awareness, advertising value and more.Write better editorial copy.It is simple. Again, improve the copy.Recent Readership Institute studies clearly show the value of editorial content. If the content is well written, readers will read long and more completely. In doing so, the value of advertising increases. A person who enjoys reading the local newspaper will begin to develop a strong sense of brand loyalty. This leads to circulation gains with little churn. All of this comes from better writing. Inside the inverted pyramid Readership consultants and writing coaches agree that it is time for a change. The ever-faithful inverted pyramid-style of writing has held strong since the beginning of syndicated content. But it’s not time to bury the inverted pyramid just yet. It is still the style of choice when it comes to writing on deadline or hard news stories like accidents and trials.
Writing coach Jim Stasiowski said the inverted pyramid does get the job done. “There is still a place for it in news writing,” Stasiowski said, “You get a verdict an hour before deadline, I see no problem at all of the structure of what we think is the inverted pyramid. Put your best stuff first.”When a reporter has time, though, he or she must shake things up and try something different from the style the industry has forced fed readers during the past several decades. “The inherent folly of the inverted pyramid is that you put the best information first, mediocre second and the not very good stuff last,” Stasiowski said. “It makes you wonder why write the story at all. You are telling the reader the rest of the story is not worth it…You are saying to readers, ‘I’m trying to get out of here. Please, readers let me go. Just let me finish it up.’ That is the negative side of the inverted pyramid.”Once readers catch a subtle clue that the story is over by paragraph five or six, they are gone and they leave with a bitter taste in their mouth. Kim Strong, assistant managing editor at the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., said a reader’s disdain should not come as much of a surprise to newspapers. “We promise them good stories with great headlines, photos and leads,” she said. “But we don’t always deliver it. We train readers that things aren’t as interesting as promised to them. We have to decide that we can write those meeting stories in more interesting ways. We can’t (fact) dump and run. The only way we can change is by innovators in the newsroom.”What Stasiowski and Strong advocate is not new. Studies, including the groundbreaking Impact Study by the Readership Institute, have been pushing for change for almost five years.Don’t try to fool readers The quick fix doesn’t work. Some reporters, with the best of intentions, attempt to do something different but just end up using an anecdotal lead as “decoration” and then go straight back to the inverted pyramid style.If the reporter uses the response of a random person for a story lead and does not return to that source or carry out any type of theme, it is merely decoration, Stasiowski said. Strong is just as against fluff as Stasiowski. “Decoration is not value,” she said. “It’s like taking two steps in the ocean and saying you were swimming. You weren’t swimming. You got your feet wet but didn’t take that plunge.”Strong said when reporters start to use decoration, it really just holds them back more. “They go just far enough to say they did something different. They feel they have done it but they haven’t.”Change more than the leads Strong said it takes innovators to make headway within a newspaper. She described innovators as anyone in the newsroom. It doesn’t have to be a publisher or an editor or a reporter with 20 years of experience. All it takes is planning and a willingness to try something new. It also takes room to fail too. Not every attempt at something new will be a winner.There are some safe, easy alternatives to the traditional fact-dumping inverted pyramid. Use break out material, sidebars and lists to pull information that is important to the story but at the same time takes away from overall theme. This allows readers to focus more on the conflict of the story.Strong said photo stories and Q & As are highly read by readers. Stasiowski suggested something even more simple—just tell a story.Write the article as if you were telling it to your spouse or mother, he said. The article will have a beginning, middle and end. In between the stages a reporter will automatically focus on the conflict and create tension, drama and suspense. This approach is typically called a narrative story.Strong said the spatial-style of writing is also successful. This is when a reporter describes what he or she actually sees when covering the event, almost like first-person perspective without using first-person language.

Inverted Pyramid structure

News writing styles
Intro
Like different kinds of leads, journalists can use different frameworks for organising stories:
Chronological
Inverted Pyramid
Equal facts
Pyramid

Inverted Pyramid Style
Imagine a pyramid upside down
Broadbase- most newsworthy information, beginning
Narrow tip- least newsworthy- end
Start with a lead that summarizes the what, where, who…
Second para should pick on some element of the lead and elaborate on it
Third para may provide more details about the event
Final para sums up the remaining details


The story will contain all the essentials if the sub chops off the final para.
Logical connection between one and the next para. (word/words that are repeated)
To keep the flow smooth and logical
Each para should be short- two sentence maximum

Advantages
Reader- lack of time, can skim the stories
Reporter- keep to deadlines as it is a simple way of writing
Sub-editor- can keep the story to any length
Tell the story quickly and clearly

Limitations…
Inverted pyramid structure is outdated
It is grotesque
The reporter is forced to follow a particular style as opposed to being creative
It gives the news three times- once in the headline, the lead and again in the body

Other forms
Chronology: a summary lead is followed by a chronology of events
Starting with the first, the body details the various stages in the story one after another
Is suitable for action stories: fire, accident etc.

News Values
How a reporter decides to cover a news item.

What determines news?
Many researchers have tried and come out with many different criteria for choosing news. But the universal values that define news are:
Impact/Consequence
Prominence
Proximity
Human Interest
Timeliness
Rarity

Impact
The impact of an incident or issue is the most important value that a reporter considers
Impact is, how many are affected by the news- the more number of people affected the greater is the newsworthiness of the incident.
Reporters/newspapers therefore run with news stories that have big consequence- budget, price hike, and so on.

Prominence
Prominence refers to the people in the news
The logic being the more important the people the greater will it have a readership
Any statement by the PM is more important than something said by ordinary citizens
Therefore there is more coverage of prominent individuals in the news
Pramod Mahajan’s shooting was covered due to his stature in public life
Human Interest
There are occasions where ordinary people do extraordinary things
The usual rule that only prominent people make news has an exception
The exploits of a little known Budia/Butia is know to the world due to his feat
Human interest is gaining importance as people want more news about their lot

Timeliness
Time is of utmost importance
Those news stories that are recent will definitely be given more importance than older ones
As competition is increasing, newspapers have to concentrate on the latest and not run with stale news
Timeliness is an obvious value that is getting more important as people get the latest news through new media

Rarity
Anything that is out of the ordinary is newsworthy
New angles to an old story is a common way of making stories interesting and different
This value is very broad to include those items that are different, unpredictable, odd and bizarre
The story about the man kissing a king cobra makes news due to this value

News
Meaning and definitions

What is news?
News is a product gathered, processed, packaged and sold by newspapers, news services, news magazines and other periodicals and by radio, television, and cable stations and networks. But news is also whatever people think it is; reporter, editor or reader. It is anything that attracts and holds the interest of readers, viewers or listeners.

Definitions
Stanley Walker (New York Herald-Tribune): News is more unpredictable than the winds. Sometimes it is the repetition with new characters of tales as old as the pyramids; it may be almost outside the common experience. Based on opinion, much news is routine, repetitious, at the same time interesting and exciting to some people. For example birth and deaths.
Definition 2
Joseph Pulitzer of St. Louis Post-Dispatch: stories that were original, distinct, romantic, thrilling, unique, curious, quaint, humourous, odd and apt-to-be talked about.

Charles Dana (editor of New York Sun): anything that will make people talk.

Recent definitions
news is a chronicle of conflict and change.

Editors of today: define news is terms of what the readers want to know- give readers what they ask for.

News as information readers ought to have, what they need to know to get along in this complicated world.

News is information that helps people solve their problems intelligently.
News is what a well-trained editor decides to put in his paper.

Quotations
Principles and practices

Introduction
Direct quotes give the reader a sense of the people making them
Used when the exact language comes closer to the revelation of the truth and essential to the story
Attribution of news is necessary in the story

What quotation does to story

It tells the story effectively
Carries conviction
Reader can visualize the colourful, confident/scared picture of the person in the news- captures the personality effectively
Succinctly summarize the points
Gives authority to the writing

Contd.
6. It can dramatize the incidents
7. Make the story convincing and memorable
8. finally, it can increase the interest of the reader in the news.

Rules for handling quotes
Rules to decide when to use a quote or paraphrase.
When it is necessary to put the person on record in his own words
Quote sums up what the person is saying
It lets the reader visualize the person/situation

More…
Essential in question and answer stories
To provide a break or a twist to the story

Improving quotes
What does a reporter do in case what is said contains bad grammar, factual errors, sentences that make no sense, etc.?
Does he clean it up or let it run with mistakes?
Correct the quote- purpose of story is to communicate information
Others- unethical to tamper, paraphrase such quotes

Forms of quotes…
Direct quotes- exact words of the source
Indirect quotes- the reporter paraphrases the quotes in his own words
Fragmented/partial quotes- quote the source somewhere in the middle of the sentence for emphasis
Dialogue- to present a conversation between two/more people either fully/partially

Hour glass article

Every trade has its secrets, every job has its tools: the carpenter's hammer and saw, the plumber's wrench, the painter's palette and brushes. In Shakespeare's time, actors used to carry bags that contained the tools of their art: makeup, costumes, props that enabled them to switch in and out of character as the drama on stage demanded.
As a handyman, my motto has always been, "Give me a tool and I'll break something." But as a writer, I'm always searching for the tools that will help me create the magic that is good writing, whether it's a breaking news story, magazine article, personal essay, or fiction.
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The hourglass structure is one such device. A story shape that journalists can employ when they have news to report and a story to tell. Earlier this week, I listened to Christine Martin, dean of West Virginia's Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, describe the form to Poynter's summer fellows as a useful tool for reporters searching for a form. "It's important," Martin observed, "for a reader to be cradled in a structure." It's an apt metaphor since a cradle is a framework used to support something. Stories need a support, shape, a structure, in the same way a building needs a frame and our bodies a skeleton. Ernest Hemingway, a one-time reporter who became one of America's most influential novelists, had this in mind when he said, "Prose is architecture, not interior decoration." Effective writers understand this and make sure their toolbox contains a variety of story shapes. The best stories often create their own shape; writers consider their material, determine what they want the story to say, and then decide on the best way to say it. Architects and writers follow the same rule: Form follows content. That means before you design a container you determine what you need to put inside. You wouldn't try to ship an elephant in a shoebox.But journalists, like all writers, sometimes rely on tried-and-true forms and formulas: the inverted pyramid, the "five boxes" approach, the nut graf story. You need to be familiar with these forms whether or not you decide to write your story in a completely new way. "Formulaic writing has gotten a bad name," says Poynter Online Editor Bill Mitchell, a veteran reporter and editor. "Done right, it diverts creatively from formula in ways that serve the needs of the story at hand. Tying the reporting, as well as the writing, to the form lends a discipline and focus that produce better stories."The hourglass was named by my colleague Roy Peter Clark in 1983 after he had begun to notice something new in his morning paper.
It wasn't the news; it was the way the news was being told. In their stories, reporters seemed to be combining two forms: the inverted pyramid and the narrative. Clark was a likely discoverer. A college English literature professor-turned-newspaper writing coach and reporter, he used his skills as a literary scholar and his experience in the newsroom to deconstruct the form. In an article published in the Washington Journalism Review (since renamed American Journalism Review), he described this form and gave it a distinctive name: the hourglass. It provided an alternative, Clark said, "that respects traditional news values, considers the needs of the reader, takes advantage of narrative, and spurs the writer to new levels of reporting."
Clark said the hourglass story can be divided into three parts:
THE TOP. Here you deliver the news in a summary lead, followed by three or four paragraphs that answer the reader's most pressing questions. In the top you give the basic news, enough to satisfy a time-pressed reader. You report the story in its most concise form. If all that is read is the top, the reader is still informed. Because it's limited to four to six paragraphs, the top of the story should contain only the most significant information.
THE TURN. Here you signal the reader that a narrative, usually chronological, is beginning. Usually, the turn is a transitional phrase that contains attribution for the narrative that follows: according to police, eyewitnesses described the event this way, the shooting unfolded this way, law enforcement sources and neighbors agree.
THE NARRATIVE. The story has three elements: a beginning, middle and end. The bottom allows the writer to tell a chronological narrative complete with detail, dialogue, and background information.
The hourglass form summarizes the news, then shifts to a narrative. The top delivers the news, the turn acts as a transition, the narrative tells the story.The hourglass can be used in all kinds of stories: crime, business, government, even to report meetings. It's best suited, however, for dramatic stories that can be told in chronological fashion. In the right hands, as the following story from The Miami Herald illustrates, the hourglass is a virtuoso form that provides the news-conscious discipline of the inverted pyramid and the storytelling qualities of the classic narrative.
BEHIND THE HOURGLASS
1. THE TOP

Shots Fired While He Stabbed Ex-WifeBy Conie Piloto and Molly Hennessy-FiskeThe Miami HeraldAug. 9, 1998It wasn't the first time that Dennis Leach had violently terrorized his ex-wife. But it will be the last.Leach, 37, was shot by Davie police Saturday afternoon after he disregarded their orders to drop his knife and instead plunged it repeatedly into Joyce Leach outside her duplex at 6110 SW 41st Ct.Dennis Leach was pronounced dead at the scene. His ex-wife, who asked police, "Why did you shoot him?" as she was loaded into the ambulance, was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, where she was listed in stable condition.The mayhem was witnessed by Dennis Leach's parents and some neighbors. The neighbors said turmoil at the Leach home was nothing new.In May, Dennis Leach was charged with aggravated assault when, according to police, he showed up with a hammer, broke a window and chased his ex-wife around the duplex, shouting, "I'm going to kill you!"

In the first five paragraphs, the story conveys all the information the time-pressed reader needs to know: Police shoot to death a man who refuses their commands to drop his knife and stabs his ex-wife instead. The top answers several of the five W’s: who, what, where, when, why, as well as how. A special feature of this lead is the first paragraph, which departs from the usual summary lead: Police shot and killed a 37-year-old Davie man after he disregarded their orders to drop his knife. Instead the writer draws in the reader with an indirect approach that sums up the situation with chilling finality.

2.THE TURN
Police and neighbors gave this account of the latest domestic violence:
The transition is short, alerting the reader that the news report is shifting to storytelling form and indicating the sources for the chronicle to come.

3. THE NARRATIVE
Dennis Leach became angry with his 37-year-old ex-wife after he went to a neighborhood bar Friday night. He stormed into her duplex Saturday afternoon and threatened her with a butcher knife.A terrified Joyce Leach dashed next door to the adjoining home of Leach's parents."He's got a knife, and he's gonna kill me!" Leach's mother, Reba Leach, said her daughter-in-law screamed.At the same time, 15-year-old April Leach, one of their six children, called from a convenience store blocks away."Your father is going to kill me!" Joyce Leach yelled.April Leach hung up and dialed 911.When officers arrived at the duplex, Dennis Leach was chasing his ex-wife with a knife.Police ordered him to drop the weapon, said Davie Capt. John George.Instead, Leach started stabbing her.An officer fired at Dennis Leach, striking him around a knee, but he wouldn't stop plunging the knife into his ex-wife, neighbors said.An officer or officers fired again, this time hitting Leach in the chest. He collapsed and died on the side of the road. His parents were watching from inside their home.Davie police would not say whether more than one officer fired at Dennis Leach, nor would they identify the officer or officers.Neighbors say they heard at least five shots.As police carried Joyce Leach to an ambulance, the knife still stuck in her right shoulder, she turned to police and said: "Is he dead, is he dead. ... Why did you shoot him?" said next-door neighbor Shannon Schmitzer.As Joyce was hoisted into the ambulance and police placed a yellow tarp over Dennis Leach's body, April Leach and a brother arrived.The two siblings cried and tried to run to their mother and father but were escorted away.Police later drove them to Memorial Regional Hospital to be with their mother.Dennis and Joyce Leach lived for years in the duplex owned by Leach's parents."They've had a lot of trouble in the past," Schmitzer said.As the couple's problems escalated, the Department of Children and Family Services stepped in. The state took custody of the children for a while, placing them in foster homes, neighbors said.Joyce Leach got a job at Dunkin' Donuts, just blocks away, but Dennis Leach couldn't stay out of trouble.In May, Davie police charged him with domestic violence and aggravated assault after the incident with the hammer. He was convicted and jailed for 90 days.He got out Tuesday night and returned to his family's house, his mother said."We weren't supposed to let him stay here," his mother said. "But he just showed up."

The time had come to tell the story of what transpired the night Dennis Leach died. The writer tells the story chronologically, drawing together information gleaned from interviews with the sources identified in the turn. As with all stories, the narrative section has a beginning, a middle that describes the main action, and an end, with the climactic cry of the abused ex-wife, "Why did you shoot him?" The conclusion wraps up the story with background about the couple's troubles and then, like many good stories, ends on a note that echoes back to the beginning. Note how the writer uses dramatic quotations and vivid details, such as the yellow tarp that covers Dennis Leach's body, to show the narrative scene that the reader is merely told about in the top.

The hourglass is a form that satisfies editors who prefer a traditional approach to news writing as well as impatient readers who tire easily of leisurely approaches to stories that take forever to get to the point. Readers who want a more complete story, who like to see a story unfold as they read it, are happy as well. The hourglass serves readers' need for news and their natural desire for story.

Hey...

Hi guys...

To avoid congestion in our common e mail id during exam times (casue we get our notes mailed there!!!) here's an attempt... if you have anything to say to the class or any notes which u think will be helpful to everyone... put it up here!!! I hope this works...
and the login id and password is the same as our common id.
Take care...