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.