Inverted Pyramid & Writing Well

I just found out we are supposed to write about ALL of the reading assignments, not just what we found most interesting. So here is a quick look back at what was assigned from the News Reporting and Writing textbook last week.

I expected the chapter on the inverted pyramid writing style to be old news, and I was not looking forward to reading it. To my surprise, however, I did learn some things that I hadn't really thought about before.

Apparently it's ok to give a summary of your story in the lead, whenever the "whole of the action is more important than any of its parts." I hope that I get to write a lot of stories this year where summary leads would be appropriate, because I often have trouble deciding what my story focus should be, what the most interesting or relevant aspect of the news is for the reader.

The inverted pyramid chapter also pointed out something that should be obvious, but I think it's something that is sometimes forgotten when writing hard news. A reporter should always tell the reader what the story means to them, why the story has impact. If a reader leaves a story asking "so what?," than the piece has obviously not hit home. Readers want to know what the news means to them, and it's a reporters job to show them.

The next chapter focused on the necessity of news writing to be clear, simple and interesting. I think this is obvious enough. The text did make two points, however, that will stick with me:

Journalists should not write implicitly. Say what you are thinking.
"The football player scored and the crowd was happy." This sentence shows two things happening, but does not say, explicitly, the relationship between the two things.
Last week's reading assignment taught me that "Because the football player scored, the crowd was happy," is a more appropriate way of reporting those events.

Journalists should relate obscure numbers to something known.
Express large numbers in terms of smaller units (don't talk about state tax revenues, talk about dollar amount per taxpayer).
Also: "An area the size of three football fields," is more appropriate than "18,000 square feet of land."