Journalism 260: Writing for Mass Media

What is inverted pyramid style?

Information provided moves from the most to the least important or newsworthy
- Most important/newsworthy details first; least important last
- Allows efficient comprehension of material -- meaning is communicated immediately; does not require great time investment
- This is the standard news/newspaper writing style
Not an essay; it doesn’t have a definitive beginning, middle and an end
- Common progression: Lead, nut graph, quote, background, transition, quote, background, and so forth.
Always begins with a lead

Leads are short, interesting, complete sentences that explain the story’s importance and/or significance to the audience.

Leads are the first sentence(s) of any news story
Leads are always written for the reader and audience
- What information do they want from the story?
- What is most important to them? Think of relevance.
With this in mind, one would generally expect:
- The Orion to tailor its focus to the campus community
- The E-R to focus its reporting on greater Chico
- The Sacramento Bee to cover what’s going on in California generally
Atop the inverted pyramid

The most important elements of the story summarized in a sentence (occasionally two)
- Hold lead to no more than 25-30 words.
- Start a new paragraph after your lead.
Written in a way that encourages the reader to keep reading
Most important news values within the story
The reader must be convinced that a story is newsworthy and therefore worthy of their time and attention. This is news value, too.

Based in the Five Ws and H (who, what, where, when, why and how)
Leads must be complete sentences -- no headline or broadcast style.
- It’s not “Two killed in auto accident.” It’s “Two people were killed in an auto accident.”
Be accurate with tenses – if activity happened yesterday, use past tense.

Always include the specific day of the week.
But never begin with day of the week
- “On Tuesday a car crash killed two in Oroville.”
- Instead, wait till sentence end to include day of week.
- "A car crash killed two in Oroville Tuesday."
Avoid using today, yesterday or tomorrow (except if writing for a Web edition).

Sometimes a newswriter must make complicated material understandable to the general public. This sometimes requires translation of terminology.
- Legalese, medical or bureaucratic terms.
Not: “At their regular meeting Tuesday night, the Butte County Commissioners considered a proposal to subdivide a 20.4-acre parcel and to change the zoning from Agriculture A-3 to Residential Estate RE-1.”
- This writing from the point of view of the commissioners and planning staff.
- Part of the newswriter's job is to make complex material digestable
Instead: “Four houses may rise next year on the open corn field at the corner of Drake and County Line roads in rural Chico.”

Don’t back into the lead.
Have something important in the first seven words
This leaves out leads such as, “In a special meeting on Monday, the City Council ...”
- Instead, "The City Council decided to reduce the penalty for drinking in public Monday in a special meeting."

Like this: “A Chico man died Monday in a car accident.”
Not this: “A Chico man was killed Monday in a car accident.”
- The latter is an example of the passive voice
Try to avoid something happening to someone or thing

Never put an unfamiliar name in a lead.
- John Smith was robbed Tuesday.
Instead, use another identifier, such as “A Chico man” or “A Chico State student”
These are known as “blind” or “delayed identification” leads -- in the following paragraph the individual(s) are identified by name
Prominent individuals may be named in the lead