WRITING NEWS ARTICLES

This is NOT your typical English class We don’t write 5 paragraph essays We don’t start our writing with silly

questions or hypothetical statements. What is journey? Imagine a world without conflict.

We don’t wait to give our facts until you read further. We throw them at our readers in our first sentence!

The of a news article: 5Ws and 1HWho: people involved in eventWhat: events that happenedWhere: location of eventWhen: time & date of eventWhy: reasons why event occurredHow: important details of event

Lead First sentence (or two) of a news article. Stands as its own paragraph. Contains as many of the 5Ws and 1H as

necessary to give important information to your readers.

Developed because of the telegraph (needed to get information across quickly).

This is your chance to grab readers’ attention!

Sample Leads Source: BBC Article: 

Deadly landslide hits town in Southern Mexico URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-

america-11429439 Lead: A landslide triggered by heavy rain has hit a

town in southern Mexico, killing at least four people and engulfing a number of houses, officials say.

Reason it's a good lead: This lead does a good job of capturing what, how, where, and who. It is clear, concise, and gets to the point right away. It also grabs the readers attention.

Inverted pyramid format Shows the “shape” of a newsarticle. Starts with broad statements inthe lead (in general terms, what happened?) As you read further, more specificdetails are given. Thus, the writer narrows his/her focus The bottom of the article contains the least important information (just in case yourlayout editor needs to cut down the article- you don’t want to lose important info!)

Stick to the facts News articles are free from bias and

opinion

Present the facts- educate your reader about your topic- and let your reader make up his/her own opinion

Writing a Lead Condense each of these leads to no more than two typed

lines, or about 20 words.

Roger Datolli, 67, of 845 Conway Road, a retired attorney and husband of Mayor Sabrina Datolli, who is serving her fourth term as mayor, was injured in a three-vehicle accident Thursday afternoon around 3:20 p.m. at the intersection of Warren and Davidson avenues, suffering a broken leg and several broken ribs when the car he was driving was struck broadside by a pickup truck driven by Jerry R. Harris, 31, of 2245 Broadway Ave., and then was pushed into the path of another vehicle.

Writing a Lead Continued The city Planning and Zoning Commission met

Thursday for its regularly scheduled  meeting and voted 3-2 to approve a joint plan by the citys Council of Government and the local Chamber of Commerce to renovate the core downtown business district by building a convention center and sports arena complex that will serve as a site for business meetings and conferences as well as possibly host a minor league hockey team on the Olympic-size ice rink planned for the site.

Assignment Choose a news article of your choice.

CREDIBLE news source (look at the Weebly) Read the article completely. Fill out the inverted pyramid worksheet

using the 5 Ws and 1 H model.