Journalistic Writing StyleFor news articles

Narrative Writing vs. Journalistic Writing

Narrative:

Has a beginning, middle, and end

Engages the reader’s mind and heart

shows actors moving across its stage, revealing their characters through their actions and their speech

contains a mystery or a question—something that compels the reader to keep reading and find out what happens

News Article:

Inverted pyramid structureEntirely true and factual in every detail

Must be concrete, understandable and straight forward

Avoids imagination and opinion

Words must be concise

Inverted Pyramid Structure:

Nut graph

Lead

Fluff

The Lead:

The lead is the first paragraph

should be short; one to two sentences only

It must grab the readers’ interest

It gives the who, what, when, where and why

The Nut Graph:

Nut graph is short form for paragraph in a nutshell

The second paragraph in a news article explains the story in a nutshell

Think of how you would tell the story if you only had one minute in which to tell it

The Fluff:

The fluff is less important information that fills out the news article

Background information

Quotations

Explanations

Things to avoid in journalistic writing:

OpinionSpeculationPoetic description

Wordiness

Eliminating Opinion:

Opinion:We think everyone should take their families to The Ex. to experience the best Toronto has to offer.

Better: ````

Families can go to The Ex. To experience the best Toronto has to offer.

Eliminating Poetic Description:

Poetic Description:

A beautiful, sunny afternoon in the heart of Canada’s most metropolitan city was brutally interrupted by a vicious, fatal stabbing today.

Better: ````

A 43 year old male was fatally stabbed at the corner of Jane and Finch today.

Eliminating Wordiness:

Wordy:Despite the fact that she was feeling ill, she came to the conclusion that she would go to work

Better: ````

Despite feeling ill, she decided to go to work.

Let’s practice

eliminating wordiness

Eliminating Wordiness:

Wordy:Because of the fact that he got a good grade on the midterm, he decided to take the night off.

Better: ````

He did well on the midterm, so he took the night off.

Eliminate the Wordiness:

Wordy:The children were tired and exhausted after the long climb to the high top of the mountain.

Better: ````

?

Eliminate the Wordiness:

Wordy:

The dog was walked by the two girls who were sisters.

Better: ````

?

Now you are ready to try…

Finished Product:

How Energy Drinks Affect Your Body Within 24 HoursHonor WhitemanAugust 15, 2015 Last year the World Health organization hailed energy drinks “a danger to public health”, after they found consumption of such beverages is on the rise. Now, an infographic created by Personalise.co.uk claims to show exactly what happens to the body in the 24 hours after consuming an energy drink. Created using information from sources including the UK’s National Health Services (NHS) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and energy drink manufacturer Red Bull, the infographic follows another that went viral earlier this month…

Sources:

• http://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/news-feature-v-narrative-whats-the-

• difference/http://thoughtcatalog.com/angelo-lorenzo/2014/08/truth-and-creativity-journalism-vs-creative-writing/

• http://journalism7thhour.blogspot.ca/2014/10/inverted-pyramid-there-are-many-ways-of.html

• https://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=fixing+wordiness+practice&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4PLXB_enCA663CA663&q=fixing+wordiness+practice&gs_l=hp....0.0.9.1134393...........0.qM-hJUMP-Qw

• http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/302298.php

Journalistic Writing StyleFor news articles