That, was a heaps cool pearl of information! It all instantly fell together, and instantly made sense for all of us here, all of us I’m sure, getting that ‘Eureka’ moment! Thank you…
Similar to when I was trained in writing press releases. The aim was to make editors’ (very few journalists left in the trade magazines I was targeting) lives as easy as possible, so our releases would be picked ahead of those that needed more work - even if our news was less important or interesting. 😊
I get that. There's a PR woman who has glommed on to what I think is a rather smart subject line for her releases, but her releases are never for anything I would write about. So I ignore hers, but feel bad about it.
Very nice observations. One driving force behind that pyramid is the dictum to never bury the lede. News in the good old days, at least at its best, had amazing camaraderie. My Dad wrote for the Star-Telegram and I got my first view of that when I was a kid. The newsroom was directed chaos, with a nonstop clatter of typewriters and the swoosh and flop of copy flying through pneumatic tubes. Even a little kid could feel the energy. Ten years ago, the Star Telegram's presses fell silent, publication outsourced to a rival paper. Last month, the print schedule dropped to three days a week. I'm certain those last three days will end before long, newsprint replaced by online news, connections between reporters and communities eroding. I feel fortunate to know how much of a loss that will be.
I'm sorry about the Star Telegram. We've gained a lot, but we've also lost a great deal. I never worked with pneumatic tubes and once I was doing this for a living even typewriters had gone away, but your description still snaps me right back to BBC newsrooms. I used to adore the buzz in those -- but a while ago I went to see a friend in a BBC television newsroom and everything was silent. People just emailing each other instead of ringing. Using instant messaging instead of turning around to talk to colleagues. It felt as if the life was gone.
William, this was an extremely well done lesson. There is certainly a lot of 'news' I am following these days, I'll check them out to see if they are doing it well.
Funny that I should do this just as I am trying to back away from watching the news. But the other day, after finishing the episode, I was involved in the coverage of a news story that other outlets were covering as fact and it was solely about percentages. I looked further into it and realise the whole story was just so much bollocks. It was frustrating and validating at the same time.
Brilliant. This one feels a little more like a general comm theory course to me, and really makes me think about how our way into writing can dramatically (pun intended?) shape how we orient ourselves across styles and genres. I came to writing as a dramatist, not a particularly good one, but my vocabulary around messaging and the essence of any given story are very much dominated by my conceptions of dramatic theory (and performance), so I’m always thinking about tension, moving the plot forward, and/or telling a joke, or the line goes. It’s very interesting to me to see the news story model and a bit about its roots of how/why it works the way it works, and can see how we as writers may arrive at the same end while taking radically different journeys to get there! This kind of media literary should be taught in schools, loving this series more and more each week! Still nothing to argue with just yet …
Thank you. Only today I was talking with a teacher about how writers who start as journalists never shake certain approaches, certain attitudes. I think I've been lucky that I've always straddled fiction and non-fiction -- but then I cannot write creative non-fiction. It's either absolutely factual, or I've made it up, I can't grasp doing one in between. Which might be to my detriment, but it's definitely due to where I came from in writing.
Really enjoyed this video, thank you! News articles aren’t something I’ve ever written, or considered writing, but I enjoyed immensely understanding more about how they’re written. I also enjoyed the throwback to Ceefax, though I recall vividly the frustration of not being able to pause or control how quickly the pages cycled through!
You remember Ceefax! Thanks -- except no, hang on, there was a Hold feature wasn't there? Unbelievable that I can't remember now when it was so important to me then.
@@WilliamGallagher Cobbled streets, cobbled streets?! We used to dream of cobbled streets! Nothing but hard-packed earth for us, and we were grateful for it!
I remember writing news articles in school... and I found the inverted pyramid to be actually helpful. But honestly, I can't remember if the quote or quotes went in the 2nd or third paragraph. In my adult life, most of my writing has been articles for computer magazines - either product reviews or how-to instructions that weren't boring. What I'm looking to do now is explore the world of fiction - mostly sci-fi and or fantasy. Sorry, can't argue with you about news articles. I do really appreciate the info percentages and BS though.
I like reviewing when I like the thing I'm reviewing: criticism is so much harder in technology because you have to prove that something doesn't do something. Once I had an iPhone app to write about which would not launch, it simply wouldn't open beyond the splash screen before crashing. So I had to talk to the developer, I had to try it out on multiple different devices -- in the end I got colleagues in other countries to try it in case there was some obscure location bug. Nothing. No one could make it launch. And after my review was published, I found two other reviews in other sites -- both of which gave it raves. They had unquestionably reviewed the press release instead of the app. That was years ago now and it still makes mad.
Your information about quotes is particularly interesting. There’s a particular type of news article that I see more and more that really winds me up, in which the ENTIRE story is composed around a quote, and it’s usually one that has appeared on social media - i.e. the quoter has already put this information in the public domain and the news article adds absolutely nothing. There’s general a screenshot of the social media post, followed by a word for word repeat of what it said. And nothing else except some wordy furniture around that to keep the story as a story rather than just a quote. There was one (actually, there were many, on just about every front page at the weekend and on every news website) about Davina McColl’s operation. Lovely lady. I hope she gets better soon. And her awful story about her brain tumour is absolutely in the public interest. I’m not debating any of that. But the key thing is she chose to share this story on her Instagram page. All the information was there (at least everything she wanted to share), and she had taken the active decision to share it. And then the news story was repeated and repeated across the media and not a single article added even a whiff of context or additional information. I’m curious where you stand on that? On the one hand, perhaps just the act of spreading this news story around the media is in itself a good thing. But on the other, am I wrong to expect SOMETHING else from the article? A bit of information? Couldn’t the author have looked up the particular kind of tumour on Wikipedia to add a bit more information than was available in the original article? Making the quote the article itself just feels to me like journalists filling empty space because they can, and I’m interested in your take.
Yep, you are entirely right. One client I have requires me to embed Twitter posts when that is the source of the story and it does a job of showing we're not making it up, it also does a job of breaking up the text with an illustration. There's also an argument - I understand it but that doesn't mean I agree - that doing this keeps your publication in the conversation that's going on anyway. But for me, yes, absolutely: I need more. And I also need verification: I've seen a social media post be misread by one journalist and their misreading being quoted by everyone else. That's painful.
When the reader needs to understand the context, which may be less familiar, maybe present that initially in the second para, before offering a quote in the third.
I wonder about that. I think what you say is the way my friend in local print journalism was taught. Yet I will still strive to convey the import, the reason for the story being news, right there in the first par. Thinking… Thanks for commenting.
I write science journalism and often find that I need to get some context in early in the piece. If I'm lucky, I'll have a great expert quote that can do some of that job. I was taught the "inverted pyramid," at school, but I still have to struggle not to bury the lede!
So many online "news" articles these days are just rubbish. If I don't get the basic information in the first paragraph, I click away. If it's a subject matter I particularly care about, I might give them 2 paragraphs just in case the writer is new and/or not well trained. Anything after that, I know it's just another click bait article trying to keep me engaged as long as possible so I will scroll past a whole bunch of ads. No, thank you.
Oh, I am so with you on this one. The number of times I see an article about a TV show and it is ten paragraphs before they name it... I quit the story then and try to remember which site does this, but I still get caught and still get very grumpy about it.
This episode was 76% more informative than the last one. As ever, good stuff.
Oh, you made me laugh there. Thanks.
That, was a heaps cool pearl of information!
It all instantly fell together, and instantly made sense for all of us here, all of us I’m sure, getting that ‘Eureka’ moment!
Thank you…
Well, that’s made my day, thank you.
There's a brilliant book titled, "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. I highly recommend it.
Oooh, thanks: that sounds great.
Similar to when I was trained in writing press releases. The aim was to make editors’ (very few journalists left in the trade magazines I was targeting) lives as easy as possible, so our releases would be picked ahead of those that needed more work - even if our news was less important or interesting. 😊
I get that. There's a PR woman who has glommed on to what I think is a rather smart subject line for her releases, but her releases are never for anything I would write about. So I ignore hers, but feel bad about it.
Oh this takes me back! I was trained to write top down and it was the best training any writer can receive.
Top down? I've not heard that term -- and I like it. I'm having that. Thanks.
Very nice observations. One driving force behind that pyramid is the dictum to never bury the lede.
News in the good old days, at least at its best, had amazing camaraderie. My Dad wrote for the Star-Telegram and I got my first view of that when I was a kid.
The newsroom was directed chaos, with a nonstop clatter of typewriters and the swoosh and flop of copy flying through pneumatic tubes. Even a little kid could feel the energy.
Ten years ago, the Star Telegram's presses fell silent, publication outsourced to a rival paper. Last month, the print schedule dropped to three days a week.
I'm certain those last three days will end before long, newsprint replaced by online news, connections between reporters and communities eroding.
I feel fortunate to know how much of a loss that will be.
I'm sorry about the Star Telegram. We've gained a lot, but we've also lost a great deal. I never worked with pneumatic tubes and once I was doing this for a living even typewriters had gone away, but your description still snaps me right back to BBC newsrooms. I used to adore the buzz in those -- but a while ago I went to see a friend in a BBC television newsroom and everything was silent. People just emailing each other instead of ringing. Using instant messaging instead of turning around to talk to colleagues. It felt as if the life was gone.
Very, very helpful. Thank you. I don't have anything to argue with you here!
Thank you. I can feel a storm coming when you do find something, though. Let me have it.
William, this was an extremely well done lesson.
There is certainly a lot of 'news' I am following these days, I'll check them out to see if they are doing it well.
Funny that I should do this just as I am trying to back away from watching the news. But the other day, after finishing the episode, I was involved in the coverage of a news story that other outlets were covering as fact and it was solely about percentages. I looked further into it and realise the whole story was just so much bollocks. It was frustrating and validating at the same time.
Brilliant. This one feels a little more like a general comm theory course to me, and really makes me think about how our way into writing can dramatically (pun intended?) shape how we orient ourselves across styles and genres. I came to writing as a dramatist, not a particularly good one, but my vocabulary around messaging and the essence of any given story are very much dominated by my conceptions of dramatic theory (and performance), so I’m always thinking about tension, moving the plot forward, and/or telling a joke, or the line goes. It’s very interesting to me to see the news story model and a bit about its roots of how/why it works the way it works, and can see how we as writers may arrive at the same end while taking radically different journeys to get there! This kind of media literary should be taught in schools, loving this series more and more each week! Still nothing to argue with just yet …
Thank you. Only today I was talking with a teacher about how writers who start as journalists never shake certain approaches, certain attitudes. I think I've been lucky that I've always straddled fiction and non-fiction -- but then I cannot write creative non-fiction. It's either absolutely factual, or I've made it up, I can't grasp doing one in between. Which might be to my detriment, but it's definitely due to where I came from in writing.
Really enjoyed this video, thank you! News articles aren’t something I’ve ever written, or considered writing, but I enjoyed immensely understanding more about how they’re written. I also enjoyed the throwback to Ceefax, though I recall vividly the frustration of not being able to pause or control how quickly the pages cycled through!
You remember Ceefax! Thanks -- except no, hang on, there was a Hold feature wasn't there? Unbelievable that I can't remember now when it was so important to me then.
@ If there was, I think our old TV didn’t support it! It had click-in buttons with individual tuning knobs behind them…
@@UKHaiku And a wind-up key that you had to turn after walking home miles across cobbled streets in your bare feet...
@@WilliamGallagher Cobbled streets, cobbled streets?! We used to dream of cobbled streets! Nothing but hard-packed earth for us, and we were grateful for it!
@UKHaiku I used to come down from eight hours up chimneys and be grateful for a slice of dry bread.
This was very informative, thank you!
Thank you.
brilliant, thank you
Thanks, I appreciate that.
Thanks!
Thank you, that's very kind.
I remember writing news articles in school... and I found the inverted pyramid to be actually helpful. But honestly, I can't remember if the quote or quotes went in the 2nd or third paragraph. In my adult life, most of my writing has been articles for computer magazines - either product reviews or how-to instructions that weren't boring. What I'm looking to do now is explore the world of fiction - mostly sci-fi and or fantasy.
Sorry, can't argue with you about news articles. I do really appreciate the info percentages and BS though.
I like reviewing when I like the thing I'm reviewing: criticism is so much harder in technology because you have to prove that something doesn't do something. Once I had an iPhone app to write about which would not launch, it simply wouldn't open beyond the splash screen before crashing. So I had to talk to the developer, I had to try it out on multiple different devices -- in the end I got colleagues in other countries to try it in case there was some obscure location bug. Nothing. No one could make it launch. And after my review was published, I found two other reviews in other sites -- both of which gave it raves. They had unquestionably reviewed the press release instead of the app. That was years ago now and it still makes mad.
Your information about quotes is particularly interesting. There’s a particular type of news article that I see more and more that really winds me up, in which the ENTIRE story is composed around a quote, and it’s usually one that has appeared on social media - i.e. the quoter has already put this information in the public domain and the news article adds absolutely nothing. There’s general a screenshot of the social media post, followed by a word for word repeat of what it said. And nothing else except some wordy furniture around that to keep the story as a story rather than just a quote. There was one (actually, there were many, on just about every front page at the weekend and on every news website) about Davina McColl’s operation. Lovely lady. I hope she gets better soon. And her awful story about her brain tumour is absolutely in the public interest. I’m not debating any of that. But the key thing is she chose to share this story on her Instagram page. All the information was there (at least everything she wanted to share), and she had taken the active decision to share it. And then the news story was repeated and repeated across the media and not a single article added even a whiff of context or additional information. I’m curious where you stand on that? On the one hand, perhaps just the act of spreading this news story around the media is in itself a good thing. But on the other, am I wrong to expect SOMETHING else from the article? A bit of information? Couldn’t the author have looked up the particular kind of tumour on Wikipedia to add a bit more information than was available in the original article? Making the quote the article itself just feels to me like journalists filling empty space because they can, and I’m interested in your take.
Yep, you are entirely right. One client I have requires me to embed Twitter posts when that is the source of the story and it does a job of showing we're not making it up, it also does a job of breaking up the text with an illustration. There's also an argument - I understand it but that doesn't mean I agree - that doing this keeps your publication in the conversation that's going on anyway. But for me, yes, absolutely: I need more. And I also need verification: I've seen a social media post be misread by one journalist and their misreading being quoted by everyone else. That's painful.
When the reader needs to understand the context, which may be less familiar, maybe present that initially in the second para, before offering a quote in the third.
I wonder about that. I think what you say is the way my friend in local print journalism was taught. Yet I will still strive to convey the import, the reason for the story being news, right there in the first par. Thinking… Thanks for commenting.
I write science journalism and often find that I need to get some context in early in the piece. If I'm lucky, I'll have a great expert quote that can do some of that job. I was taught the "inverted pyramid," at school, but I still have to struggle not to bury the lede!
So many online "news" articles these days are just rubbish. If I don't get the basic information in the first paragraph, I click away. If it's a subject matter I particularly care about, I might give them 2 paragraphs just in case the writer is new and/or not well trained. Anything after that, I know it's just another click bait article trying to keep me engaged as long as possible so I will scroll past a whole bunch of ads. No, thank you.
Oh, I am so with you on this one. The number of times I see an article about a TV show and it is ten paragraphs before they name it... I quit the story then and try to remember which site does this, but I still get caught and still get very grumpy about it.