Cyber Communication & Journalism (Lec-06)
The inverted pyramid—a news story structure that places all the important information in the first paragraph—has been used to write the “first draft of history”.
The Inverted Pyramid
- Requires the writer to rank the importance of information.
- Puts the most important information first.
- Arranges the paragraphs in descending order of importance.
The Six Basic Questions
1. Who?
2. What?
3. Where?
4. When?
5. Why?
6. How?
More questions:
1. So what?
2. What’s next?
When Writing the Lead, remember
- Always check names.
- Keep the lead to fewer than 25 words.
- Attribute opinion. »
- Find out the who, what, where, when, why and how.
- Tell readers what the news means to them.
- Report information basic to the story even if it is routine. Not everything you learn is important enough to be reported, but you’ll never know unless you gather the information.
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