The Inverted Pyramid: Look at two triangles or pyramids, one upright with the lip on top and the other inverted with the base on top and the lip at the bottom. The inverted pyramid is the form of news story while the other upright one represent the structure of the fiction. There are usually three types of news.
News based on facts:
- News based on statements (quote)
- News based on action 1. Facts News
- The structure of the news story based o facts will be
- Lead fact
- Secondary Fact
- Fact three
- Fact Four
- Fact Five
In the lead the most important facts or the climax of the Story would be given, and as the story proceeds further fact iwo, fact three and fact four, and so on, would become less and less important. The news story based on facts is not very difficult to write. The important thing is to judge the relative Value of the data and fact available and to arrange them in order of their importance. The composition breaks logically at every paragraph, and Can easily be cut down or lengthened as m cording to the requirement of the space available.
Quote or Statement News.
In Pakistan most of the news falls under the category of quote news, as major bulk of the newspaper space devoted to news is filled with different kinds of statements. The structure of a quote story will be as under:
Lead Summary of the Statement.
Quote.
Summary of less important part.
Quote
Summary of even lesser important part.
Speeches, Statements, letters and interviews may be considered as quote story from the structural point of view. All such stories are based on recorded information delivered either in written form as a press statement or orally and transcribed by the reporter. The job of the reporter is to decide about the most important part of the statement and than summaries it to be the lead. As the story goes further less important part of the statement is mentioned.
Action News
Action news is much more difficult to write a compared to other two types of stories. The reporter is not onl narrating the action, but he also has to keep in mind the important dramatic incidents, descriptions of persons involved in action, statements of eye witnesses and the explanatory data as well. After the lead is written and important events are give in charonological order, important information, background ai explanation is also given.
Finding Out the Lead
A reporter, while writing a news story of any kind, i constantly in search of a fact or feature or a combination, th will be suitable for a lead, After he has all the facts ai informations he faces the task of converting them into a brisk beginning. In most of the news stories, the most important act or information is given in the opening paragraph, which is called “lead”. Usually, answer the five “W’s ” technique is followed.
The Five W s.
The formula of five W’s is applied successfully by reporters everywhere. The five W’s are who? What? When? Where? and why. Answer the fine W’s and the lead is complete. The standard summary of digest lead, in which all the W’s are answered, is the safest, simplest and strongest of all the openers, for example:
Three persons (who ) were killed and nine injured last night (when) as a speeding bus (what ) collided with truck (why)’at Harrappa near Sahiwal (where).
Frequently an “H” for the question “How” is included with the W’s instead of or in addition to the “Why”, Particularly when the method instead of the reason for the action is of greater importance.
I$est W Forward:
In a conventional lead the five W’s adjust themselves in the following order:
Who, what, when, why. However, this normal arrangement of the W’s calls for realignment when one of the W’s is more significant or carries more weight than the others.
Other Types of Leads.
A newspaper page, would soon cease to attract customers if it offered only one kind of news structure. Although the diversity of story starting devices is difficult, however, some devices are available to make a story look different. Some times a reporter tries to start a story by ecalling “How did it look down there” (picture lead) or he will liange the usual structure by starting his story by bringing “The quote up the top”, (quote lead) following are the eight types of news leads;
- Summary—The five W’s Who? What? When 7 Where? Why?.
- Punch—Abrief arresting epigram.
- picture—A word sketch.
- Contrast—Two opposite extremes.
- Question—A to the point query.
- Background—The setting or surrounding circumstances.
- Quotation—A remark or statement.
- Freak—A unique opener of any variety.
Out of these eight different styles any one is selected to suit the type of news the reporter is writing.