NEWS BASICS
--or--
EVERYTHING YOU (should have) LEARNED IN J-SCHOOL, IN 10 MINUTES OR LESS
Point 1: News is ancient and universal.
—All societies have it. Since the dawn of humankind, people have told it, sung it, beat it on drums. When you cover a car wreck or a council meeting, you’re doing basically the same thing the Ancient Romans did when they posted the acta in the forum.
—The human need to know hasn’t changed.
—What has changed: These days, it’s generally agreed that free-flowing news helps people in free societies govern themselves and live their lives.
Point 2: For that reason, news stories need to meet certain professional standards.
—No matter what style, no matter how long or short, whether hard-edged or soft, good news stories have:
Fairness
Accuracy
Context
(in pursuit of)
Truth
F*A*C*T
Point 3: The Internet, the age of multimedia, has not changed that.
-- In fact, because of the information deluge, because of digital speed, because everything is out there for the taking and/or hurtling, it is more important than ever for you as a reporter to adhere to these standards.
-- Position yourself as a purveyor of journalistically vetted information versus someone just adding to the noise.
Point 4: News happens. Anyone with a recording device can cover an event, blow by blow, start to finish. That is called stenography. Journalism is not stenography.
-- “Committing the act of journalism,” as my teaching colleague Jacqui Banaszynski calls it, requires a specific set of learned skills.
-- In a nutshell, here is what journalists do:
They ferret out facts.
They verify facts.
They clarify information.
They provide context.
—This is true no matter what medium you work in.
Point 5: Being a reporter (or photojournalist) is as much a frame of mind as it is a job.
-- Just being in the world is an invitation to report.
-- The best reporters keep their antennae tuned all the time.
-- Information you use in a news story will generally come from one or more (usually more) of four places:
—Direct observation
—Interviews with people involved
—Documents
—Experts and officials.
Point 6: Journalism is the art of selection.
—In a good news story, you will use only a sliver of the universe of information in your notebook.
—Knowing which five pieces of data (as opposed to the other 300) to use, which two quotes (as opposed to the other 30), etc. doesn’t happen overnight. It is a learned skill. It comes with time and practice.
—Here is an exercise to help you learn the skill more quickly:
-- Ask yourself: What happened? Who was involved?
-- Then: Who wins, who loses, who cares? That will give you a rough overview of the basic story dynamic—a primary sorting system.
-- Under who wins: What do they win? To what end/ benefit? How have they fought, thought, endured, planned, etc …?
-- Under who loses: What do they lose? What cost to them, their town, their family, their values, their emotions, their school, their pet, etc. What’s at stake?
-- Under who cares: Will people read this because the information will affect/ enhance/ save/ entertain/ educate them? How? Will it provide them with inherent news value (an important story)? Provide them with inherent human interest (an interesting story)?
< Ask yourself: If you had to write the story in only four grafs, which pieces of information would you use to adequately address the points above? Why?
Point 7: News connects.
-- No matter what topic or style, all good news stories do this:
They make people want to
— Read them
— Think about them
— Talk about them
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