The Five W’s and One H of News Writing

March 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Part of the responsibility of a news writer is to make sure that the articles that you produce answer the five W’s. Whether the article is a hard news or soft news article the five W’s and one H will help readers understand the topic that you are talking about. Here is a look at what the five W’s and one H of journalistic writing are.

Who. All news articles need to focus on the who. Who is the article about? Who are the main characters? It is important that the writer let readers know all important information on all important characters in the article.

What. News articles need to answer what. What is happening? What is the topic? What happened? What activities were present? When these are answered it helps keep the article on topic.

Where. Readers want to know about the time and place of where the news story took place. This can include a building, street, state, country as long as it’s the location of the event the news story will be complete.

Why. News articles need to focus on the why. Why did an event take place? Why did something happen? Even if you do not have the answer you can try to present why things happened or people’s theories on why the events happened.

When. News articles also need to let readers know when something happened. Did it happen two days ago or three years ago? The day, date, time and year are all important in news stories.

While journalists are expected to answer the five W’s they are also required to answer one H. How. Writers need to present the how of the events. How something happened or how it came about.

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Writing Tips: How to Create a Soft News Piece

March 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Newspapers and local websites love to feature stories that appeal to the emotions of the viewers and readers. These articles are generally known as soft news articles. Soft news articles are less strict with the structure of the article and allow the writer to show a little bit of creativity with the writing style. If you are starting out in the news writing industry there are a few guidelines that you should follow when writing and creating a soft news article. Here is a look at those guidelines.

Plan An Approach. Due to the fact that there are multiple ways that you can present a soft news topic it is important that you know exactly how you are going to approach the topic. You should know how you want to showcase your topic and what information you want readers to get from your article. This will help you when you are researching and writing the article.

Importance of Research. Just because the soft news articles appeal to the human emotions it does not mean that they can be factually incorrect. If you are writing a soft news piece you need to make sure that you conduct all the research that you would with a hard news piece. Make sure that all your facts are correct and that you gather as much information as possible on your topic.

Create a Voice for the Article. One of the ways that soft news articles stand out is the voice that the article has. Try to create some human emotion behind the article without appearing to be biased. This can come across in the setting, voice or characters that you use in your article.

Answer All Questions. A soft news piece still needs to answer all the journalistic questions. It needs to answer the who, what, where, why, when and how. Make sure that your article answers all these questions when writing it out.

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Ways to End A News Article

February 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Whether you a writing a hard news article or a soft news article, you must at some point finally end the article. Many journalists and news story writers often have a hard time figuring out exactly how to end their article. Do you just stop writing when you think you’re done? Do you create a conclusion as if it were a regular school report? Here is a look at how you should end a news article.

Summary of Facts. One of the popular ways to end a news article is to create a summary of the facts that are presented. While you don’t have to write every fact in the article in the summary you will want to re-write all the information that you want the article to answer. A great example of this is a story on a crime that the police are looking to resolve, you can wrap it up by talking about what the police are looking for and will do in the future.

Eye to the Future. Another great way to end a news article is through the eye on the future approach. This can be talking about what will happen in the future and what possible events the news article might lead to. Articles can end with any solutions that might come from the topic of the article or what people are doing to work to a solution.

Light-Hearted Ending. A light-hearted ending is a great way to end a soft news piece. Writers can end their article talking about a story that is related to the topic, a cute quote or a small amusing reference that is related to the topic. This type of ending will help the piece appeal to the reader’s emotional side and create a great soft news piece.

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How to Start Out Your News Story

February 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment

News articles can take a lot of work. There is the need to come up with a story, do the research, conduct interviews and then write the story in an unbiased way that will not only inform readers but will catch their attention. Many people who write news articles have a tough time figuring out how to go about writing their news article. These people generally have the topic and research but do not know how to go about getting the words on the paper. If you are one of those people here are some tips that will help you write a great news article.

Do Extensive Research. You cannot write a great news article without researching the piece first. The problem many writers run into is that they did not research the article enough and therefore do not hold enough knowledge to create an article that is informative and important to the readers. Make sure that you get as much information as possible on all aspects of the topic that you are writing about. This will help you when it comes time to write the story. Remember you can never have too much research.

Create an Approach to the Topic. Many writers have a hard time writing a news article because they do not know how to tackle the topic that they are covering. It is important that you take a few minutes to figure out how you are going to approach the topic. Make sure that you determine how you want to present information, what you want readers to get out of the article and how you want the article to flow. All of this will help you once you go to write the article.

Write Eye-Catching Leads. Readers like to read stories that have great leads this is why a great eye-catching lead is so important. Many writers spend most of their time creating great leads that will grab the reader. It is always a good idea to write several leads to a news story so that you can create a great news story.

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