CkBooks Online – Free Online Books

THE BODY OF A NEWS STORY

Always, when time permits, read your story before submitting it. If you can’t cut out at least a couple of words, you’re not doing a sufficiently critical job of reading. One of the toughest things in the writing trade, and one of the best for a writer, is to cut your own copy.

(Morton Sontheimer, journalist)

The portion of a news story that follows the lead is called the “body.” It contains the information a reporter believes readers need to know. The information can be presented in several styles: inverted pyramid, hourglass, focus or narrative. No technique works best with all readers, all stories or all reporters. All require thorough reporting. And all require reporters to organize the facts and present them effectively.

Think of writing a news story as driving a train along a track. The rails are the story’s central point and give the story direction. The railroad ties—who, what, when, where, why and how—provide a foundation. The train’s engine is the lead; it must be powerful enough to pull the rest of the story. Like the whistle of the engine, a story’s lead must capture the reader’s attention. Each car that follows the lead represents a paragraph containing information and providing structure. The cars (paragraphs) can be arranged in any sequence—for example, from most important to least or chronologically—that seems most effective. The train is strengthened when research, verification, multiple sources, quotes, anecdotes and descriptions fill the cars. The amount of information needed to complete the story decides the number of cars in the train. Holding the train cars together are couplings, which represent the transitions between paragraphs of information. Without strong transitions, the paragraphs disconnect from one another.

This chapter discusses the writing styles and the techniques reporters often use to write effective bodies for their news stories.

THE INVERTED-PYRAMID STYLE

Inverted-pyramid stories arrange the information in descending order of importance or newsworthiness. The lead states the most newsworthy, important or striking information and establishes the central point for the rest of the story. The second paragraph—and sometimes the third and fourth paragraphs—provides details that amplify the lead. Subsequent paragraphs add less important details or introduce subordinate topics. Each paragraph presents additional information: names, descriptions, quotations, conflicting viewpoints, explanations and background. Beginning reporters must learn this style because it helps them decide what is most important and what is least important. It also helps reporters discover “holes” in their information—details that have not been collected and need to be found.

The primary advantage of the inverted pyramid is that it allows someone to stop reading a story after only one or two paragraphs yet still learn the newest, most newsworthy and most important facts. The inverted pyramid also ensures that all the facts are immediately understandable. Moreover, if a story is longer than the space available, editors can easily shorten it by deleting paragraphs from the end.

The inverted-pyramid style also has several disadvantages:

• Because the lead summarizes facts that later paragraphs discuss in greater detail, some of those facts may be repeated in the body.
• A story that follows the inverted pyramid rarely contains any surprises for readers; the lead immediately reveals every major detail.
• The inverted pyramid-style evolved when newspapers were readers’ first source for breaking news; now radio, television and the Internet fill that role.
• Readers with less than a high school education cannot easily understand stories written in this style.
• The inverted pyramid locks reporters into a formula and discourages them from trying new styles.

Many writing coaches discourage the use of the inverted pyramid, saying it is overused, confusing and often irrelevant. The inverted pyramid remains a common form for organizing news stories, however, partly because of its inherent advantages, partly because using it is a difficult habit to break. Daily deadline pressures also encourage its use because other news-story formats require additional thinking and, perhaps, more rewriting.

Organizing the Information

If two cars collide and several people are injured, an inverted pyramid story about the accident might contain the following sequence of paragraphs:

Normally, reporters emphasize people: what they do and what happens to them. Consequently, in the example above, the injuries to the people are described early in the story. Damage to the cars is less important and reported later. If the damage was not unusual, the story might not mention it. Paragraph three describes the accident itself—the recent action and main point of the story. Quotations, such as those used in paragraphs five, six and seven, add detail and color as well as a pleasing change of pace. Paragraphs eight, nine and 10 are less essential and might be deleted if space is limited.

The exact organization of a story will vary depending on the story’s unique facts and most newsworthy points. The second, third and, maybe, fourth paragraphs should provide details that develop and support the lead.

Notice how the leads in the following stories summarize their topics, and how the second and third paragraphs present their most important details. Neither story ends with a summary or conclusion; instead, the final paragraphs present the least important details. The stories are cohesive because their leads summarize the main topics and because each of the subsequent paragraphs presents additional information about those topics:

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)—Burglary and theft charges were filed Thursday against a handyman who once worked in the home of Elizabeth Smart.

Police said the charges against Richard Ricci are not related to the disappearance of 14-year-old Elizabeth. On June 5, the teen was taken from her bedroom at gunpoint as her younger sister watched.

Ricci faces one count of theft for allegedly stealing $3,500 worth of items—jewelry, a perfume bottle and a wine glass filled with sea shells—from the Smarts’ home in June 2001. They were found during a search of Ricci’s home last month, according to charging documents.

MACON, Ga. (AP)—Two men who illegally plucked the tail feathers from two golden eagles were sentenced to work in a chicken processing plant. “You’ll have your fill of feathers—and, hopefully, you’ll never want to be around another feather in your life,” U.S. Magistrate Claude Hicks told them Wednesday.

The two men, John Kevin Cooper, 24, and Douglas Grant Rustay, 25, were also placed on 18 months’ probation, fined $500 each and ordered to make $600 in restitution.

Cooper, a student, and Rustay, a convenience store manager, were ordered to work a 40-hour week at a chicken plant to help them pay the fine and restitution. In 1993, the men broke into an eagle cage at a wildlife center and stole the feathers. Possession of golden eagle feathers is a federal offense. Lawyers for Cooper and Rustay said they were interested in nature and Indian cul

ture and stole the feathers for themselves. Golden eagle feathers are sacred to Indians. “It’s like going into a church and stealing the altar,” said Ernie Dockery, a mem

ber of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and commander of the Native American Veterans Warrior Society.

Many of the facts reported in longer news stories are of approximately equal importance. Those stories are more likely to resemble the diagram shown below rather than the perfect triangle shown on Page 201.

Immediately after the diagram’s summary lead, Section 1 presents several paragraphs that contain information of roughly equal importance. Those paragraphs may present some additional information about a single topic, or information about several different but related subtopics. Section 2 may describe a somewhat less important aspect of the story. Section 3 presents more facts of about equal importance to one another but of less importance than the facts in Section 2. Section 4 contains the least important details, perhaps routine procedures, background information or a reminder of related or similar incidents that occurred in the past.

Writing the Second Paragraph

The second paragraph in a news story is almost as important as the lead—and almost as difficult to write. Like the lead, the second paragraph should emphasize the news. In addition, the second paragraph should provide a smooth, logical transition from the lead to the following paragraphs.

While writing their stories’ second paragraphs, some reporters fail to emphasize the news. Other reporters fail to provide smooth transitions. As a result, their stories seem dull or disorganized. The following pages discuss both these problems and present some solutions.

Avoid Leapfrogging

Reporters often refer to an individual in their lead and begin their second paragraph with a name. However, many reporters fail to say clearly that the individual referred to in their lead is the person named in their second paragraph. Readers are forced to guess, to make that assumption. They will usually guess right—but not always.

This problem is so common that it has a name: “leapfrogging.” To avoid it, provide a one-or two-word transition from the lead to the name in the second paragraph:

LEAPFROGGING: ALLENTOWN (AP)—A man rammed his car into his wife’s car, then shot her in the arm and leg before bystanders tackled him, police said. Police expressed gratitude to the bystanders who helped bring Felipe M. Santos, 53, of Allentown into custody Monday. REVISED: ALLENTOWN (AP)—A man rammed his car into his wife’s car, then shot her in the arm and leg before bystanders tackled him, police said. Police expressed gratitude to the bystanders who helped bring the man suspected of the attack, Felipe M. Santos, 53, of Allentown, into custody Monday.

Continue With the News

After providing a smooth transition between the lead and the second paragraph, continue with information about the topic summarized in your lead. Mistakenly, some reporters shift to a different topic, a decision certain to confuse their readers:

The mayor and city council agreed Monday night to freeze wages and make city workers pay more for benefits in an effort to close a budget deficit that is now larger than officials expected Mayor Sabrina Datolli, who has been a lifelong resident of the city, is in her fourth term as mayor. She has seen many ups and downs over her years as mayor, but hopes the city can overcome its problems.

REVISED: The mayor and city council agreed Monday night to freeze wages and make city workers pay more for benefits in an effort to close a budget deficit that is now larger than officials expected. Mayor Sabrina Datolli said the wage freeze and other measures are needed to pre vent layoffs of city employees, cuts in programs and more drastic fiscal surgery to balance the city’s budget.

Before revision, the story seems to discuss two different topics. The lead summarizes a problem that confronts city officials everywhere: balancing budgets. The second paragraph shifts to the mayor’s career and hopes. It fails even to mention the problem of balancing the budget.

Names, Names—Dull, Dull

Reporters sometimes place too much emphasis on their sources’ identities. As a result, their second paragraphs lack interesting facts. Note how the following example can be revised to emphasize the news—what the source said, saw or did, not who he is:

A highway engineer was killed Wednesday at an Interstate 95 construction site when a tractor-trailer owned by Shearson Trucking Inc. plowed through a concrete barrier and struck him.

A materials engineer, Riley Patterson of Independent Testing Laboratory Inc., was killed in the mishap. Jonathan Martin, a site manager for Baldini Construction Co., saw the accident happen. REVISED: A tractor-trailer plowed through a concrete barrier at an Interstate 95 construction site Monday, killing a highway engineer.

The force of the crash pushed the concrete barrier into a piece of road equipment, crushing the engineer, Riley Patterson. Patterson had been using a core-drilling machine to bore a sample hole in the concrete roadbed when the accident occurred. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Jonathan Martin, a worker at the site, said he saw the truck crash through the barrier, but could not warn Patterson because of the noise of the drilling machine.

Background: Too Much, Too Soon

Avoid devoting the entire second paragraph to background information. The second paragraph in the following story is dull because it emphasizes routine, insignificant details: Local Red Cross officials expressed alarm Wednesday that blood supplies are dangerously low prior to the beginning of the long holiday weekend.

Nancy Cross, executive director of the Broward County Chapter of the American Red Cross, said the Red Cross strives to maintain an adequate blood supply for emergency situations. “The role of the Red Cross since it was founded is to help people during times of need,” she said.

The story shifts from the news—the lack of adequate blood supplies—to the organization’s purpose. Yet that purpose has not changed since the Red Cross was established. Thus, the second paragraph says nothing new, nothing likely to retain readers’ interest in the story. Fortunately, the problem is easy to correct:

Local Red Cross officials expressed alarm Wednesday that blood supplies are dangerously low heading into the long holiday weekend.

Restocking those supplies will require a 50 percent increase in blood donations over the next three days, said Nancy Cross, executive director of the Broward County Chapter of the American Red Cross.

“Holiday periods are often a problem because people are traveling or have other plans and don’t think about the need for blood,” Cross said. “But the holiday period is also a busy time for emergency rooms and trauma centers, which increases the demand for blood.”

The revised second and third paragraphs describe the solution to the blood supply problem and explain the reasons for the problem—details central to the story.

Complex Stories

Stories that contain several major subtopics may be too complex to summarize in a brief lead. The U.S. Supreme Court, when it is in session, may in one day take action in several cases. Two or three of those actions may be important, but to save space, most newspapers report them all in a single story. Reporters can mention only the one or two most important actions in their leads, so they often summarize the remaining ones in the second, and sometimes the third, paragraphs of their stories.

After summarizing all the major actions, reporters discuss each in more detail, starting with the most important. By mentioning all the cases in their stories’ opening paragraphs, reporters alert readers to their entire contents. Readers interested in the second or third case immediately learn that it will be discussed later in the story. If the lead and following paragraphs mention only the most important action, readers might mistakenly assume that the entire story concerns that one case. Many might stop reading before reaching the story’s account of other cases that might be of greater interest to them.

The following story begins with the Supreme Court’s most newsworthy action and then, in subsequent paragraphs, summarizes other actions taken the same day:

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court Monday refused to overturn a ban on the private possession of machine guns. A National Rifle Association lawyer called it “the first ban on firearms possession by law-abiding citizens in American history.”

In a defeat for the NRA, the justices refused to hear a Georgia gun manufacturer’s argument that the Second Amendment “right of the people to keep and bear arms” allows him to make or possess a fully automatic weapon.

The Court also decided cases involving anti-abortion protests, the sanctuary movement, libel and local regulation. NRA lobbyist Jack Lenzi said his organization was “disappointed but not surprised.” He said the federal ban is “an infringement on the rights” of about 100,000 Americans who collect automatic weapons.

Gun control and law enforcement groups told the high court that the NRA’s argument would permit private persons to have “bazookas, hand grenades, Stinger missiles and any other weapon of mass destruction. . . . The public safety implications of such a position are truly staggering.”

In other matters, the court:

• Refused to lift limits on demonstrations by opponents of abortions at a Dayton, Ohio, abortion clinic and a ban on protests by the opponents at the homes of the clinic’s staff and patients.
• Left intact the criminal convictions of eight sanctuary movement members who helped Central American aliens smuggled into this country.
• Heard arguments in a libel case in which a psychologist says a New Yorker magazine staff writer made up quotes attributed to him.
• Agreed to decide whether communities may regulate the use of pesticides or whether such local regulations are pre-empted by federal law.

Reporters often use lists in news stories that involve several ideas, subtopics or examples. If all the ideas or examples are important, reporters may begin a news story by summarizing one or two main points, adding a brief transition and presenting the other ideas or examples in a simple, orderly list:

Assailants attacked three women in the college’s parking lots, and Police Chief Alvin Schwab today warned other students that the attacks may continue. To protect themselves, Schwab recommended that women:

• Avoid dark areas.
• Park in areas that will be lighted when they return.
• Tell friends where they are going and when they will return.
• Keep their car doors locked and windows rolled up when driving alone.
• Check their car’s floor and back seat for intruders before getting into the vehicle.
• Report any suspicious activities to the campus police.

Later in a story, reporters can discuss each point in greater detail. The initial summary may contain all the essential information about a topic; in that case, it need not be mentioned again. Each item in a list must be in parallel form. If the first item is an incomplete sentence that begins with a verb, then the rest must have the same structure.

Reporters also use lists to summarize less important details placed at the end of news stories. Lists are particularly useful when the details are minor and concern several diverse topics that would be difficult to organize in any other manner:

Donald M. Schoen, a Republican candidate for governor, last night promised to cut the state’s budget and taxes by a “minimum of 10 percent.” Schoen, mayor of Madison for the past eight years, also promised to dismiss 10 percent of the state’s employees.

“People complain that the government has become too big and that it imposes too many taxes and places too many restrictions on their lives,” he said at a fund-raising dinner held last night at Pine Hills Country Club.

On other subjects, Schoen said: EDUCATION—School budgets should be frozen until educators trim administrative costs and improve students’ test scores.

CRIME—Only 19 percent of the serious crimes committed in the state are solved. Fewer than 2 percent of the criminals responsible for those crimes are convicted and sentenced to prison. Penalties should be harsher, and criminals should be kept in jail until they have served their full terms, without parole.

MEDIA COVERAGE—News media devote too much attention to staged campaign activities and “have failed to critically analyze candidates’ qualifications and positions on major issues.”

Some newspapers number each item in a list. Others mark each item with a dash, bullet, asterisk, check mark or some other typographical symbol.

THE HOURGLASS STYLE

Roy Peter Clark, the writing coach at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, observed that the inverted pyramid often forced writers to tell their stories in unnatural ways. It also homogenized the news so stories about bank robberies and congressional debates sounded the same. At the same time, writers who were experimenting with narrative structures for their stories often were losing sight of the news. The most important and newsworthy information might be buried so far down that frustrated readers never saw it. Clark offered the hourglass style of story writing as one that combines the strengths of the inverted pyramid and the narrative format.

Organization of the Hourglass Story

1. An inverted pyramid top
2. The turn
3. A chronological conclusion

The hourglass story begins in typical inverted pyramid fashion. But after four or five paragraphs stating the central point and most newsworthy facts, the story switches to a chronological narrative. The key to the success of the hourglass format is the turn paragraph which makes the transition between the inverted pyramid and narrative styles.

The hourglass story has three parts: an inverted pyramid top that summarizes the most newsworthy information, a turn or pivot paragraph and a narrative. The inverted pyramid top, which may be only three to five paragraphs, gives readers the most newsworthy information quickly. The narrative allows the writer to develop the story in depth and detail, using the storytelling power of chronology. The key, Clark says, is the turn or pivot, which makes the transition between the two formats. Here’s an excerpt of a story illustrating the hourglass style:

NEW YORK (AP)—An aspiring politician strolled past a metal detector at tightly guarded City Hall—escorted by the councilman he once hoped to replace—then pulled a gun in the crowded balcony of the council chamber and shot his rival to death.

The attack Wednesday turned New York City’s seat of government into a crime scene, with screaming political aides and terrified visitors diving for cover. A security officer fired up at the gunman, killing him with five bullets.

Councilman James Davis, 41, a former police officer and ordained minister who campaigned against urban violence, was struck several times in the torso and died at a hospital. He had planned to introduce legislation on workplace violence that afternoon.

His killer, Othniel Askew, 31, died a short time later at the same hospital, police said. For a time before emergency workers arrived, the two fatally wounded men were lying side by side in the balcony.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the attack “strikes at the very essence of democracy.” He was startled at his desk in City Hall when the gunfire erupted but was unharmed.

Askew had filed papers to oppose Davis in a three-way council race in this fall’s Democratic primary, Bloomberg said. But he was not an official candidate because he had not filed enough petition signatures.

Davis spokeswoman Amyre Loomis said Davis and Askew had recently called a truce, and had met three times in recent weeks. When Askew showed up Wednesday at Davis’ office in Brooklyn and asked if they could go to City Hall together, Davis agreed.

Three hours before the shooting a man identifying himself as Askew called the FBI’s New York office to allege that Davis was harassing him over the upcoming primary election, FBI spokesman Joe Valiquette said.

Both men arrived together at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, where Davis planned to introduce legislation on workplace violence, Councilman Charles Barron said.

Barron said Davis introduced him to Askew, saying, “This is the guy who was once against me, but now he’s with me.” Askew offered a firm handshake and an intense stare, Barron said.

A short time later, Barron stood staring into the balcony as the gunman shot down at Davis’ prone body with a .40-caliber pistol. “He wasn’t shooting randomly,” Barron said.

Davis, who was black, joined the police department in 1993, a decade after he was allegedly beaten by two white officers. He founded a not-for-profit organization, Love Yourself Stop the Violence, denouncing violent music lyrics and stores that sold realistic toy guns.

He was elected to City Council in 2001, becoming active on public-safety issues and working to keep a check on excessive behavior by police. On Wednesday, the councilman was carrying a licensed gun, but police said he never had time to remove the weapon from its holster.

As many as 14 bullets rattled around the second floor of City Hall during the gunfire. City Council members and reporters in a nearby press room took cover under their desks.

“I heard bang, bang, bang, bang,” said councilman Mike Nelson. “I thought it was firecrackers. Then I heard people screaming, and then I saw people ducking.” Outside, police in riot gear swarmed nearby streets, and police tape blocked sidewalks. Sirens screamed, and confused downtown workers ran from the building.

The first five paragraphs tell this story in traditional inverted pyramid fashion, reporting the newsworthy facts that a New York City councilman had been shot and killed by a political rival. The sixth paragraph is the turn. It tells the reader that Askew had filed papers to run against Davis, but that his candidacy had been rejected because of a lack of signatures. The seventh paragraph begins the rest of the story, which adopts a more narrative style, using quotations, details and anecdotes to enhance the story.

The hourglass style will not work for all stories, as Clark admits. For stories that have no meaningful chronology, such as an account of a city council meeting in which topics are discussed in no particular order, the hourglass style is useless. But for stories about many newsworthy events—sports contests, criminal investigations, natural disasters and political campaigns—the hourglass can be an effective way of organizing information.

THE FOCUS STYLE

The focus style has been used for years by The Wall Street Journal. Its front-page news feature stories usually employ this format. Many other newspapers and their reporters have been using the focus style as well. The focus style, like the hourglass style, tries to incorporate storytelling techniques in news writing. But unlike the hourglass, the focus story begins with a lead that focuses on a specific individual, situation or anecdote and uses that to illustrate a larger problem.

The focus story has four parts. The first is the lead, which, unlike the lead for an inverted pyramid story, may run three, four, five paragraphs or more. Also, unlike the hard-news lead, the focus lead describes a person, place, situation or event that may not be newsworthy by itself but exemplifies a larger problem that is newsworthy.

Organization of a Focus Story

The focus story begins with a lead that focuses on a particular individual, place or situation. A nut graph tells how that individual depicts a more general problem and states the central point of the story. The body of the story develops the central point in detail. The kicker concludes the story and ties it back to the individual in the focus lead.

The second part of the focus story is a nut graph—which may actually be two or three paragraphs—stating the central point of the story and how the lead illustrates that point. The third part of the story is the body, which develops the central point in detail. And the final part is a one-, two- or three-paragraph close, or kicker, that brings the story to a conclusion. The kicker often relates to the person, place or situation described in the focus lead. Here’s an example of a focus story from The Washington Post:

NEW YORK—An hour before dawn, bleary-eyed Frank Colasuonno rolled his Ken-worth dump truck for the third time into Lower Manhattan’s smoking valley of blight.

The 16-acre debris field where twin towers had soared, a hellscape by day, felt altogether otherworldly in darkness. Diesel-powered halogen beams plowed through clouds of dust. Outside their blinding white cones lurked an inky black not known here since the collapse of the city’s power grid in 1977.

Heaped across the disfigured terrain is a dumbfounding 2 billion pounds or more of rubble in a massive crime scene. Today began in earnest the labor of excavating and removing it, of sifting for human remains and evidence.

Colasuonno and three trucker buddies, unpaid volunteers all, hauled three loads each of wreckage across the empty Verrazano Narrows Bridge to FBI collection fields on Staten Island. Great caches of evidence in past cases, such as the 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, might be assembled inside an aircraft hangar. The rubble from this apocalypse will cover the southeast quadrant of the 3,000-acre Fresh Kills Landfill, closed in March and reopened on Wednesday with a dreadful new significance in its name. Numbered barrels spread across the landscape mark the wreckage according to its point of origin at the blast site. Agents in white moon-suits sift every load by hand.

Colasuonno rolled through a heavily guarded gate off Muldoon Road and paused at a weigh station. There, without comment, an inspector from the New York City Department of Sanitation handed him an improvised receipt for 19,700 pounds of debris. It will take more than 100,000 such truck loads to shift the bulk of the wreckage. The Washington Post counted 23 trucks coming in and out before law enforcement authorities ordered the count to cease.

“Oh, yeah, it’s going to take months,” Colasuonno said, bumping back toward Lower Manhattan along a lane of Route 440 North reserved for emergency traffic. “That’s what they told me, too.”

The sheer mass and volume of the rubble is daunting by any standard of human enterprise. It would take 568,828 Plymouth Voyagers to match the weight of aluminum, glass and steel fabricated into the doomed skyscrapers. Parked bumper to bumper, the vehicles would line the 1,673 miles of roadway from Tijuana, Mexico, to the Canadian border.

And even so, there is less in the debris field than might have been. About 425,000 cubic yards of concrete were poured during construction, from 1966 to 1973, according to the lead architects at Minoru Yamasaki Associates in Rochester Hills, Mich. The cataclysmic plunge on Tuesday crushed that concrete to powder and sent thousands of tons back up into the air as boiling silicate clouds. Those, in turn, caught an easterly breeze and flew away.

All of which helps explain how twin towers of 1,353 feet each could collapse into piles the height of a tall oak tree. The World Trade Center, or much of it, is now in Brooklyn and Queens, being washed off cars and draining into sewers miles away.

“The building was pulverized, and the winds were blowing to Brooklyn Heights,” said Bill Bouchey, the design director who escaped the 21st-floor South Tower headquarters of Mancini Duffy, an interior design and architecture firm.

Concrete and steel, of course, constitute a fraction of the debris field at Ground Zero, as emergency workers are calling the implosions’ core.

The pile is foremost a tomb for thousands of men and women presumed dead, with about 4,700 numbered thus far among the missing. Of no less importance to authorities, the pile holds vital clues—somewhere—to the identities of those who had brought about the twin structures’ demise. FBI technicians from the Evidence Response Team formed in 1993 are looking particularly for the remains of the two jetliners that slammed into the towers Tuesday morning. The flight recorders, if recovered intact, could reveal essential facts obtainable no other way.

Somewhere in the pile is a television mast, the pencil-shaped hat of the destroyed North Tower, that by itself rose nearly as high as the Washington Monument. Somewhere is a 2 1/2-acre refrigeration plant. Somewhere are thousands of bottles of vintage wine from the cellar of Windows on the World. Somewhere are plantations of carpeting—an acre on every floor of each tower—and enough electrical wire to stretch from here to Los Angeles. Somewhere are 208 elevators, 7,000 toilets, 40,000 door knobs.

All that is merely the building. Heaped in the sodden valley, heavy with seawater from the 68,000 gallons a minute pumped by fireboats in New York Harbor, are the labors and personal effects of more than 50,000 financial workers.

At the South Cove Esplanade below the towers, strollers are scattered where parents left them, panicked, while evacuating by boat on Tuesday. A Maclaren side-byside has a swaddling blanket, a stuffed fish and a tub of cheese cubes moldering in the sun. Flowers bloom. A wrecked stretcher stands beside a plate glass window with two children’s handprints in the ash. Next to the handprints: the compressed image of a face from the side, a jawline and an ear.

Bouchey, who ran down the fire stairs when jumpers from the top floors began raining past his window, stopped to lock his office before departing, mindful of the pilfering that had taken place during the panicky retreat after the garage bombing of the twin towers in 1993. Today the jangle of a key chain was audible during his telephone interview from Brooklyn. “I have my keys to my office and to the men’s room that says ‘WTC,’” he said. “I’m about to throw them out.”

The first thing Colasuonno noticed when he reached the site Wednesday night was a woman’s white pump. The next was a baseball cleat. “He must have played softball after work,” he said.

Colasuonno’s mud-crusted maroon truck circled Ground Zero and then backed up to the rubble that had been 5 World Trade Center, one of seven major structures on the ground. A loader with a scoop and bucket dropped in aluminum facing, papers, wet soot, mangled fire hoses and hunks of sheered steel. Colasuonno hoped silently that he would not find half a body when he reached Fresh Kills, as his friend had on the load before.

This morning, just before leaving on his last trip to Staten Island, Colasuonno joined an impromptu group around a canted flagpole outside Building No. 5.

“We found a pry bar and snapped open the little box” that encloses the pulley, “and one of the guys had an American flag, and we raised it,” he said. “Everybody just stood there and looked at it for a minute. And then we had to go.”

The first two paragraphs of the story describe the focus, one of the many workers cleaning up debris at Ground Zero after the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center. The writer introduces Frank Colasuonno and describes the site and the work that is taking place there. Those facts are moderately interesting, but paragraph three—the nut paragraph—reports the beginning of the massive clean-up effort. The last four paragraphs of the story provide the kicker—tying the end of the story back to the beginning and providing a sense of conclusion to the story.

The success of the focus story depends on the selection of the lead. Some beginners start their stories with interesting anecdotes or descriptions that have little or no connection to the central point of the story. If the focus has no connection to the central point, it is likely only to confuse and frustrate readers.

The focus style also has flexibility. The body of the story can be developed in any number of ways. If the story has several subtopics, they can be arranged in descending order of importance. Or if the material lends itself to a narrative structure, the information can be arranged chronologically.

THE NARRATIVE STYLE

A narrative has two components: a story and a storyteller. A storyteller writes as a playwright or novelist would, depicting people interacting with other people and within their surroundings. To write in the narrative style, a reporter must find people who are crucial to the story and record their actions. This technique requires more than just interviewing sources, recording quotes and reporting numbers. It requires observation.

Observation does not mean reporters are free to interject their opinions into a story. It means that reporters observe people, places and events important to a story and describe them in vivid detail. Through those details readers get a better sense of what is occurring. But to paint a picture with words, reporters must be specific. Notice the difference between the following sentences:

Students are angry about the board of trustees’ decision. Students gathered in the administration building lobby waving signs protesting the board of trustee’s decision.

The first sentence presents an opinion. Without using attribution it says the students are angry at the board’s decision. The reader does not know whether the opinion is the writer’s or not. The second sentence, however, shows the student’s negative behavior in response to the board’s decision.

The narrative approach allows reporters to be more creative. Reporters can describe the drama—even if it is not high drama—at a school board meeting, for example. What happened? What did they see? Were people shouting? Were people laughing? Did the participants exchange views? Reporters cannot answer these questions and others unless they take extensive notes.

Long-time writing coach Don Fry describes the style this way:

Narrative writing requires narrative thinking, narrative reporting and narrative forms.

Narrative thinking means seeing the world in terms of people doing things, not as piles of disparate facts. Actions connect to one another to create meaning, mostly based on human motives. The best journalistic storytellers let their curiosity lead them into stories, because they want to find out why real people do things.

A story written in narrative style may still lead with the news—the most important part of the story—but then quickly switch to using chronology, flashbacks, dialogue and other storytelling techniques. Generally, such stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, each of relatively equal importance. It is more difficult to cut the final paragraphs of narrative stories than of stories written in the inverted pyramid style.

The following excerpts from a story about ranching in Montana by Great Falls Tribune regional editor Karen Ogden illustrate the narrative style:

EDEN—Scanning the pasture through a spotting scope, Karl Anderson looks for telltale signs of labor. He stops on a cow with the number “989” branded on her side.

“She’s definitely not long for it,” he says of the wide, red cow. Now and then, Anderson checks her progress through the scope in his mudroom. She lies down, lumbers to her feet, paces, lies down again and, after half an hour, slides a gelatinous cocoon onto the ground—a perfect delivery.

But the calf lays still, its amniotic sack stuck over its head. Anderson, 49, jams on his boots and bolts for the door. “Keep going, honey!” yells his wife, Donna, as he sprints through ankle-high snow

to free the calf before it suffocates.

The Andersons are deep into calving season, the busiest time of year for Montana’s $966 million-a-year cattle industry. As townsfolk spend weekends on the ski slopes or snuggle up with a good book, ranchers pull all-nighters to deliver this spring’s calf crop into the world. Subzero wind chills at 2 a.m., angry cows in labor and wet, slimy gloves come with the territory.

Most of Montana’s roughly 12,000 ranches time their calving from late January through mid-April. The season lasts about six weeks on the Andersons’ spread in Eden, a close-knit community of farms and ranches 17 miles south of Great Falls.

They live in the sturdy rock home Donna’s great-grandfather, an Austrian stone mason named Gallus Wuerl, built in the 1890s. The stone barns and corrals could have leapt from the English countryside, except for the sweeping view of the Big Belt Mountains.

In the end, Karl’s dash through the pasture is for naught.

The newborn—a healthy bull calf—breaks out of his sack before Karl can reach him. He stands back to watch as the shivering creature stretches his spindly legs and blows amniotic fluid from his nostrils.

Ninety percent of the births are normal, Donna says. But a calf is worth roughly $500. A cow fetches $1,000 or more at market. Ranchers leave nothing to chance this time of the year.

Since the arrival of the season’s first calf Jan. 27, the Andersons have lived like sleep-deprived new parents, waking every two hours at night to hustle wet new calves into the barn or pull a calf for a struggling mother cow.

It’s Donna’s favorite time of the year.

Growing up on a ranch near Sand Coulee, her father never gave her a curfew during calving season.

“He said, ‘If you get home by midnight, go check the calves,’” Donna recalled. She was never late.

These days, the long nights, the blizzards, the bitter winds blur together.

On an unseasonably warm night, Donna and Karl stroll through the pasture before dinner, getting a last look at the herd before darkness falls.

Karl is a slight, quiet man with a weathered face and soft blue eyes. He swings his legs over corral fences with the ease of a gymnast.

Donna, 45, is small and sturdy—a bundle of energy. When the kids were young, they knew mom was going to town when she appeared wearing makeup. On the ranch she favors coveralls, her blond hair tucked under a headscarf.

“873 is close,” she says as the sun slips behind the mountains. The Andersons watch for cows kicking at their bellies or kinking their tails. Sometimes they look uncomfortable, as if they’re standing on eggshells.

“Women can usually tell better than men,” Donna says. “It’s kinda like—I remember that feeling.”

They pay special attention to the heifers, or first-time moms. Not yet full grown, they’re most likely to have complications.

By Montana standards, the Andersons’ ranch is small, with 112 head of red angus cows. Montana ranches often run herds of 400 or 500. The Andersons have never handled more than nine births in one day.

“We baby our cows a lot more than most people do,” Donna says. On bitter cold nights, calves sometimes end up in the kitchen near the wood stove. Dangerously cold critters are treated to a few minutes under Donna’s hairdryer.

Ninety-eight percent of the Anderson’s calves survive until weaning, when the cattle are shipped to feedlots in the Midwest or held back to become next year’s mother cows.

Heading back to the house, Donna checks on a casserole in the oven and reaches for a blue binder on top of the refrigerator.

Here she meticulously records the details of each birth—weather conditions, birth weight and, later, vaccinations, antibiotic treatments and any other work done on the animals.

“If the house ever caught on fire, this is the first thing I’d grab,” she says.

The binder includes careful notes on how each cow treats her calves.

Occasionally a heifer is afraid of her baby, kicking it when it tries to nurse. After a shot of sedative, she’ll usually accept the calf. Once it sucks, her hormones kick in and she’ll bond with her baby.

But come fall, troublesome cows go to market with the calves.

* * * *

After dinner, Karl steps out into the starless night for one last check.

Ruby, the Andersons’ cattle dog, leaps from her rug in the mudroom, ready for business, as he pulls on his jacket.

The closest thing the Andersons have to a ranch hand, the black-and-white border collie never misses a beat. The Andersons can’t hire human help because the state-required workers compensation is too expensive.

The pasture is inky black and the cow’s eyes glint in the beam of Karl’s flashlight. He spots a lone cow along the fence line.

“Sometimes when they’re standing out by themselves like that it means they’re doin’ somethin’,” Karl says, striding off in her direction.

Coming closer, he sees a wet calf standing next to her.

He heads back to the house to tell Donna, who consults her record book. Last year this cow’s delivery was breech and she was a nervous mom. She’ll need to be watched with this calf.

“Her mother was plum ornery,” Donna says. “She comes from a long line of ornery stuff. If this wasn’t our son’s cow she’d be gone, but he needs the money for college.”

Kal, 20, is pursuing an agriculture degree at Northwest College in Powell, Wyo. He plans to take over the ranch someday.

But first he’ll have to find a job in town. Karl and Donna have only been on the land 15 years and may work another 20 before retiring.

Their daughter Heather, 24, lives in a home on the ranch with her husband and works in town.

Karl works as an outfitter to supplement the ranch income. But the Andersons are fortunate their land is paid for. Many take jobs in town to make ends meet.

“There’s an awful lot of our neighbors whose wives are teachers,” Donna said.

Kal’s cow lives up to her reputation as Karl and Donna coax her to the barn, one step forward, two steps back.

Karl scoops up the calf in his arms and starts a kind of tango with the snorting mom, luring her toward the barn with her baby.

One minute she looks ready to charge, the next she wanders in another direction, as if she’s forgotten her calf.

The newborn’s tiny moo brings her back.

“Keep bellowing, baby,” Donna says as she prods the cow from behind. “C’mon, squirtie.”

In the barn, Karl wraps a small chain attached to a scale around the kicking calf’s feet while Donna throws the other end over a rafter and hoists the creature off the ground—he weights in at a hearty 78 pounds.

With mom and baby tucked safely under a red heat lamp, Karl heads back to the house and straight to bed. He’s been up since 5 a.m. Donna’s on call until 1 a.m. tonight.

She passes the time with a jigsaw puzzle or snoozes between cow checks.

Sometimes she worries.

Most years the Andersons grow enough hay to feed their cattle through the winter with extra to sell.

Last summer, drought wilted 75 percent of their alfalfa crop, barely enough for their cows, whose rations are slimmer this year.

Springs that flowed during the Dust Bowl have quit and there’s no grass left in the pastures.

One more dry year, and the Andersons will start culling their herd.

“It’s gonna be tough decisions,” Donna says. “We’ve worked 15 years to get the herd to this point.”

A cow bellows and Donna jumps to her feet. It’s 12:30 a.m. She was supposed to check the cows at midnight.

Donna throws on her coat, grabs her box of calving supplies and heads out the door with Ruby at her heels.

“By George we’ve got a little baby . . . nice and dry,” Donna says as she spots a cow and new calf close to the house. The calf is healthy and the mom reliable. This pair will stay outside tonight.

“Hi, mama,” Donna coos to calm the concerned cow as she turns the calf over. She squirts iodine in its belly button—a safeguard against infection—and shoots a syringe-full of vitamins down its throat.

Donna keeps one eye over her shoulder as she works. Last week a cow affectionately licked her hair as she tended to its baby.

But if ever a cow is dangerous, it’s when she has a brand new calf. Bumps and bruises are part of ranch life.

“I always told our kids, ‘Unless you see blood or there’s bones sticking out just shut up and take it,’” she said. “The term is ‘cowboy up.’”

Back at the kitchen table, Donna enters the new calf in her record book and writes Karl a note with the temperature and details on the latest birth. She’s been up since 7 a.m.

Karl and Donna spend their nights alone during calving season.

“You get up in the morning and think, “Hmmm, 20 years of marriage reduced to a weather report at 2 o’clock in the morning,” she says with a dash of wry humor.

She disappears to the bedroom and bleary-eyed Karl stumbles out, sets a small alarm clock and settles down on his bear skin rug on the living room floor.

* * * *

Donna wakes just in time for bacon and eggs and the couple starts another round of loading and unloading hay, moving calves, vaccinations and barn cleaning.

Two weeks later, even Ruby is slowing down.

“She’s getting tired cause she lays out there on her rug when you’re getting ready to go out and she just looks at ya,” Donna says.

For the first time in years, the Andersons lost a cow and calf last week.

They knew the cow was in trouble when they felt the calves’ tangled legs inside. They called a neighbor for help, but in hindsight, should have called the vet as well, Donna says.

“It just breaks your heart. And it never gets easier, at least for me.”

But she doesn’t cry as much as she used to. Donna prefers to focus on the bright spots. One of their cows delivered a set of twins this season.

“Just to watch them being born, to me it’s a miracle every time.”

She starts this workday watering the cows.

“Hello mom,” she says to the first cow to plunge her head in the water trough.

Despite the numbing cold Donna wears no gloves. She ties the cold hose to the edge of the trough—to keep the cows from knocking it out—with a piece of rough twine.

“One of the things I admire about people who work in town is the ladies with beautiful hands and long fingernails,” she says.

The brilliant, sunny morning gives way to a cloudy evening. A snowstorm is pushing over the mountains so Donna and Karl usher the newest arrival and its mother into the barn.

Before nightfall they check on a cow that showed signs of labor more than an hour ago, but isn’t making any progress.

They herd her into a “head-catch” in the barn—a metal gate that shuts around the

back of the cow’s head so they can work on her.

“That was our Valentine’s Day present to each other a few years ago,” Donna says

of the shiny green contraption.

“Boy, was that a blessing,” Karl adds. They used to corner cows behind a barn stall

gate. One worked on the cow while the other held the rope around her head.

This mom-to-be is OK, just taking her time.

The Andersons walk back to their home, which, like the barns, is steeped in mem

ories and family history, birth and death.

They pass by the old stone barn, where Gallus Wuerl carved “1905” above the door.

Occasionally Donna thinks about him as she does her chores.

“I sometimes wonder,” she says. “If Grandpa would be pleased with what we’re

doing.”

Notice how the writer has used quotations, dialogue and description to give readers a sense of life on the ranch and of each source’s distinctive personality. The details are ones that easily bring images to the mind of the reader. One can imagine the calf as a “shivering creature” or the Andersons as “sleep-deprived new parents.” Notice, too, the length of the story. Stories using the narrative style tend to be longer, and yet the rich detail and concrete imagery make them easier to read than many shorter straight news stories.

While narrative style can be a refreshing change from the inverted pyramid, it is not appropriate for all stories. Stories about breaking news events, speeches or most government meetings, for instance, often make more sense to readers when told in traditional inverted-pyramid fashion. Narrative touches, such as dialogue and colorful descriptions, can make any story more readable, however. Regardless of the occasion, the success of a narrative story depends on the depth of the reporting. A writer who has not attentively gathered details and quotations will have difficulty constructing a narrative story.

USING TRANSITIONS

Transitions help stories move from one fact to the next in a smooth, logical order. Again, think of the story as a train. The engine is the lead, and each car that follows is a paragraph. The couplings that hold the cars together are transitions. Reporters introduce ideas by relating them to ideas reported earlier in a story. Often, the natural progression of thought, or sequence of facts and action, is adequate. Or reporters may repeat a key name or pronoun:

School board member Diana Maceda voted against the proposed cuts in the school lunch program. Maceda said cuts would hurt low-income families that rely on the program.

State police Capt. Virginia Detwieler said the accident occurred when a car cut in front of the tractor-trailer, causing the rig to jackknife when the driver slammed on his brakes.

She added that police investigators had gotten a description of the car and a partial license number and were searching for the vehicle to question the driver.

The first example repeats the name of the school board member. In the second example, the pronoun “she” refers to the captain mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Reporters can also repeat other key words, ideas or phrases:

Richard Nolles, editor of the Weekly Outlook, said the newspaper tries to report the truth even when its readers do not want to hear it. “A newspaper that reports only what its readers want to hear is dodging its moral obligations,” Nolles said.

In a speech Wednesday, Nolles added that many readers want to avoid unpleasant news, and threaten to cancel their subscriptions when he reports it. “But if a problem exists, they need to know about it so they can correct it,” he said. “Ignorant citizens can’t make wise decisions.”

Transitional Words

Sometimes a single word can lead readers from one idea to the next. Many transitional words refer to time: words such as “earlier” and “later,” “before” and “after,” “promptly” and “tardy.” Other common transitional words are:

Time
delayed	meanwhile	once
eventually	next	seldom
finally	now	sometimes
formerly	occasionally	soon
frequently	often	then

Using the hour, day of the week, month, season, year, decade or century (“an hour later,” “the previous Saturday” and so on) can also provide a transition.

Other types and examples of linkage words include:

Addition

again beyond new

also extra other

another furthermore together

besides moreover too

Causation

accordingly hence then

because since therefore

consequently so thus

Comparison

agreeing identical opposite

conflicting inconsistent related

contrary like separately

different objecting similarly

Contrast

although however still

but if until

conversely nevertheless while

despite simply without

exactly solely yet

Dozens of phrases can move a story from one idea to another. Examples include:

along with for instance in other business

as a result of for that reason on the contrary

aside from in addition on the other hand

at last in an earlier until then

at the same time in another years earlier

due to in contrast with the exception of

for example in other action

Transitional Sentences

Transitional sentences link paragraphs that contain diverse ideas, but the sentences should do more than report that another idea was “introduced” or “discussed.” They should present some interesting details about the new topic so readers want to finish the story. Mistakenly, beginners often use vague generalities. A good transitional sentence often serves the same purposes as a lead, summarizing the topic it introduces and revealing what was said or done about it. The following paragraphs then discuss the topic in more detail:

She also commented on the legislators’ overriding of the governor’s veto. REVISED: She said the legislators’ overriding of the governor’s veto would anger supporters of the death penalty.

He also discussed the budget proposal. REVISED: He said the budget had been cut as much as possible.

Questions as Transitions

Transitional sentences occasionally take the form of questions. The questions should be short and, as in the following examples, should be immediately followed by their answers—the new details or topics that reporters want to introduce:

How does he manage to play the piano so well at such a young age?

“Practice,” he said, the freckles blossoming with the smile that spread across his 7year-old face. “I practice four hours a day—every day. I practice even when I don’t feel like it.”

Forty-seven percent of the students enrolled in the university will earn a degree within the next six years, according to Robert McMahon, director of the Office of Institutional Research.

What about the other 53 percent? They will drop out or transfer to another institution.

Why? A study just completed by McMahon found that most students who drop out of school accept full-time jobs, get married, have children or say they lack the money needed to continue their education.

EXPLAIN THE UNFAMILIAR

Reporters should avoid words that are not used in everyday conversation. When an unfamiliar word is necessary, journalists must immediately define it. Stories that fail to define unfamiliar terms may annoy as well as puzzle readers and listeners. A story about a 19-year-old Olympic skater who collapsed and died before a practice session at the University of Texas reported she died of clinical terminal cardiac arrhythmia. The journalist placed the term in quotation marks but failed to define it. Yet many people would be interested in the death of an Olympic skater and would wonder why an apparently healthy young athlete had died. Because the story failed to define the term, it failed to satisfy their curiosity about the cause of the young woman’s death.

Here are three techniques journalists can use to define or explain unfamiliar terms:

1. Place a brief explanation in parentheses:

2. The law would ban accessory structures (sheds, pool houses and unattached garages) in new subdivisions.

2. Place the explanation immediately after the unfamiliar name or term, setting it off with a colon, comma or dash:

Amy and Ralph Hargis of Carlton Drive filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 13, which allows them to repay their creditors in monthly installments over a three-year period.

About 800 foreign students at the university are on F-1 student visas—which means that they are allowed to stay in the United States only until they complete their degrees.

3. Place the explanation in the next sentence:

The major banks raised their prime rate to 12.5 percent. The prime rate is the interest rate banks charge their best customers.

Instead of using an unfamiliar term and then defining it, journalists may eliminate the term and use the definition or explanation instead:

She said the school will have K-6 facilities. REVISED: She said the school will accept children from kindergarten through the sixth grade.

Journalists using these techniques can make even the most complicated stories understandable. For example, an environmental reporter for The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson wrote about several wells contaminated by trichloroethylene. The topic was complex, yet reporter Jane Kay’s stories were clear and dramatic. Kay explained that the chemical, also called “TCE,” is an industrial degreaser that may cause cancer in humans. The wells contaminated by TCE were closed, and government officials assured people their drinking water was safe. But after hundreds of interviews, Kay discovered, “For 10 to 30 years, many South Side Tucson residents unknowingly got minute quantities of TCE almost every time they turned on the tap water.” As many as 20,000 people “drank TCE at home, inhaled it in the shower and absorbed it through their skin when they washed the dishes.”

TCE is a tasteless, odorless, colorless—and very toxic—chemical. It is volatile,

meaning that it evaporates quickly, much like common household cleaning fluids.

Only a teaspoon of it poured into 250,000 gallons of water—about the amount used

by five people in an entire year—would create a taint slightly beyond the 5 parts per

billion suggested as a guideline for safety by the state Department of Health Services.

Apparently as a result of the TCE contamination, residents of Tucson’s South Side

suffered from an unusual number of serious illnesses, including cancer.

Large numbers—millions, billions and trillions—also need explaining. For example, few readers who saw a story reporting that failing savings and loan companies cost the nation $500 billion would really comprehend that number. Reporters can help audiences understand large numbers by converting them into something related to everyday life.

The Washington Post reported that an investment bank offered to pay $20.6 billion to take over RJR Nabisco Inc. (The company has split since then into R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Nabisco.) At the time, the conglomerate made Oreos, LifeSavers and Camel cigarettes. RJR Nabisco rejected the offer, saying it wasn’t big enough. If $20.6 billion cannot buy a cookie company, what is it good for? A writer at The Post calculated it could:

• Provide shoes for every American for a year.
• House 2 million criminals in prisons for a year.
• Sponsor 80 million destitute children around the world for one year.
• Match the combined fortunes of the six richest people in the United States.
• Cover the cost of every movie ticket bought in the United States in the past four years.
• Buy every advertisement in every magazine published in the United States for the past four years, or every radio ad for the past three years.

When a sentence must explain several items in a list, the explanation should precede the list, not follow it. If the explanation does not appear before the list, people may not immediately understand the relationship between the items or the significance of the list:

To provide children with better nutrition, better health care and better educational opportunities were the reasons the senator voted for the bill. REVISED: The senator said he voted for the bill to provide children with better nutrition, better health care and better educational opportunities.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EXAMPLES

Examples make stories more interesting, personalize them and help audience members understand them more easily. A story about a teenager who became an alcoholic and flunked out of college might include examples of the problems she experienced:

She said school became unimportant, adding: “I can remember staying up all night before my public health final. When I took the test I was smashed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, then I ran the entire 10 blocks back to my apartment so I could drink some more. Of course, I flunked public health.”

Examples are especially important in stories about abstract issues. Sometimes numbers help put those issues into perspective. A story about the lives of people who drop out of college might include the percentage of U.S. students who drop out, their reasons for dropping out and what they do afterward: join the military, get married or find a job. In addition to reporting the general trends, a good writer would illustrate the story by describing the lives of two or three dropouts—specific examples of the trend.

Unfamiliar concepts can be made clearer by comparing them to things that are familiar. Many readers find business and finance hard to understand, and stories of financial fraud can be extraordinarily complex. Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, used the following analogy to help readers understand how mutual fund managers and major investors were cheating ordinary investors.

You’re selling your house, and your real estate agent claims that he’s representing

your interests. But he sells the property at less than fair value to a friend, who resells it at a substantial profit, on which the agent receives a kickback. You complain to the county attorney. But he gets big campaign contributions from the agent, so he pays no attention.

That, in essence, is the story of the growing mutual fund scandal.

THE USE OF DESCRIPTION

Descriptions, like quotations, make stories more interesting and help people visualize scenes. But many journalists are reluctant to use descriptive phrases; they summarize whatever they hear but are less likely to describe what they see, feel, taste and smell. For instance, a student who attended a speech by an expert in communications technology handed her instructor a story that said:

The speaker, John Mollwitz, showed some examples of electronic newspapers and talked about how they fit into the newspaper industry.

The student failed to describe what the electronic newspapers looked like and how they “fit into the newspaper industry.” She also neglected to mention that the crowd intermittently applauded Mollwitz, who has developed some profitable electronic newspapers.

When told to describe something, most students rely too heavily on adverbs and adjectives. Nouns and verbs are more effective. Nouns and verbs are less redundant and less opinionated than adverbs and adjectives.

The following descriptive passage is an excerpt from a story written by Barton Gellman in The Washington Post two days after the World Trade Center was destroyed:

Two World Trade Center, the southern tower, had thrust 110 stories and 1,353 feet into the New York skyline since 1976. Today what remained stood no higher than the fifth floor of the adjacent, grievously damaged, former Dow Jones headquarters at 90 West Street. The second tower, just north, barely reached the eighth floor of the Verizon building it so recently dwarfed.

These compact piles defied comprehension. Where were the 950,000 tons of concrete poured less than three decades before? The 200,000 tons of steel? Where were the conference tables, the desks, the water coolers? Where were the people?

Three large sections of the South Tower’s latticed aluminum skin stood in the center of West Street opposite Liberty walkway. They blossomed outward like peeling bark from a log split by a wedge. The only other distinct chunks to be seen were the steel I-beams—61 to a side—that had been built to keep the tower erect through explosion, fire or 200 mph winds.

Ironworkers cut the girders in 40-foot lengths with acetylene torches, then loaded them with two huge Lumma cranes onto flatbed trucks for removal. The flatbeds labored around the block to Rector Place and Thames Street, where two smaller Tadano cranes strained to offload the girders, one crane at each end, and stacked them like cut lumber atop a crushed Chevy van and a sleek black Jaguar that had been parked in the wrong place.

Reporters who want to describe an object must learn to use concrete, factual details as opposed to trite phrases and generalities. Readers should be able to visualize the scene in their minds:

VAGUE: There were about 50 men and women working in the area.

BETTER: About 50 men and women worked in the area, and most wore hard hats, some yellow, some white and others red. Four of the workers had tied nail pouches around their waists. Others smoked cigarettes and looked weary in their dirty white T-shirts, jeans and sunglasses.

Vagueness also becomes a problem when reporters attempt to describe other people. Some reporters mistake generalities or their personal impressions for factual detail:

She spoke with authority. She seemed to enjoy talking about her work.

Neither sentence is an actual description. The first concludes the woman spoke “with authority” but fails to explain why the writer reached that conclusion. The second sentence reports she “seemed to enjoy” talking about her work, but does not specifically describe either the speaker or what she said.

Generalities are often inconsistent among observers. One student reported a woman “seemed relaxed and very sure of herself.” Everything about her “conveyed calmness.” Yet, another student concluded, “She seemed nervous.” The students could have avoided the problem by reporting specific details as opposed to their impressions, opinions and conclusions.

Reporters must learn to observe and describe specific details. If they are important to the story, include descriptions of people’s voices, mannerisms, facial expressions, posture, gestures and surroundings. Include details about or descriptions of their height, weight, age, clothing, hair, glasses, jewelry and family, if they help to bring an image alive. Each factor can be described in detail. For example, a journalist might describe a man’s hands by mentioning their size, calluses, nails, smoothness or wrinkles or veins, and jewelry. Avoid generalities and conclusions:

VAGUE: He is a large man.

BETTER: He is 6 feet tall and weighs 210 pounds.

VAGUE: Butler looked as though he had dressed in a hurry. BETTER: Butler’s shirt was buttoned halfway, his socks were mismatched, his shoelaces were untied and his hair was not brushed.

Descriptions help the audience see the situation or person through the eyes of the reporter. When describing people, however, reporters should not write anything about a woman that they would not write about a man in the same situation and vice versa. Don’t note, “The woman had long slender legs” if you wouldn’t write in the same situation, “The man had long slender legs.”

THE USE OF HUMOR

Editors constantly look for humorous stories and often place them on Page 1. But humorous stories are particularly difficult to write. Journalists should not try to inject humor into stories that are not obviously humorous. If a story is funny, the humor should be apparent from the facts. Journalists should not have to point out the humor by labeling it “funny” or “comical.” Author and economist John Kenneth Galbraith has explained: “Humor is an intensely personal, largely internal thing. What pleases some, including the source, does not please others.”

A story about the peculiar laws in some cities never called the laws “peculiar” or “funny.” Instead it simply listed them so people could judge the humor of the laws for themselves. The laws made it illegal to:

• Take a cow on a school bus.
  • Take a bath without a bathing suit.
  • Break more than three dishes in a single day.
  • Ride a horse not equipped with a horn and taillight.

If you were writing about Ann Landers, you might give an example of her famous wit so audience members could judge it for themselves:

While attending an embassy reception, Landers was approached by a rather pompous

senator.

“So you’re Ann Landers,” he said. “Say something funny.”

Without hesitation Landers replied: “Well, you’re a politician. Tell me a lie.”

Humor, when it is appropriate, makes news stories more interesting, but remember understatement is more effective than exaggeration. Simply report the facts that seem humorous and hope others will laugh.

THE NEED TO BE FAIR

Regardless of how a story is organized, it must be balanced, fair and accurate. Reporters who write about a controversy should present every significant viewpoint fully and fairly. They must exercise particular care when their stories might harm another person’s reputation. A reckless or irresponsible charge may destroy an innocent person’s reputation, marriage or career.

If a story contains information critical of an individual, that person must have an opportunity to respond. It is not enough to get the person’s response after a story has been published and report it in a later story, because not everyone who read the original criticism will see the second story. The New York Times has an unbreakable policy requiring that a person criticized in a news story have an immediate chance to respond. If the person cannot be reached, editors and reporters should consider holding the story. If the story cannot be held, it must describe the efforts made to reach the person and explain that those efforts will be renewed the next day.

When the subject of a negative story is unavailable or refuses to respond, that fact should be mentioned. A brief sentence might explain:

Repeated attempts to reach a company employee were unsuccessful. OR: A vice president at the company declined to comment about the charges. OR: Company officials did not return phone calls made by reporters.

THE FINAL STEP: EDIT YOUR STORY

After finishing a story, edit it ruthlessly. Author Kurt Vonnegut recommends, “If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.” Vonnegut also urges writers to have mercy on their readers, explaining: “Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify—whereas we would rather soar high above the crowd singing like nightingales.”

Good reporters will reread and edit their stories. Lazy reporters immediately submit their stories to an editor, thinking their stories need no editing or expecting the editor to correct any mistakes. That attitude involves some risks. If an editor misses the errors, the reporters will be the ones who suffer the embarrassment and bear the responsibility. Or, an editor may decide the stories require extensive changes, perhaps even total rewriting. When that happens, reporters often complain about the changes. Reporters who correct their own errors will develop reputations as good writers and earn better assignments, raises and promotions.

CHECKLIST FOR WRITING NEWS STORIES

Use the following checklist to evaluate all your stories.

1. Place the most important details in your lead.

2. Throughout the story emphasize the details most likely to interest and affect your readers.

3. Include details from your observations to create a picture your readers can visualize.

4. In the story’s second paragraph, continue to discuss the topic initiated in your lead.

5. Do not leapfrog. If your lead mentions an individual, and your second paragraph begins with a name, provide a transition that makes it clear you mean the same person.

6. Make your sentences clear, concise and to the point. (Avoid passive verbs. Also, use the normal word order of subject, verb, direct object.)

7. Vary your sentence structure.

8. Avoid overloading your sentences.

9. If your story discusses several major subtopics, mention all the major subtopics in your story’s opening paragraphs so your readers know what to expect.

1. If you use a list, make sure each item is in parallel form.
2. Provide transitions to lead your readers from one sentence or paragraph to another smoothly and logically.
3. Make your transitional sentences specific; say something intriguing to sustain readers’ interest in the topic.
4. If you use a question as a transition, make it clear, short and simple.
5. Avoid generalities that have to be explained in a later sentence or paragraph. Be specific.
6. Resist the temptation to end your story with a summary, conclusion or opinion.
7. After finishing your story, critically edit and rewrite it.