Friday, November 30, 2007

Section definitions

News section - usually section 1 in most newspapers - objective writing - strict structure (inverted pyramid, strong lead, complete attribution, direct/indirect quotes, NO subjectivity from the writer... you just report, you don't analyze)


  • different papers have different ideas of what news is... what do we think news should be? Remember, news is anything that an audience wants to know about... but there is a clear distinction between hard news and soft news

  • see earlier posts for specifics on news writing and/or websites to help with good examples. I will see what I can do about posting student articles as exemplars.
  • Kinds of articles - anything going on in school, community (strictly from a 5 ws and h standpoint... we are here to inform)

Feature section - softer news - it could take hard news but from a different angle. It needs an angle and depth. These articles should concentrate on one idea within a subject

Entertainment section - soft news - movie or bookor music reviews - can be subjective, but still balanced and researched - we can put our comics, art, and creative "stuff" here.

Investigative feature - these are researched articles - this is where you'll do surveys, find research and poll a lot of people. It takes feature to the next level and it usually can be carried on for more than one article/angle/issue.

Editorial/opinion - Here's where you can use your opinion. Editorials are usually unsigned and represent the whole paper. Opinion pieces are signed. Both of these writings are based on opinion, however subjective, they must be based in fact. They need to be balanced and accurate even if based on an opinion.

Sports/Sports feature sections - like feature, only focused on sports... they can use narratives or they can be like straight news focused on a particular event.

Sports feature is usually about people and/or sports related ideas like nutrition or body enhancing drugs

Sports news can be about a game, a preview to an event or it can be about professional sports.

No comments: