"Writing the News" contents

Writing the News: A Guide for Print Journalists

Contents

Preface to the Third Edition

1. Writing for Newspapers: Early newspaper style. Structuring the news. Stripped-down prose. Wire service style. The electronic revolution. Interpretative news. The electronic newsroom.

2. Writing the Lead: Lead structure. Lead language. Other considerations in lead writing: attribution and identification.

3. Developing the Story: Secondary leads. The fractured paragraph: key words, transitional devices and pronoun references. Information weaving. Ending the story.

4. The Elements of News Style: Choosing the right word. Writing good sentences: sentence style, sentence criteria.

5. The Spoken Word in Print: To quote or not to quote: direct quotes, paraphrase, accuracy. The mechanics of quoting: attribution, partial quotes, substitutes for "said."

6. Varieties of the Basic Structure: The multielement story. The "hourglass" structure. The speech story: the advance text, note taking, speech story structure. The meeting story. The obituary.

7. News in Context: Making connections. Providing context. Localizing news. Using background. Developing news.

8. "Featurizing" the News: Traditional alternatives: page brighteners or "brights," sidebars. Contemporary alternatives: the new graphics, featurized news, weekly feature styles.

9. Writing the Feature Story: Feature techniques. Feature development. Forms of the feature: news features, human interest stories, personal profiles, narratives.