Writing a Good News Article – The Essentials

News writing is a great way for new writers to break into the publishingworld, and gain valuable experience. Straightforward to write, the goal of anewspaper article is to educate the reader by answering the important who,what, where, when, why and how questions of the story.

Written like an inverted pyramid, with the most important informationpresented first, and least vital facts following in successive order down thepyramid, or article body. Start with a strong opening paragraph (otherwiseknown as the lead), that grabs the reader’s attention, and sets the tone forthe rest of the piece.

Answer the most important questions first, followed by more generic fillermaterial, and ending with the least vital information. It is not uncommon foran editor to cut the last few paragraphs from a story when space is tight, somake sure no essential information or quotes appear near the end of thestory.

The Essentials of Good New Writing: Successful new writers are good atthree things: writing clear, concise and accurate text quickly. Editors demandit. Deadlines are the tightest at daily publications, but weeklies too run atbreakneck speed. Reporters are often required to cover a municipal meeting at 7pm , and then go back to the office afterward to meet an eleven or twelveo’clock deadline. The ability to discern what’s important, and gather enoughfacts and quotes to write an interesting and informative article in just a fewhours is an absolute requirement for the job. Accuracy is even more vital.Accidentally misquoting someone during a heated argument, or writing down thewrong tax numbers will mark you as an amateur who can’t be trusted and maylikely get you fired!

The last thing most editors demand is brevity. Space is a luxury at mostnewspapers, so having the ability to give the reader an interesting andcomplete story in as few words as possible is a necessity. Don’t be flowerywith your prose, and never wander or stumble in your writing. Keep it short andto the point. Use adjectives lightly. Learn to write quickly, concisely andaccurately, and you just might find you have a budding career in newswriting.

Features, on the other hand, give the writer the opportunity to take thetime and space to really dig into a subject and develop the story in a waystraight news writing doesn’t allow. Often much longer, ranging from 1,000 to5,000 words, compared to the shorter 500 to 1,500 word news account, thefeature is an excellent way to spread your wings as a writer and try a newstyle. Most news writers get the opportunity to work on features once inawhile, so be prepared to expand your horizons when the right story comes alongthat deserves more thought, research and overall coverage.

Finding Work As A Newspaper Reporter: Finding work as a news writer isn’tdifficult, if you’re willing to start small and built your credentials on thelocal level. Most communities, no matter how small, usually have at least oneweekly and one daily newspaper covering the area’s news. Weeklies are oftenshort-staffed, and are eager to give new writers a chance to try their hand at“stringing,” or covering local meetings/events on a story-by-story basis. Payis rather low for these publication’s, (often less than $35 per story), butthey are a great place to learn the ropes and gather clips.

Once you’ve mastered the news writing pace and style, you may want to tryyour hand at a larger, daily publication. The pay here is much better — (oftenranging from $25 to $100 per article for stringers, depending on the article’spage placement and length. Quality is the key at these publication’s though, sobe sure you’re ready before making the plunge into daily news writing.

Both daily and weekly newspapers also offer some fulltime staff positions,but as circulations and profits continue to decrease in the print medianationwide, it’s becoming more and more difficult for writers with little or noon-the-job experience to land one of these prized positions. However, newswriting remains a viable way to increase the freelancer’s income and offers thestruggling writer a good opportunity to find regular assignments, and buildtheir experience by being able to work on a lot of different kinds of projectsand stories.