Organization for print:
Walk around your neighborhood and see how houses look. They are all different but you can see several dominant patterns among them.
Likewise, if you analyze newspapers stories, they are all different in terms of organization or structure. If you analyze them, however, you can see certain patterns emerge. As the semester moves on, I will show you many different patterns. But for now, I will go over the most dominant pattern in the newspaper story: the inverted pyramid format.
What is the inverted pyramid format? It is a format like a triangle inverted, a drawing reflecting the importance of each paragraph in the story, not the length or detail of the paragraph.
If you follow the inverted pyramid format, you have to put the most important part at the top of your story and place the remainder in descending order of importance.
To use the inverted pyramid format properly, you need to know how to rank pieces of information in terms of their importance.You have to make a decision based on news values each piece has. It requires critical thinking, an important skill for all writers.
The principle behind the inverted pyramid format of writing is to get to the point quickly and to set priorities for basic news stories.Why is it important? Because it will give readers the most critical material quickly so they can jump to other stories if they wish. Also it will allow editors to easily cut a story from the bottom without losing key information when they find a shortage of space for a story either from their reporter or wire services.
In the inverted pyramid format, you first put the lead, a paragraph or paragraphs that summarize the most important elements of a news story. It will tell readers what to expect from the remainder of the story. Then you put the body, paragraphs showing different aspects of the lead in detail or evidence supporting the lead. Depending on the situation and complexity of the story, you may include background information or secondary materials. Background information is composed of things some people may have already known but the reporter put it in the story anyway to help readers understand the story better in case they do not have it. If you write a story about the film industry in North Carolina, how it has developed over time will be a part of the background: the historical background. If you write a story on the movie industry in the United States, what is going on in foreign countries will be the geographical background. If you write about a story on living in New York City, the average gas and food prices and the apartment rent in that city may be background information. Some people know about them well, while others might not know. The secondary information is composed of things that the writer does not focus on because they are not the main focus of the story for most of his audience, but these things could be very important for some part of the audience. Suppose the City Council made a decision on five cases: a property tax increase; expansion of a main road; a wider subsidy to poor people; commemorating a U.S. fallen soldier in Iraq; and a 50 percent increase in license fees for beauticians. A reporter for a local newspaper may decided to cover only an increase in property taxes in detail, while giving a one-paragraph summary to other cases. This one paragraph is tangential information, information that is indirectly related to the main focus of the story.
One important thing here is that one piece of information is intrinsically more important than others. The worth of each piece will be judged by analyzing the needs and wants of your audience. For example, if you write for a trade magazine targeting beauticians in your area, the most important piece of information is about the increase in license fees for beauticians, not the other items. So the fee increase would be the most important item and the others, including the property tax increase, would be secondary materials.
The inverted pyramid format could have the lead, boyd, background and secondary materials. At the top is the lead, followed by the body, which is composed of the explanation, amplification or examples for the lead;
the necessary background;
and the secondary or less important material.
Sometimes the secondary material could precede the background.The
Lead and the Body are mandatory, while the Background and the Secondary materials are optional. The writer may skip the background, the secondary materials, or both.
Single-element vs multiple-element story
While some stories have more than one element in the lead, many stories have one element in the lead . If a story is a single-element one, it will have the following structure:
Single element story structure: It should have the Lead and the Body. The Background and Secondary materials are optional.
1) Lead: Element A for the main theme of a story
2) Body: Explanatory material, elaboration of Element A
3) Background
4) Secondary materials --elements B, C, D, E for sub-themes
Analysis* of A Single-Element Story (Auto-part thieves)
1) Thieves who entered a Charlotte auto parts store stole 36 Delco batteries, police were told yesterday.
2) Crowell Erskine, 49, manager of the Piedmont Auto Exchange at 410 Atando Ave., told officers the store was broken into between 5 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Wednesday by thieves knocking a hole in the rear wall of the one-story brick building.
3) Erskine said the batteries were valued at $539.18.
Paragraph 1 -- Lead
Paragraph 2 -- Body -- detailed information about the burglary
Paragraph 3 -- Background -- some people already know that the price of the batteries, but the reporter thought most of them do not know and the information might be helpful for readers to understand the size of burglary.
Another Single Element Story -- News & Record, B2, June 1, 2004.
1) Greensboro -- Someone stole $25,000 worth of jerseys, hats, accessories and other clothing from a Greensboro store, police said.
2) About 7 a.m. Monday, officers responded to a reported burglary at Shining Star Fashion at 2804 Randleman Road, Greensboro police said.
3) Someone had thrown a large rock through the store's front window to get in.
4) The damage to the window was estimated at $1,000.
paragraph 1 -- Lead
paragraphs 2, 3, 4 -- Body
Multiple-element story structure
1) Lead elements: Element A, Element B (More than one element in the lead)
2) Body: Explanatory materials for each element in the lead. You can finish describing each element before going over to the next element. Or you can describe quickly the major points of each element first and go back to the same elements to elaborate them further as necessary.
3) Secondary material
4) Background material
*** Sometimes secondary materials and background material could be mixed with the Body as needed. ***
Analysis*of a Two-Element Story (Gov. Hughes Loses Bonds & Legislature)
1) New Jersey Gov. Richard J. Hughes took a shellacking all around in yesterday's statewide election. The voters rejected the $750 million bond issue proposal on which he had hung much of his political prestige, and the Republicans gained control of both houses of the Legislature.
(Lead -- a summary of election and bond proposal)
2) Hughes, who had warned during the campaign that if the bond issue were defeated he would ask the Legislature in January for a state income tax and sales tax to meet the state's financial needs, announced early today that he "may have to do some rethinking" about the size of the need. And he made it clear that the "rethinking" would increase his estimate of the amount required.
(Body -- the governor's comment on the bond issue)
3) "I accept the verdict rendered by the people," he said in a written statement.
(Quote about the bond issue)
4) The bond issue proposal, which was broken into two questions--one on institutions and the other on roads--trailed from the time the polls closed at 8 p.m. With the count in from 4,238 of the state's 4,533 districts, the tally early today was: (the structure of the bond issue proposal)
5) Institutions: No, 868,586; Yes, 736,967. (numbers on bond for different purposes)
6) Highways: No, 866,204; Yes, 681,059. (numbers on bond for different purposes)
7) As a measure of Hughes' defeat, in the Democrats' Hudson Country stronghold--where the Governor had hoped for a plurality of 150,000--he got only a 100,501 to 64,752 vote in favor of the institutional bonds and 93,654 to 66,099 in favor of the highway bonds.(numbers on bond in different areas)
8) He had promised that if the bond issue were defeated, he would go before the Legislature in January and ask for a state income tax and a state sales tax to meet the state's obligations. (impact of failure of the bond proposal)
9) Four other referendums had no great opposition, and passed easily. They were on voter residency requirements, a tax break on farm land and a change in exemptions from the ratables to the finished tax for both veterans and the elderly. ( secondary material -- other items that happened to be on the ballot)
10) The republicans have controlled the State Senate for the last half century, and smashing victories yesterday in crucial Essex, Burlington and Camden Counties increased their majority--which had shrunk to a hairs-breadth 11-10--to two-thirds. (the election result)
11) Democrats swamped in the avalanche included Gov. Hughes' brother-in-law Sen. Edward J. Hulse of Burlington Country. He was unseated by Republican Edwin B. Forsythe who ran up a convincing 6,000-vote majority. (election result on Sen. Hulse)
12) In populous Essex County, Republican C. Robert Sarcone defeated Democrat Elmer M. Matthews--who conceded shortly after 11 p.m. without waiting for the final count. And in Camden Country, Republican Frederick J. Scholz unseated incumbent Joseph W. Cowgill. (election result on others)
story structure:
paragraph 1 -- lead about election and bond
paragraphs 2 - 8 -- body about bond
paragraph 9 -- secondary material
paragraph 10 - 12 -- body about election
Analysis* of A Three-Element Story (Study Links 3 Factors to Heart Ills)
1) A new study conducted among 110,000 adult members of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York has once again demonstrated that smoking, an overweight condition and physical inactivity are associated with a greatly increased risk of death and disability from heart disease. (Lead -- three reasons of smoking, overweight and no exercise)
2) The study, published yesterday in the June issue of The American Journal of Public Health, reported that men and women who smoke cigarettes face twice the risk of suffering a first heart attack as do non-smokers. (smoking -- cigarettes)
3) The annual incidence of first heart attacks among pipe and cigar smokers was also found to be higher than among non-smokers, but not as high as among cigarette smokers.(smoking -- pipe and cigar)
4) Men who are "least active," both on and off the job, are twice as likely as "moderately active" men to suffer a first heart attack and four times as likely to suffer a fatal heart attack.(exercise -- least active vs. moderately active)
5) Men who were classified as "most active" showed no advantage in terms of heart attack rate over men considered "moderately active." The authors reported that other differences between active and inactive men, such as the amount they smoked, could not account for their different heart attack rates. (exercise -- most active vs. moderately active)
6) The heavier men in the study had a 50 percent greater risk of suffering a first heart attack than the lighter-weight men. An increased risk was also found among women who had gained a lot of weight since age 25. (weight)
7) None of the differences in risk associated with weight could be explained on the basis of variations in smoking and exercise habits, the authors stated. (weight)
8) The incidence of heart attacks was also found to be higher among white men and among non-whites and among Jewish men than among white Protestants and Catholics. But the heart attack rate among Jewish women was not markedly different from that among non-Jewish women.(secondary materials ---religion)
--The New York Times--
Analysis
paragraph 1 -- Lead
paragraph 2 and 3 -- body -- first element of smoking
paragraph 4 and 5 -- body -- second element of exercise
paragraph 6 and 7 -- body -- third element of weight
paragraph 8 -- secondary materials of religion
"smoking, an overweight condition and physical inactivity are associated with a greatly increased risk of death and disability from heart disease." in the lead can be changed to "smoking, physical inactivity and an overweight condition ... " reflecting the order of elements explained in the body part.
*** Should religion always be the secondary material? Not really. If you write for a trade magazine targeting church goers, it may be the lead material.
Structure change
Again, the journalist determines the story structure. The story structure may vary at various points in the writing process as he gets more informed. The different points could be when the journalist
1) receives an assignment
2) gathers information
3) finishes gathering information and
4) actually writes a story.
* (stories from Alvin Mencher's Reporting Book)