Writing for Mass Media Spring 2009

Today’s agenda—March 3 To return Classroom Assignment #3 To take a Quiz on AP Style To finish discussing leads and review the leads you wrote To practice writing more leads IABC Meeting Today! Noon, Baker Building.

News n/index.htmhttp:// n/index.htm IABC Student Chapter – up.php?gid= http:// up.php?gid= – –Meeting Today! Internships and other scholarship opportunities are posted on the IABC Facebook site!

Quiz #4 Available to you on the wiki: You may use your stylebook Turn in when you are done

Classroom Assignment #3 Problems? What you wish you had known before you started? Use of opinion Use of cliches Think news. Think theme. Think focus. Think about how you’d tell this story to a friend.

More on leads Put key words at the beginning or the end of your sentence for emphasis –Give me an example from the leads you wrote last week. Reminder: Lead tells you what the story is about If your notes don’t support your lead, you have the wrong lead

Hard News Leads Summary leads –First sentence –Just the facts ma’am Stories with hard news leads often don’t contain nut graphs What is a nut graph? –Focus graph –The point –You’ve already told us that in the summary, so this paragraph is not necessary

Soft news lead Feature lead Delayed lead Can be several paragraphs long Doesn’t get to the point right away You will need a nut graph

How to decide? What is your focus? How significant is the news? How serious is the story? What does your editor prefer? I’m your editor. I prefer hard news leads for now.

Stick with the facts What’s most important goes first S-V-O or active voice is preferred Watch where you put the time element Delay the identification of people until the second paragraph –Use general identifiers, no names Attribution in the lead tells readers where you got your information

Practicing leads Write a summary lead from the following information. Do not use yesterday or today. We’ll share our leads in a few minutes.

Lead information A study was released yesterday by the University of Colorado. The study was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The study said that 60 percent of college students who begin studying science, mathematics or engineering switch to another major. The study cited poor teaching and an aloof faculty as the cause.

Write this lead A fire destroyed a home on East 17 th Street. It was started by a cigarette that was discarded in a sofa. The fire left the husband, his wife and their four children homeless. The fire started at 1 a.m. and caused $30,000 in damages.

Thursday’s agenda To return Quiz #4 To discuss Story Structure To review for Midterm Exam next Tuesday Postpone Due date of Outside Assignment #3 until after Spring Break