News Reporting

What type of News?

Hard News
Begins with the most striking details after that, the information declines in importance. Background details help to make the story clear and understandable.

Soft News
The news element is strong at the beginning but is treated in a much lighter way. The tone is often witty or ironic. There is more description and comment in soft news stories.

News Feature
Longer than a straight news story. You can tell what the angle of the story is. Quotations are an important characteristic. You may often see descriptions, comment and analysis and background details along with eye witness accounts.

Backgrounder
This is not news but 'explaining' the news. This helps to set the scene of the story, giving details on the historical background that lead up to the event.

Colour feature
Doesn't always have a strong news angle. These concentrate more on description, eye witness accounts, quotations and the factual details.


Writing News Reports

Whether writing for a newspaper or radio/TV news broadcast, news reports follow similar structures.

Intro.
The introduction of the story is the most important part as it should not only attract the readers interest but it should also set the tone and highlight the theme of the story. In the Intro you need to include the 'famous 5'

The Famous 5

WHO is/was involved
WHAT happened
WHERE did it happen
WHEN did it happen
WHY did it happen

Sometimes 'HOW' is included as a 6th 'W'.

The introduction should not answer all of these questions but, by using 2 or 3 of the W's it should define the news angle. You can then lead the rest of the story by answering some of the others.