How to write a news story

1. Inverted pyramid and ledes How to write a news story

2. The inverted pyramid Most important information Second-most important information Third-most important information Fourth-most important information Least important information

3. If you need to shorten a news story, you know to cut off starting at the bottom. If a reader only has a minute to read a story, they get the most important information they need first. Why the inverted pyramid?

4. The opening sentence(s) of a story. • Meant to grab a reader’s attention or give them important information • Different types • Straight (hard news) • Anecdotal (opens with human element) • “You” (personally appeals to reader) • Descriptive (describes scene) • Delayed (tells a story) The lede

5. Two children at play were killed today when a sports car jumped the curb outside Prospect Park and ran them down. Straight lede

6. Mary Wilson was pushing her 2-year-old daughter on a swing in Prospect Park when she heard the squeal of tires and the screams of children. Anecdotal lede

7. If you are one of the hundreds of parents whose children are killed by distracted drivers each year, you know the horror and anguish of losing a child. You lede

8. The white Chevy Cobalt sat at an awkward angle on the cracked sidewalk. Blood ran from below its tires onto the street outside Prospect Park. Ambulance sirens echoed in the distance. Cars braked as they passed the park. And close by, a distraught mother wept for her two children, who died after being struck by a car. Descriptive lede

9. Amelia Horace’s children visited Prospect Park every day after school. “It was their favorite,” said the 24-year-old mother of two. “They begged me to go each and every day.” Jack and Lily especially loved the tire swings and giggled each time they spun round and round on the rubbery wheel. “This park meant so much to them,” Horace said. But Jack and Lily will never play in their favorite park again. They died Tuesday after a distracted driver veered off the road and ran onto the park sidewalk where the children were walking home. Delayed lede

10. No more than 35 words No quotes in ledes Keep numbers to a minimum No redundancy One sentence only Rules about ledes

11. The graf that tells the most important information of the story. Uses as few words as possible. Tells us the “nuts” and bolts of the story. Can be the lede, but not always. Nut Grafs

12. A man long suspected of involvement in a years-old homicide was arrested in connection with the crime Saturday and now joins his son in jail with both awaiting trial on unrelated murder charges. Robert C. Nunn Sr., 36, was booked on a charge of first-degree murder for the March 2004 slaying of Antonio M. Faulkner, who was 21 years old when he was found shot to death in a car parked outside his sister's South Peoria house. Example