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    15 Rules For Beginning News Writers

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    Stephen John Palomaria
    The document provides 15 rules for beginning news writers to follow when writing news stories, including keeping the lede sentence short and summarizing the entire story, using short paragraphs of 1-2 sentences each, employing simple language and avoiding unnecessary words, not including personal opinions or repeating information, and referring to sources by full name on first reference and last name only thereafter.

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    15 Rules For Beginning News Writers

    Uploaded by

    Stephen John Palomaria
    87 views2 pages
    The document provides 15 rules for beginning news writers to follow when writing news stories, including keeping the lede sentence short and summarizing the entire story, using short paragraphs of 1-2 sentences each, employing simple language and avoiding unnecessary words, not including personal opinions or repeating information, and referring to sources by full name on first reference and last name only thereafter.

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    The document provides 15 rules for beginning news writers to follow when writing news stories, including keeping the lede sentence short and summarizing the entire story, using short paragraphs of 1-2 sentences each, employing simple language and avoiding unnecessary words, not including personal opinions or repeating information, and referring to sources by full name on first reference and last name only thereafter.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    87 views2 pages

    15 Rules For Beginning News Writers

    Uploaded by

    Stephen John Palomaria
    The document provides 15 rules for beginning news writers to follow when writing news stories, including keeping the lede sentence short and summarizing the entire story, using short paragraphs of 1-2 sentences each, employing simple language and avoiding unnecessary words, not including personal opinions or repeating information, and referring to sources by full name on first reference and last name only thereafter.

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    15 rules for beginning news writers:

    1. The lede should be a single sentence of roughly 35-45 words that summarizes the main points of
    the story.

    2. The lede should summarize the story from start to finish. So if you're writing about a fire that
    destroyed a building and left 18 people homeless, that must be in the lede. Writing something
    like "A fire started in a building last night" isn't enough.

    3. Paragraphs in news stories should generally be no more than 1-2 sentences each - not seven or
    eight like you're used to writing in English class. Short paragraphs are easier to cut when editors
    are working on tight deadline, and they look less imposing on the page.

    4. Sentences should be kept relatively short, and whenever possible use the subject-verb-object
    formula.

    5. Along these same lines, always cut unnecessary words. Example: "Firefighters arrived at the
    blaze and were able to put it out within about 30 minutes" can be cut to "firefighters doused the
    blaze in about 30 minutes." 

    6. Don't use complicated-sounding words when simpler ones will do. A news story should be
    understandable to everyone.

    7. Don't use the first-person "I" in news stories. 

    8. In Associated Press style, punctuation almost always goes inside quotation marks. Example: "We
    arrested the suspect," Detective John Jones said. (Note the placement of the comma.)

    9. News stories are generally written in the past tense.

    10. Avoid the use of too many adjectives. There's no need to write "the white-hot blaze" or "the
    brutal murder." We know fire is hot and that killing someone is generally pretty brutal. The
    adjectives are unnecessary.
    11. Don't use phrases like "thankfully, everyone escaped the fire unhurt." Obviously, it's good that
    people weren't hurt. Your readers can figure that out for themselves.

    12. Never inject your opinions into a hard-news story. Save your thoughts for a movie review or
    editorial.

    13. When you first refer to someone who's quoted in a story, use their full name and job title if
    applicable. On the second and all subsequent references, use just their last name. So it would be
    "Lt. Jane Jones" when you first mention her in your story, but after that, it would simply be
    "Jones." The only exception is if you have two people with the same last name in your story, in
    which case you could use their full names. We generally don't use honorifics like "Mr." or "Mrs."
    in AP style.

    14. Don't repeat information.

    15. Don't summarize the story at the end by repeating what's already been said. 

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