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Process of Writing News (07 Edition)

by Richardson

Process of Writing News (07 Edition) Cover
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The Process of Writing News

Brian Richardson, Washington and Lee University

 

The Process of Writing News is a concise text for beginning college-level journalism students, taking an “impact, elements, and words” approach to demystify the reporting and writing process. The book is the product of the author’s 19 years as a teacher of reporting and writing, and it is a response to the emerging exigencies of media convergence, writing for multiple media, and computer-assisted reporting.

 

The text approaches writing as a process, using a pedagogy that has proven effective. In each chapter, the book addresses the roles of journalists at several levels of abstraction, beginning with their responsibilities to audiences in a democratic society and continuing with ethical decision making in fulfilling those responsibilities. Each chapter ends with reporting and writing exercises, which allows students (1) an opportunity to develop skills for informing audiences and telling compelling stories for print, broadcast, and online news media and (2) to practice and be evaluated on those skills.

 

Features

 

• Includes exercises in every chapter, along with a section on ethics and a summary/strategies section, giving students an opportunity to practice the chapter lesson and build on lessons from earlier chapters.

 

• Takes students through a year in the life of a fictional community, including tightly controlled fact sets in each chapter and a City Directory, allowing instructors to monitor student work for factual accuracy and helping students practice the skills they will need in real-world reporting and writing.

 

• Presents stories and situations reporters are faced with – accidents and emergencies, computer-assisted reporting, the legal system, using background and not-for-attribution sources, and more–to help students practice pulling together complex elements in an ongoing story.

 

• Addresses current issues in journalism including media convergence, writing for multiple platforms, and newsroom ethics, helping students understand the issues that are part of journalistic decision making and the shared and differing needs of audiences in print, broadcasting, and online media.  

 

• Focuses on the basics: the journalist’s role in a democratic society, defining news, weighing information, using their tools well, separating facts and allegations, proper sourcing, writing leads, choosing quotes and attributing properly–all of which provide students with a solid foundation of skills as they begin their careers.

 

• Includes a grammar, spelling, punctuation, and syntax “boot camp,” ensuring that a student’s basic writing skills are in good shape.

 

Praise for The Process of Writing News

 

The author has a keen recollection of what it’s like to learn the news writing and reporting process. Step-by-step, using real-life illustrations, the author gives students a lucid view not only of the big picture but also of all the smaller elements that comprise it. My prediction is that students who read and adapt the lessons in this book will be able to move from the classroom into the journalistic workplace with skill and confidence.

 

–Patricia A. Richards, University of Scranton

Synopsis:

Using examples and exercises, The Process of Writing News takes an impact, elements, and words approach to demystify reporting and writing for beginners. This is a concise book that approaches writing as a process, using a pedagogy that has proven effective. In each chapter, the book addresses the roles of journalists at several levels of abstraction, beginning with their responsibilities to audiences in a democratic society, and continuing with ethical decision-making in fulfilling those responsibilities. Each chapter ends with reporting and writing exercises which allow the reader to develop skills for informing audiences and telling compelling stories in print, broadcast, and online news media and to practice and be evaluated on those skills. The reader is taken through a year in the life of a fictional community, revisiting issues and stories in a series of more than two dozen linked exercises of increasing complexity, from lede writing to handling a major breaking story on deadline. There are even opportunities to report and write from the reader's own community.

Table of Contents

Preface

To the student

            Nowhere-ville

            Learning the tools

To the instructor

Acknowledgments

1. Reporters, Communities and Working in a Converged World

A paradox

The plan

A young reporter

The community

The audience

Convergence

A journalist’s responsibilities

Core values

News matters

Journalism ethics

Objectivity

Framing

Your job

Getting it right

Strategies

Exercise one: Same story, different audiences

2. Using Tools with Skill

The task

Exercise two: Grammar, spelling, punctuation

            The questions

            The answers

Strategies

3. What Is News?

News defined

Mass audiences

Elements of news

Professional responsibilities and duties

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 3a: A warm-up

Exercise 3b: What’s news today?

4. Turning Information into News

Finding information

Listening for the audience

The process of making news

Impact, elements, words

Characteristics of audiences and stories

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise Four: What’s this story about?

5. Ledes

What is a lede?

Sixty percent of the work

Try, try again

Impact, elements, words

Writing a lede

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise Five: Ledes

6. How to Write Good: Writing for Print

The go/no-go decision

Essential and discretionary stories

What happened next? The logic of narratives

Building blocks

Remembering the mantra: Impact, elements, words

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise Six: Brief stories

7. Story Forms and Organizing Stories

The choices: Inverted pyramid, hourglass, Wall Street Journal, chronological . . .

Using your knife and fork: Form follows function

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise Seven: Building a story using story forms

8. Writing for Broadcast

RDR: The 30-second reader

The process

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise Eight: A RDR

9. Writing for the Web

Characteristics of the Web

Ledes and blurbs

The process

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise Nine: Web blurbs

10. Using Quotes

The work that quotes do

Types of quotations

Gather many, use few

Show them off

Attribution

Use “said”

Ethics: Altering and “cleaning up” quotes

            Bad grammar, profanity and obscenity

Strategies

Exercise 10: Choosing quotes

11. Sources

Types of sources

            Documentary sources

            Human sources

Who and what can we rely on?

Levels of observation

Being careful, and teaching your audience to be careful

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 11: Plane crash

12. Facts and Allegations

News fact, news truth

The importance of context

Be fair: Facts first, words second

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 12: City Council meeting

13. Interviewing

Whose advantage?

What kind of interviewer will you be?

What kind of questions will you ask?

How will you go about your job?

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 13: Interviewing Meagan LeBlanc

14. Speeches

Why cover speeches?

Putting your audience there, or not

Your judgment, or the speaker’s?

Finding the impact

The body of the story

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 14: Speech

15. Computer-Assisted Reporting

New technologies, new reporting tools

Green eyeshades and chi squares

Desktop computers and databases

Trust your reporting skills

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 15: Analyzing Valleydale’s budget

16. Police and Emergency Services

Where’s the impact?

Don’t victimize twice

Dealing with police and fire and rescue workers

Dealing with hospital workers

Remember levels of observation

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 16a: Police report

Exercise 16b: Traffic accident

17. Covering Local Government Meetings

Who cares about local government?

Local government structure

Local government functions

Who are those other people?

Stories from local government

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 17: Covering a meeting

18. News Conferences

How do news conferences serve your audience?

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 18: Chief Honeycutt’s news conference

19. Courts, Trials, Indictments, Lawsuits

A primer on the courts

Civil cases differ from criminal cases

The visual story

The charging process for criminal cases

Writing about court cases

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 19a: Indictment

Exercise 19b: Lawsuit

20. Working from Background and Other Levels of Attribution

When journalists won’t identify sources

Levels of attribution

Negotiating attribution with sources

Keeping sources unidentified in broadcast media

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 20a: The finance committee’s report

Exercise 20b: The city manager’s news conference

Exercise 20c: Levels of attribution

21. Bringing Multiple Elements Together

How did we get here? Where do we go next?

Is the audience keeping up?

Ethics

Strategies

Exercise 21: Wise, Bullard and Prentice

Exercise 22: Finishing the story

City Directory

Product Details

ISBN:
9780205454402
Subtitle:
From Information to Story
Author:
Richardson
Author:
Richardson, Brian
Publisher:
Allyn & Bacon
Subject:
Authorship
Subject:
Journalism
Subject:
Composition & Creative Writing - Newspapers/Magazines
Subject:
Communication
Subject:
Journalism -- Authorship.
Edition Description:
Trade paper
Publication Date:
July 2006
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
College/higher education:
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
317
Dimensions:
10.78x8.42x.49 in. 1.49 lbs.
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