4: Writing Straight News for Digital and Print Media
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- Understand essential news values
- Recognize the importance of news leads and learn to write straight news leads
- Learn to recognize and use essential straight news story structures
Large portions of this chapter are remixed, revised, and amended from Writing for Strategic Communication Industries, https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/stratcommwriting/
The purpose of news
While the structure of news stories and the ways people consume news have evolved rapidly in recent decades, the overall purpose of news remains the same. News informs and entertains readers and listeners. News stories give citizens information about events happening in their communities and around the world. News plays an essential role in shaping public opinion.
We can know something about what is happening in a foreign country without traveling there. We can develop an opinion about a public figure without meeting them. News gives us a general sense of what is happening in the world and what our place and our role in these events might be. This chapter covers types of news, news values, and how to write news stories using essential story structures.
Types of news
News comes in two basic types often called straight news and feature news. If you were to go to an online news site or read through your social media feed, it would be possible to classify all news as straight news or feature news, so it is important to thoroughly understand both terms.
Stories that report only the most essential information in a concise and impartial manner are referred to as “straight” news stories. Another term often used for these types of stories is "hard news," which suggests the serious nature of most topics covered as straight news.
The definition suggests that the type of story and the way it is written go hand-in-hand. Usually, straight news stories are written in a fact-focused, straightforward way. Writing straight news is different from most other forms of writing in that it cuts to the chase and offers little in the way of descriptive language. It is meant to convey the facts in a narrative form that is efficient and clear above all else.
Straight news stories do not lack emotional impact, but the primary purpose of reporting, writing, publishing, and sharing straight news is to inform your audience.
A feature news article often goes into more depth than a hard news article and uses storytelling devices and the inclusion of details that you might expect to find in short stories and novels. Feature stories are often considered “soft news” because they are not written with a serious tone. That said, feature articles are nonfiction and must be completely factual to be considered news.
Feature stories often differ from hard news in terms of topic and tone. Feature news writers typically have the flexibility to use a wider range of story structures. They often provide rich descriptions and include scene-setting anecdotes. Features are usually longer in word count and page count than straight news stories, and features are almost always accompanied by photos, photo illustrations, graphics, maps, and/or other visual elements.
Generally, hard news stories deliver “just the facts” as efficiently as possible, while feature news articles aim to provide readers with an immersive experience that infuses factual, timely stories with emotion and a sense of place and broader purpose.
Some examples of straight news topics include social issues, general politics, economics and business news, crime, government and court proceedings, education, and technology. This is not to say that readers will never see feature stories that delve into these topics, but most straight news is about the latest developments in these core social, economic, and political fields.
Straight news story structures
The format of a news story should follow its intended function. Since straight news articles are meant to cover core facts efficiently, most straight news stories follow the inverted pyramid structure, which organizes information in descending order of importance with the most newsworthy information placed atop the story in a summary news lead.
More details about the inverted pyramid are shared in the third section of this chapter. Chapter 6 covers writing feature news.
Before moving on to those topics it is good for media writing students to understand what is meant by news content versus editorial content.
Differentiating news stories from editorials
When newspaper content is separated from its original format and presented on websites and social media platforms, the difference between news stories and editorials can be confusing.
Newswriters should know that news content and editorials used to appear in different, clearly labeled sections of newspapers, which made it easy for readers to differentiate fact-based news from opinion-based editorials. If you see the term "op-ed," that refers to the Opinion/Editorial section of a news product.
Reputable online news outlets clearly label their editorial content in every context where it might appear.
In editorials, senior editors will express their personal points of view about current events. News editors are usually some of the most knowledgeable people in a community about current events. Editorials deliver an argument or opinion backed up by facts. News editors historically have been influential in swaying readers’ opinions, although that influence has decreased over the past few decades.
News editorials may be written by individual editors, by invited contributors, or they may represent the official view of an editorial board, that is, a group of editors at a newspaper who will deliberate before delivering a shared perspective on current events.
Historically, readers have questioned how news editors could be objective when overseeing news pages but opinionated in editorial pages. News editors have long taken pride in striving to set their personal points of view aside when covering news, but many also relish the chance to influence public opinion directly when they feel they have something to say.
As long as news is presented fairly and honestly and editorials are clearly labeled as opinions, this practice is ethical.
Many media scholars, including some in this article, would say that objectivity in news reporting was more goal than practice historically speaking and that scientific objectivity in news has never truly been attainable.
About "objectivity"
There is much more to newswriting than learning how to "be objective." Striving for impartiality in news was a way to bring multiple perspectives under one banner in regional media operations in the early 1900s where partisan newspapers had previously been the norm.
News organizations in the days leading up the Civil War in the United States, for example, were sometimes openly violent toward one another. Besides being bad for society, open violence between news outlets was bad for business. Setting an objectivity standard suited business interests and 1920s progressive interests who saw the application of science as the answer to society's major ills.
Today, many in the audience are critical of the business interests of corporate-owned newspapers while others are skeptical about how well scientific objectivity can be applied to human behavior, which is influenced by so many factors.
Journalists are not social scientists, and their promise of objectivity may ultimately confuse audiences about both journalism and science.
According to the article cited above, this was never the intention of those who supported making newspapers more impartial or "objective" in the early 20th Century.
Claiming "objectivity" puts newswriters in a predicament where any hint of an opinion or refutation of an official source in news content might lead to claims of bias, even when journalists are stating factually that they are being lied to.
If striving to be objective leads journalists to publish half truths or lies, then they have to ask if claiming objectivity is the best strategy for demonstrating to audiences that what they write is true.
Subsequent sections include approaches for writing news with as much impartiality as possible. Impartiality is probably a much more reasonable goal than pure objectivity when reporting news.
Other options for newswriters interested in demonstrating to audiences how they are being truthful are also discussed in this chapter.
When the reader has finished with Chapters 4-6, they should be able to explain the difference between straight news and feature news, between news and editorial content, and between news reported as impartially as possible versus news that does not pretend to be impartial but that transparently highlights a particular point of view.
Content creators and publishers who are neither transparent about their biases nor striving to be impartial are not practicing professional journalism, according to industry norms or codes of ethics.
Neither are they practicing professional public relations according to industry standards because public relations professionals are up front about whom they represent.