What is News
News is telling about something that is new, something we didn’t know.
New is a reasonable place to start, but some news could be old because readers don’t know about it.
Most of the news stems from the events that are surprising, unexpected, dramatic, and sometimes shocking - the event that has just happened, is happening, or is about to happen.
News is often about what people are doing, planning, feeling, thinking and saying about any number of subjects.
News Reporter gathers all the facts and presents them in a way that demands the reader’s interest and attention. The Reporter must choose a clear and simple sequence for telling the facts.
Content of News (5 Ws + H)
To create a news item, you need to know the answers of; What, Who, Where, When, Why, and How.
Format of News
1. Headline: Simple tenses, idiomatic, flashy vocabulary, no use of function words. A maximum of 8 words, and only the first word is capitalised, except proper noun which are always capitalised.
It’s a good idea to revisit your head line after you have completed the news item, as by now you will know the most important part of your story.
2. Leading Sentence: Present perfect tense often used to give general overview. It should be less than 30 words, usually in one sentence. The lead sentence is important. It should grab reader’s attention and draw them to the rest of the news. If lead is not interesting, your news will not be read.
Lead contains the essence of the news and should try to answer Who, What, When and Where. How and Why can be captured in the content. Although you want to answer the four questions in your lead, you don’t want to be too specific at this point. It’s a summary and it needs to tempt people to read on.
To create a bit of curiosity, sometimes you may not want to clearly identify the subject (or the who) in lead.
3. News Content: Proper tense usage, including a change from present perfect to past tenses to give detailed, specific information about what, where and when something happened.
You include elements such as;
Sources: quotes and supporting evidence,
Background Information: What led to this event,
Contextual Information: What is the context and environment in which this news is placed.
Resources: Is there supporting documentation, like a scientific study, a report or statistics.
Quoting is an important element in news item. A reader may think: How do you know this? The answer is: Because this person who was there says so.
A news story should not contain any opinions from the reporter. All opinions in a news report come from the people interviewed and must be attributed to a person either as a quote or reported speech.
Make sure to get the details about the person’s name, age, where they are from, job title, etc.
Example: Robert Smith, principal of XYZ High School, said, ‘increasing drug use among the students is a cause for alarm’.
In general, a news article makes broader statements at the start, and becomes more specific further in. The last paragraphs are often 'backgrounder' information, to help the reader understand the context of the story, with the least important information covered at the end. This will help the editor to cut the news part at the bottom, should a need arise due to limited space.
A news presented in a random way will confuse the readers.
Photos and videos
Although not necessary, attaching photo/s related to the news item makes the presentation better.
Although any size photo/image can be attached; 640 x 480 pixels or 6" x 4" size is recommended.
For videos; you will need to upload it on Youtube or Vemio first, then submit it on []. Youtube recommends 1280 x 720 pixels or ideal ratio 16:9.
Language
Use small sentences and simple words. Use simple language.
Give facts, not speculation or what you think the facts are. Information reported must be verified.
Be objective.
Do your home work; a lot of it.
Use spell check but remember; spell check can’t pick correctly spelled but inappropriately used words. Read your news loudly – it helps.
Fit more information into sentence without adding more words. Remove any words which aren't completely necessary. For example: ‘Citizens who knew what was going on voted him out of office’, could be shortened to ‘Informed citizens voted him out of office’.
Avoid jargon and acronyms.
When using acronyms, use the full abbreviation in your first use with acronyms in bracket. Later in the news, use just the acronyms. Remember; a familiar acronym in one country could be unknown in another.
Keep sentences as short as possible, and one idea per sentence.
Citing and Referencing:
http://guides.lib.monash.edu/content.php?pid=346637&sid=3118680
Editing and proofreading
Once you have completed your news, make sure to edit and proofread it before submitting.
Ask yourself whether you have covered 5Ws+H (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How).
Inexperienced reporters are often so relieved that they have actually written a story that they forget to check it properly. Make it a firm rule to read your story through several times before submitting for publication.
If you find another mistake on any reading, correct it and then, because your reading was interrupted by the correction, read it again from the beginning. Keep doing this until you can read it through from beginning to end without finding any errors.
Check full stops, commas, quotation marks, question marks, etc.
Only then should you submit
Dos and Don’ts
Follow the Rules and Laws of the country and State, which applies to Reporters gathering and reporting the news.
News story should be balanced.
Don't copy from where you first saw the news. The only items you can copy from a source are quotes.
Try to write two or three sentence paragraphs in preference to single sentence paragraphs; keep the sentences short for clarity
Your story must be fully sourced — every statement in the article must be backed up by a source published elsewhere. The only exceptions are the obvious. It must also comply with the neutral point of view — that is, the article must represent all sides of a story fairly and in an unbiased way. Note that you are responsible for the accuracy of your news article.
News articles should not infringe on the copyright of any other work
It is best to gather information from multiple sources and put them all together in your own words.
Some news events are easily comprehensible only to those who are familiar with its background and context. FIMnews has a global audience. To ensure that anyone, anywhere can understand the report, include such background and context as is necessary.
Your News Source
There are at least two possible sources of your news item;
- Original News: This is a type of news that you create. So if you hear about something that sounds like a news, you can pick your camera and go to the place, talk to the people around, who may have the information need for your news, take some photos that relates to the news (for example; a collapsed bridge, or a protest march), come back home and type the news.
Another way of reporting original news is to know how the camera of your mobile phone works, and keep it handy while you are going about your chores such as work, shopping, travelling, etc. News worthy things happen when you are going about your daily life. For example, while walking to your work you noticed a pedestrian bridge that has collapsed and rescue workers are in action. You spend a bit of time there and make some videos from a safe position, and/or take a few photos of the bridge, injured people and rescue workers. If you have time, ask the bystanders what happened, how many people are injured, etc. If allowed, talk to the rescue workers to obtain the answers of five Ws and H (What, When, Where, Who, Why and How). And that’s it. You got adequate raw material for your Original News. Now you just need to go to your computer, open [] site, and type your news report, attach some photos, and/or, load the video you just made.
Anyone and everyone, who has a camera, or a camera equipped mobile phone, and an internet connection, could be an Original News Reporter.
- Secondary News (Rewriting a news): If you watched an important news on TV or read it in a newspaper, you can rewrite the news in your own words. Before you start, refer a few newspapers for the same news item. Almost all the major newspapers report same news if it’s really important (for example: American presidential election results).
Make sure to use quotation marks for any part that you are copying word-by-word, and mention the reference. Try not to use more than two quotes in a sentence. Each series of quotes must be introduced by an explanation for the quotes to come.
See Rewriting a News Content page.
There are plenty of resources available on the internet and Youtube to help you become a better news reporter or writer. We encourage you to refer those materials to hone your reporting/writing skills.
