Week 8 Writing (29/3): Leads & headlines

“Headline News – The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition – Jun 2018” by Gareth1953 All Right Now is licensed under CC BY 2.0

BY RUTH BERAN

Headlines

Headlines are a way of grabbing the reader’s attention. In fact, a study has shown that almost 60 per cent of people will share a link having only read the headline.

Week 4 (Newsroom 1/3): Finding ideas

Photo caption

BY RUTH BERAN and VERITY CHAMBERS

A quick review from this morning: structuring hard news stories:

Good writers structure their stories clearly and logically, enticing the reader in and encouraging them to keep reading. They:

• Focus on the strongest angle
• Write a lead that attracts the reader
• Set out the facts faithfully and lucidly
• Structure the story to encourage reading
• Use the most compelling quotes early

Week 4 (Writing 1/3): Structure

Photo: Scott Webb /CC/ Pexels

BY RUTH BERAN

First a news quiz: https://www.thesquiz.com.au/quiz/the-squiz-quiz-26-february-2021/

Week 3 (24/2): Basic news story construction

Cluttered and negative thoughts can cripple writers. Photo: Drew Coffman/flickr/CC

BY MARK GATELY

Today we will be looking at the basic rules and techniques for building a news story.

But first I’d like to take a quick detour and consider the mental approach to writing with particular reference to the sort of technical lesson we are about to do.

Week 13 (9/11): Diving in – Starting to write your story

The lead.

‘It’s no good standing there at the beginning of an article flexing your muscles. Just do the old handspring right away.’

                      – ‘Cassandra’, Daily Mirror